A Trump Legal Breakdown For The Criminally & Politically Weary
Just two weeks ago, as he sat in a “cold” Manhattan courtroom, Trump maintained a 6% lead over Biden, according to recent polling. This week’s polls show the two neck-in-neck. If he doesn’t win in November, he will be tried twice by the DOJ and again by the state of GA.
Donald Trump’s third White House bid has been nothing if not riddled with lawyers, courtrooms, and legal proceedings. The complexity of the New York hush money trial alone is enough to make heads spin. That’s why I’ve decided to give you the quick-and-dirty on each criminal probe along with what to look out for.
As Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito referenced in Thursday’s immunity hearing; it’s often joked that a grand jury would “indict a ham sandwich” if instructed by a prosecutor. Bearing the brunt of that truth, Trump was criminally indicted by four separate grand juries between March 30th and August 14th of last year: First, in Manhattan for hush money, then in Florida for Mar-a-Lago documents, followed by DC for federal election interference, and finally in Georgia for election antics there. He was also sued in New York; twice by E. Jean Carroll and once by the NY State Attorney General, Letitia James. Judges ruled against Trump in both civil suits, handing down a combined $438 million in penalties. In the James case, he, Don Jr., and Eric Trump were barred from conducting business in New York for three years. Trump has filed appeals in both cases.
After pleading not guilty to all 91 counts across the four criminal indictments, his legal team and some codefendants have filed pretrial motions and appeals in each case, delaying all but the hush money trial so far. At this juncture, it’s a race against the clock for Trump to become president and pardon himself before he is tried in federal court and faces very possible jail time (over 700 years across the four cases).
“With SCOTUS decision to take Trump’s appeal on “absolute immunity,” it now appears that American voters will have to act as the jury, if the former president is EVER to be held accountable for his actions on and leading up to 1/6/21.”
— David Axelrod, Twitter Post
Hush Money - Where’s The Other Crime?
Late last month, prosecutor Matthew Colangelo and Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, presented opening statements in The People of NY against Donald J. Trump, where Trump is charged with the time-limited misdemeanor crime of falsifying business records.
In order to circumvent the 2-year statute of limitations, falsifying business records can be tried as a felony if records are falsified with the intent to conceal or commit an additional crime, according to New York Penal Law § 175.10. In the spirit of gag orders and hush money, NY District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Colangelo, & team have been tight-lipped regarding exactly what crime was concealed.
Bragg and Colangelo say the falsification occurred when Trump categorized invoices, ledger entries, and checks to and from his Lawyer, Michael Cohen, as “legal services.” The defense and prosecution disagree on the purpose of these payments. Bragg’s team contends they were reimbursements to Cohen, who paid $130,000 to buy Stephanie Clifford’s (aka Stormy Daniels) story about a sexual encounter with Trump. Because the payment to Clifford took place shortly before the 2016 election, the prosecution suggests the ‘concealed crime’ is somewhere in the neighborhood of election interference and campaign finance violations. No one is crystal-clear on the exact crime.
“At the End of this case, we are confident that you will have no reasonable doubt that Donald Trump is guilty of falsifying business records with the intent to conceal an illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of a presidential election”
— Colangelo, Opening Statement
In a similar 2011 case, presidential hopeful John Edwards was charged with campaign finance violations when his donors paid to conceal Edwards’ affair with his videographer. According to federal campaign finance law, payments only qualify as campaign contributions or expenditures if the sole purpose of the payment is to advance one’s political interests. Therefore, Trump can argue, as Edwards did successfully in 2011, that the payments were made to protect his wife, reputation, etc.
“I have a spoiler alert — There is nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy.”
— Todd Blanche, Opening Statement
During the first week of testimony, we heard from National Enquirer owner, David Pecker, who detailed his arrangement with Trump and Cohen to “catch and kill” negative stories through his magazine. He helped coordinate deals with Clifford (Stormy); Playboy model, Karen McDougal; and a former Trump Tower doorman, who each had a story to tell. Pecker testified to his belief the payments were primarily motivated by the election instead of protecting personal interests (i.e. Melania, business, reputation).
Then last week, Hope Hicks was called to testify by the prosecution. As former WH Communications Director and Press Secretary during Trump’s 2016 campaign, she confirmed Trump’s knowledge of the payments from Cohen to Clifford, but suggested Trump’s concern was anchored in shielding Melania and family from salacious stories. Today, Clifford takes the stand to detail those stories. In the weeks to come, we can expect to hear from Michael Cohen, who went to prison in 2019 for the above-described payments and several unrelated charges.
