In the New York case against former President Donald Trump, prosecutors relied on several interacting statutes to turn a hush payment into 34 state felonies, making their legal theory tangled. On Wednesday, Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over Trump’s trial, added to the confusion by instructing jurors on what conclusions they must draw to find Trump guilty.
Shortly before the 2016 election, Michael Cohen, a lawyer working for Trump at the time, paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to stop her from talking about her 2006 encounter with Trump. Allegations of sexual relations. Prosecutors allege that when Trump reimbursed Cohen in 2017, he falsified 34 business records, including 11 invoices, 11 checks and 12 ledger entries, in an effort to disguise the reimbursements as fees for legal services. .
Generally, falsifying business records requires “intent to defraud,” which is a misdemeanor. But it becomes a felony when the defendant’s “intent to defraud” includes “the intent to commit another crime or to assist or conceal a crime.” The prosecution’s “another crime” theory relies on New York Election Code Section 17-152 – a statute so obscure that experts say they have never seen another criminal case based on it. The provision makes it a misdemeanor for “two or more persons” to “conspire by unlawful means to promote or prevent the election of any person to public office.”
The silent investigation listed three possible “illegal means” cited by prosecutors. One of them is controversial, while the other two have little or no meaning in the context of Article 17-152. Mochan said that as long as the jury agrees that Trump attempted to aid or conceal a violation of Section 17-152, they do not need to agree on any specific “unlawful means” theory.
Prosecutors said Cohen violated the Federal Campaign Act (FECA) by making excessive campaign contributions through hush money payments. Cohen pleaded guilty to the crime in 2018 as part of a deal that also resolved several other unrelated federal charges against him. CNN noted that while jurors heard the admission during the trial, a silent examination instructs them that they should only “evaluate Cohen’s credibility and provide context for subsequent events, not establish the defendant’s guilt.” ”.
It’s unclear whether Trump’s solicitation of Cohen’s “contribution” violated FECA, a question that hinges on the vague distinction between personal and campaign spending. Given this uncertainty, Trump does not appear to believe Daniels’ payments were illegal, which helps explain why he was never prosecuted under FECA: To obtain a conviction, federal prosecutors had to prove that he “knowingly and knowingly” ” “Violation of regulations.
New York prosecutors said Cohn and Trump conspired to promote his election through “illegal means.” Under New York law, criminal conspiracy requires “specific mens rea.” Trump’s understanding of FECA helps assess whether he had such intentions, meaning he acknowledged that the confidentiality agreement with Daniels was an “illegal means.” Therefore, Trump’s understanding of FECA is also relevant to the assessment of whether he falsified business records to cover up “another crime.”
The theory assumes three things: 1) Trump admitted that Daniels’ payment violated FECA; 2) he was aware of Section 17-152, a moribund and rarely invoked law; 3) he expected New York prosecutors to How will the official interpret Section 17-152 under FECA. The first hypothesis is doubtful, the second unlikely, and the third highly implausible. However, you have to believe these three things to conclude that Trump approved a scheme to misrepresent his reimbursements to Cohen as fees for legal services in order to cover up violations of Section 17-152 related to FECA.
The other two theories mentioned by Moqian seem even less promising.
According to one theory, Trump facilitated violations of New York tax law by allowing Cohn to misrepresent the amount of his reimbursements as income. Although the breach was described as “criminal tax fraud,” Merchian said Cohen’s alleged false statements resulted in higher tax bill. The judge noted that it is unlawful to submit “materially false or fraudulent information in connection with any return, regardless of whether the information is beneficial to the taxpayer.”
Counterintuitive definitions of tax fraud aside, this theory requires believing that Trump, when reimbursing Cohen, not only considered what would happen when Cohen filed his tax return the following year, but also that “unlawful means” would be used in some way. Ways to influence elections have already occurred. The logic here is difficult to understand.
