In four days of testimony in Donald Trump’s trial, his estranged lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen provided key evidence linking the former and possible future president to New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s alleged crimes. Cohen said his “boss” directed him to pay porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 shortly before the 2016 presidential election to stop her from talking about her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump. Trump also approved a plan in 2017 to compensate Cohen through a series of payments disguised as compensation for legal services, Cohen said. Cohen was the only witness to directly support the latter claim, which forms the centerpiece of the case over allegations that Trump falsified business records.
One question facing the jury is whether to believe Cohen, a convicted felon who admits to being a liar, harbors a deep resentment against Trump and has advocated for his financial gain through books and podcasts. . Another question is what intent is needed to convict Trump not only of falsifying business records, but also of doing so to cover up “another crime,” elevating what should have been 34 misdemeanors to 34 felonies. Things get confusing because of the interplay of statutes that prosecutors rely on.
As a misdemeanor, falsifying business records requires only “fraudulent intent.” If the jury finds that prosecutors have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump knew that checks to Cohen were mistakenly identified as payments for legal services, he will be found guilty of falsifying business records.
Trump personally signed nine of the 11 checks, with the stubs describing them as “reserved” payments. Although Trump appointed Cohen his personal attorney after the election, Cohen testified that he never expected to be paid for the position, which he said he was happy to have largely because he thought it would promote Business contacts. Cohen said he never entered into a retention agreement with Trump.
His attorney said that although Trump had to sign the checks because they were drawn from his personal account, he did not know exactly how his bookkeeper described the payments. According to the defense team, Cohen issued invoices that the Trump Organization should have paid, and Trump was too busy fulfilling his presidential duties to bother with the records.
In an effort to counter that claim, prosecutors offered testimony that Trump was a proud miser who would never have agreed to pay Cohen without knowing exactly what Cohen was receiving in return. The total payment is $420,000. That includes reimbursements for hush money, which he doubled to account for taxes, plus bonuses and an unrelated expense, according to handwritten notes from Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Alan Weisselberg. . Prosecutors said it was implausible that Trump actually believed he was paying Cohen for private legal services in 2017, and Cohen testified that Trump signed Weisselberg’s letter during a meeting at Trump Tower. plan.
However, in order to prove that Trump committed 34 felonies, prosecutors must prove that his “intent to defraud” included “the intent to commit another crime or to assist or conceal a criminal act.” Chief Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said another crime violated an obscure New York state law: New York Election Code Section 17-152, which provides that “two or more It is a misdemeanor for a person to “conspire to promote or prevent an election.” To elect anyone to public office by illegal means. “
Prosecutors said the “illegal means” was Cohen’s payment to Daniels: by advancing the money, he made excessive campaign contributions, thereby violating federal campaign laws. Cohen accepted that characterization in a 2018 federal plea agreement that hinged on a blurry distinction between personal and campaign spending that also resolved several other unrelated charges against him. But Trump has never been prosecuted for soliciting “contributions,” possibly because it’s difficult to prove that he “knowingly and willfully” violated federal campaign finance regulations. If Trump believed the nondisclosure agreement with Daniels was entirely legal, as his lawyers insist, he did not possess the intent required for a federal conviction.
Does this matter under Section 17-152? Because the rule has never been enforced before, the answer is unclear. On its face, the statute only requires conspiracy to promote an election “through illegal means.” It does not say that the conspirators must admit that the means were unlawful. But generally under New York law, proving criminal conspiracy requires proving “specific intent to commit a crime.” If Trump does not believe that Cohen’s payment to Daniels was “illegal,” and he likely does not, then he did not have such “specific intent.”
Trump’s uncertainty about his understanding of federal campaign finance regulations also plays directly into felony charges under statutes that prohibit falsifying business records. If Trump believed that paying Daniels through Cohen was not illegal, it is difficult to see how he could falsify business records to cover up “another crime.”
Prosecutors presented testimony from Cohen and other witnesses who said Trump’s main motivation in suppressing Daniels was to eliminate threats to his election, which raised questions about whether the payment qualified as campaign expenditures. Cohen asserts that Daniels’ story follows enter hollywood A video of Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women would be “disastrous” for his campaign.
In retrospect, this seems questionable. Even though Trump won the election enter hollywood Despite his well-known history of adultery, the alleged encounter with Daniels would only add another chapter. Now, he appears poised to defeat Biden again, even though Daniels’ story is well known and despite a jury finding him civilly liable for sexually assaulting and defaming E. Jean Carroll. But in making the case that Trump should admit the hush money was an illegal campaign contribution, what matters is whether he was worried about the potential impact of Daniels’ account on the election, rather than the embarrassment or damage it would cause. business impact.
Cohen testified that Trump didn’t seem concerned when Cohen asked Trump how his wife would respond to Daniels’ story. “Don’t worry, he’s gone,” Cohen said. “He said, ‘How long do you think I’m going to be on the market? Not too long.'” In other words, Cohen said, “He’s not thinking about Melania. It’s all about the campaign.” In fact, Cohen Trump initially wanted to never pay Daniels, the testimony said. Cohen said if he could drag her out until after the election, “it wouldn’t matter” to Trump.
If so, you might be wondering, why is Trump so keen to keep this story secret even after the election? Prosecutors said he sought to conceal the fact that he and Cohen violated Section 17-152 of the Federal Campaign Act. The theory hinges on several questionable premises.
as New York Times Columnist David French pointed out that “the state election law cited by prosecutors is likely to be superseded by federal law and therefore does not apply to this case.” Even if state law does apply, the prosecution’s theory assumes that Trump not only admitted that Cohen The payment to Daniels was an illegal campaign contribution, and it is also assumed that he knew it violated Section 17-152 — a provision so vague that New York election law experts said they had never seen it based on it Criminal case.
It seems unlikely that Trump understands the law, let alone how he expects New York prosecutors to interpret it. If he did not know that he might be charged with violating Section 17-152, how could he possibly falsify business records to conceal the alleged criminal conduct?
Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over Trump’s trial, is likely to clarify those issues when issuing instructions to jurors ahead of their deliberations, which are expected to begin next week. But the case presents the intricacies of interplaying laws and mens rea Confusingly, if Trump is convicted, he will have ample grounds for appeal.
Those questions help explain why Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., decided after long deliberations that state charges based on Daniels’ payments were too uncertain to pursue. Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor in Vance’s office who was involved in the Trump investigation, concluded that “such a case would be too risky under New York law.” Pomerantz published it in 2023 “No appellate court in New York has upheld (or rejected) this interpretation of the law,” the book states.
Pomerantz, who was so enthusiastic about pursuing a criminal case against Trump that he agreed to participate in the investigation for free, was by no means the only Trump critic to be skeptical of the Bragg case. “Many legal analysts, including those who are not friends of Trump, have expressed serious reservations about the case,” French noted, “in large part because of the difficulty of linking the falsified records to a separate crime.
While French condemned Trump’s “morally objectionable” behavior, he stressed that “immoral behavior alone does not make him a criminal.” He also worries about the consequences of appealing a conviction that is overturned. “Imagine a scenario where Trump is convicted at trial, Biden denounces him as a felon, and the Biden campaign runs ads mocking him as a criminal,” he wrote. “If Biden wins by a slim margin , but then the Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction, the case is likely to undermine confidence in our democracy and the rule of law.”
Of course, the issue goes beyond public perception. If Bragg was in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to prevent Trump from returning to the White House — and it appears to be the case — then he was abusing his power and bending the law. The case appears to reflect Trump’s opponents’ concerns about wrongdoing if he wins the election.