See more in the last section for Trump’s take on the case.
The Federal Election Interference Case — President vs. Candidate
Delay, delay, delay. That’s the name of the Trump legal game, and so far, it’s working. While 45 himself was held up in Manhattan attending the hush money trial, another one of his attorneys, D. John Sauer, presented an oral argument in front of the US Supreme Court in DC for Trump’s presidential immunity to the following charges:
2 felony counts of obstructing an official proceeding under 18 U.S.C. § 1512
1 felony count of conspiracy to defraud the United States under 18 U.S.C. § 371
1 felony count of conspiracy against rights under 18 U.S.C. § 241
The charges, brought by DOJ-appointed Prosecutor, Jack Smith, stem from Trump’s conduct in the two months after the 2021 election leading up to Jan 6th. Trump filed a motion to appeal Smith’s original indictment, citing absolute presidential immunity, which was struck down in federal appeals court. Trump then appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, and SCOTUS decided to take him up on it.
An interesting call to action for Jack Smith...
During the SCOTUS hearing, Sauer made a somewhat unexpected concession. Instead of arguing blanket immunity for all of Trump’s acts while in office, he suggested immunity only for acts made in an ‘official’ presidential capacity. He acknowledged that some acts within Smith’s indictment fall outside the presidential scope of duty, leaving Trump’s ‘private’ or ‘candidate’ conduct open to prosecution. One example of a potentially ‘private’ act, read out loud by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, is Trump’s alleged work with private lawyers and political consultants (Rudy Giuliani and others) to gather fraudulent electors in Georgia.
Sauer’s back-peddle could now lead SCOTUS to send the case back to federal district court to analyze which indictment acts fall under ‘official duty conduct’ and which were done outside of that scope, delaying trial even further. Alternatively, SCOTUS could agree with the lower court’s ruling (no immunity protections, green-light trial). However, discussion among the justices suggested earnest concern for the protection of future and former presidents from unwarranted prosecution (providing some level of immunity for ‘official’ duty acts).
Timeline predictions go as far out as July for SCOTUS to rule for, against, deliberate further, or send back to federal district court. Towards the end of the hearing, Justice Barrett mentioned the option for the prosecution to “proceed based solely on the private conduct and drop [the allegations] that fall within official conduct,” potentially avoiding this appellate process altogether in the interest of time. An interesting call to action for Jack Smith...
The Georgia Election Interference Case — Funny Willis
In August of 2023, Trump and 18 others were indicted by a Fulton County grand jury for violation of GA’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act and additional charges around efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
Thanks to Ashleigh Merchant, the lawyer for one of Trump’s codefendants & former campaign officials, the case has descended into a black hole of motions, hearings, and appeals, kicking the trial’s start date down the road indefinitely. On Jan 8th, Merchant and her client, Mike Roman, filed a motion exposing an affair between Fulton County District Attorney, Fani Willis, and her special prosecutor on the case, Nathan Wade. Merchant and Roman motioned to dismiss the entire indictment as well as disqualify Willis, Wade, and the entire DA’s office, asserting that Willis created a conflict of interest by “profiting significantly from the prosecution at the expense of the taxpayers.”
Willis and Wade confirmed their relationship in a follow-up court filing on Feb 2nd. Misconduct hearings began on Feb 15th. Phone records, text messages, travel records, invoices, and witness testimony suggested that Willis brought Wade in on the case, paid him over $650,000 throughout the investigation, and benefited financially when she accompanied him on 5 vacations from October 2022 - May 2023, all paid for by Wade. On the stand, Willis maintained she split the cost of travel with Wade in cash.
On March 15th, Judge Scott McAfee ruled, allowing Willis and her office to continue prosecuting the case as long as Wade stepped down. He did so a few hours later. Since then, team Trump has appealed McAfee’s ruling, leaving the appellate court with 45 days to decide whether or not to take up his appeal. Their decision is yet to come, leaving the trial date up in the air.
Meanwhile, Willis insists she is full-steam-ahead on the case with her team, saying, “There are efforts to slow down this train, but the train is coming.”