The same is true for the third theory “illegal means”. Prosecutors said Trump falsified business records in order to aid or cover up the falsification of business records. other Business records. CNN reports that the latter records may involve a corporate bank account that Cohen created to pay Daniels, Cohen’s transfer of money to Daniels’ attorney, or a 1099-MISC form from the Trump Organization for payments to Cohen.
Since Form 1099 was issued back In an election, it’s hard to see how they could secure Trump’s victory. While other records predate the election, this theory involves a strange lead.
For example, prosecutors said records related to Cohen’s fictitious company were falsified because they misrepresented the nature and purpose of the entity, which is itself a misdemeanor. The misdemeanor is another misdemeanor for Trump’s alleged “illegal means” of trying to promote his election. And because Trump allegedly tried to cover up misdemeanors by falsifying records related to Cohen’s reimbursements, those records were 34 felonies, not 34 misdemeanors.
“One of these three crimes was so cyclical that it sent the jury into disarray,” commented Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University. “Prosecutors claimed violations of New York State Election Law 17- 152, thereby resurrecting a dead misdemeanor. Their argument was that the crime was committed in furtherance of another as an unlawful means of influencing the election. However, other crimes could therefore be dismissed by a jury (or at least Some jurors) may find that certain documents were forged as an illegal means of forging other documents.
The rationale for his conviction could easily become confusing because Merchant said the jury did not have to agree on which of these theories had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. “The judge ruled that the jury did not have to agree on what actually happened in the case,” Turley said. “Moqian ruled that the government vaguely mentioned three crimes that could constitute “unlawful means” to influence an election: federal election violations, falsification of business records and tax violations. Jurors were told they could rule on Disagreement: What happened was that the four jurors decided 4-4-4 on three possible crimes, and as long as they agreed it would have promoted a crime, the court would still consider it a unanimous verdict.
Mo Qian’s instructions did include a warning that might help Trump. “He said just knowing about the conspiracy doesn’t mean [the] Fox News reporter Lydia Hu pointed out that “the defendant is an accomplice.” Furthermore, the presence of others when they form a conspiracy does not mean that the defendant is part of the conspiracy.
On the surface, Cohen’s testimony about Trump’s involvement in the alleged conspiracy appears to be critical to determining his intentions. Cohen said Trump directed him to pay Daniels. He also said that Trump Organization Allen Weisselberg described a plan to reimburse Cohn at a meeting in January 2021, and Trump did not object. Cohen was the only witness to testify directly on those points, and Trump’s lawyers argued that he was untrustworthy, noting that he was a convicted felon who was disbarred and an admitted liar to his former boss. Holding a strong grudge.
“The jury cannot convict Trump based solely on Michael Cohen’s testimony because he was an accomplice, but they can use it if they corroborate it with other evidence,” CNN noted. “Even if you find Michael Cohen’s testimony credible, you cannot convict a defendant based solely on that testimony unless you also find other evidence that corroborates that testimony,” Merchant said. The other evidence is circumstantial. It included testimony that Trump feared the impact Daniels’ story would have on the election, that he conferred regularly with Cohen and that he was a proud bean counter who would never have paid Cohen without knowing exactly what he was doing. .
The evidence supports the inference that Trump knew he was reimbursing Cohen for Daniels’ payments (which he has publicly acknowledged). It also supports Trump’s contention that the payment was campaign expenditure and therefore an illegal donation. But it did not prove the second claim beyond a reasonable doubt, which helps explain why prosecutors offered jurors two other possible “unlawful means” theories. If they are squeamish about the FECA theory, they can rely instead on the tax theory, despite its temporary difficulties, or they can accept the idea that Trump fabricated business records to cover up the fabrication of business records, despite the troubling proposition.
Since jurors don’t have to agree on the nature of Trump’s “illegal tactics,” Murchin’s instructions invite them to convict him based on a hodgepodge of three dubious theories. But if each of these theories is wrong, mixing them together will not make up for their weaknesses.