The Classified Documents Case — Judge Slower than Molasses
Jack Smith, the same DOJ special counsel overseeing the federal election case, is also leading the federal prosecution against Trump for allegedly stealing hundreds of classified documents from the White House. Trump reportedly stashed documents in boxes around Mar-a-Lago and then refused to return them when requested repeatedly by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Prosecutors also say Trump shared a highly confidential “plan of attack” with several individuals at Trump’s Bedminster Golf Club. After a months-long back-and-forth between team Trump, NARA, DOJ, and FBI, Mar-a-Lago was raided on August 8th, 2022 and 102 documents were seized.
Smith’s indictment of Trump includes the following charges:
32 felony counts of willful retention of national defense information in violation of the Espionage Act
6 felony counts of obstruction-related crimes under 18 U.S.C. § 1512 and 18 U.S.C. § 1519
2 felony counts of false statements under 18 U.S.C. § 1001
True to theme, the DOJ’s second federal case against Trump is trudging through the mud. Trump-appointed Judge, Aileen Cannon, has been widely criticized for her glacial pace in processing pretrial evidence and motions.
Smith issued a seething court filing earlier this month protesting Cannon’s handling of the case, calling out her unusually early jury instruction request, and urging Cannon to “promptly” reassess her interpretation of relevant law. Cannon filed the jury request in response to Trump’s motion to dismiss his charges based on the Presidential Records Act (PRA). Legal analysts say that while she should have dismissed the notion altogether, she seemed to embrace the idea as a potential defense and tried passing the decision along to the jury.
Judge Cannon wound up denying Trump’s motion to use the PRA, siding with the prosecution. She has since been engaged in an ongoing debate between Smith and Trump over when the trial should begin. Smith is still gunning for July, while Trump’s team is recommending an August start date.
Where Stuff Starts to Stink . . .
Trump sees the onslaught of legal action against him as a clear, coordinated attack from the White House and Democratic allies to keep him out of the 2024 race, calling the out cases themselves as election interference and political persecution.
Referencing the New York hush money trial, Trump notes that the DOJ declined to pursue a case against him when these allegations initially came to light in 2018, as did the former NY District Attorney, Cyrus Vance. Bragg is now attempting to get around the 2-year statute of limitations for falsifying business records by proving intent to commit federal campaign finance violations/interference with an election, taking the 34 record-keeping counts to felony status.
Trump has also raised red-flags around Bragg’s senior counsel, Mathew Colangelo and the presiding judge, Juan Merchan, citing their ties to the Biden White House. Colangelo was “deployed by Biden’s DOJ” to “resurrect this zombie case,” according to legal expert Mike Davis on Megyn Kelly’s podcast Tuesday, April 23rd.
At the end of March, Judge Merchan imposed a gag order, barring Trump from making public statements about witnesses, jurors, or any of their family members. The order was extended to include Merchan’s family after the Trump campaign pointed out that Merchan’s daughter is the president of Authentic Campaigns, a democrat-serving marketing agency that has reportedly been helping candidates like Adam Schiff and the Senate majority PAC raise money using messaging around Trump’s criminal indictments.
Meanwhile, Trump’s judicial ally in Florida, Aileen Cannon, just unsealed a set of Mar-a-Lago investigation documents last week revealing communication and apparent meetings between the White House and NARA prior to the official DOJ investigation opening, all the way back in 2021. See America First Legal’s take on the documents here.
It’s no secret that people want to see Trump taken down, somehow, some way. Late last year, a CO Supreme Court declared Trump ineligible for the Presidency under section 3 of the 14th amendment (insurrection clause), and actually removed him from the CO primary Ballot. However, The ruling was appealed to SCOTUS, who unanimously reversed it in early March, ensuring Trump’s name will be on ballots nation-wide.
RELATED:
Eric Trump on Judge Merchan’s daughter
Donald trump on Gag order
 | A guest post by
|
I am absolutely fed up with the relentless attacks on President Trump and RFK Jr. It breaks my heart to think about how isolated they must feel when the world is watching. I couldn't handle having my personal conversations, business decisions, and family life scrutinized constantly. Why aren't there lawsuits against others who have committed similar actions? It's clear to me that the left is playing dirty to prevent any fair competition between candidates. The road to recovery for Trump seems insurmountable. I know he must be exhausted. Thank you so much Jessica. This was so fair and showed compassion. It’s refreshing to see that since it’s lacking in a lot of people these days.
The crime is what they are unlawfully doing to PresidentTrump.