MAGA Lawyer Gets Dismantled by His Own Damning Trump Emails
MAGA Lawyer Gets Dismantled by His Own Damning Trump Emails
Prosecutors went through Bob Costello’s emails one by one, undercutting his credibility with each painstaking moment—a fate the defense had hoped for Michael Cohen.
You're viewing a single thread.
Though the defense got a nugget of being able to convincingly call Cohen a thief, they really gave the prosecution the last laugh with their own witness. If the trial was closing right after the prosecution witnesses' cross examination then I would think some on the jury may be impressioned with the idea that Trump could be innocent.
Maybe Lumpy Pillow Lindell would have been an even "better" choice to testify if he was relevant at all to the case.
From my understanding there’s two critical gaps.
One is showing that Trump knew he was violating campaign finances, and that he intending to defraud (somebody.)
The other was a thing that was not addressed very well by the prosecution was who was being defrauded. If the purpose of the crime was to defraud voters… he was very late on that score.
(It was in fact government officials and others who read business financial statements being defrauded.)
For the first, I’m not sure you can prove beyond reasonable doubt Trump knows his son’s name, never mind he knows and understands esoteric campaign laws.
For the second, it might be an oversight.
Ignorance of a law shouldn’t matter though.
Sometimes it should be and that’s why such knowledge being a necessary element is limited to specific laws.
it shouldn't matter for conviction but maybe for sentencing
It should, in some cases, absolutely matter for conviction.
In this case intent does matter. It’s a fraud trial. And it’s elevated to a felony because he had to be intending to cover up another crime.
Let’s say someone genuinely thought an apple was a pear. That’s not fraud because there was no intent to deceive, it was just an honest mistake.
To take the analogy a step further, and make it more accurate, maybe the my knew the apple wasn’t a pear, and maybe the prosecution is alleging the cashier ate the original pear, and they’re selling the apple as a pear to hide that.
To elevate it to a felony, they’d have to show that there was the intent to conceal a crime. Which means they had to know that eating the pear was itself a crime.
Make sense?
Yes, but I was referring more generally to the part where you said he probably doesn’t understand esoteric campaign finance laws. Running afoul of a law you don’t know/understand doesn’t mean you still didn’t break the law, whether you knowingly intended to or not.
He’s not being tried for the campaign finance law, this is separate and about him falsifying business records- it’s a felony because his intent was to cover up the campaign thing.
So they could conceivably argue that Trump didn’t know the campaign thing was a problem and there couldn’t have possibly meant to conceal it. At this point taking the misdemeanor would be a win.
Criminal intent is not a required element for the charges here.
I’m so glad you came in here to explain how I’m wrong.
Oh. Might want to take a gander at the actual statutes. They make it very clear intent is actually a necessary part.
A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the second degree when, with intent to defraud, he:
-
Makes or causes a false entry in the business records of an enterprise; or
-
Alters, erases, obliterates, deletes, removes or destroys a true entry in the business records of an enterprise; or
-
Omits to make a true entry in the business records of an enterprise in violation of a duty to do so which he knows to be imposed upon him by law or by the nature of his position; or
-
Prevents the making of a true entry or causes the omission thereof in the business records of an enterprise.
Falsifying business records in the second degree is a class A misdemeanor.
And First degree
A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree when he commits the crime of falsifying business records in the second degree, and when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.
Falsifying business records in the first degree is a class E felony.
To be clear, im not saying he didn’t do it, im saying the prosecution didn’t cover one aspect during the trial (that trump knew he was covering up a crime.)
"Intent to defraud" doesn't mean you have to know it's illegal.
The first degree requires an intent to conceal the prior crime - they have to show trumps intention was to conceal the campaign finance stuff; otherwise it’s just a misdemeanor.
If Trump didn’t know the campaign finance stuff was a crime, then why would he conceal it?
Trumps lawyers are arguing, it was to spare his wife. (Something else all see as bullshit,)
an intent to commit another crime
So, mens rea gets slightly misunderstood a lot, especially with more white-collar stuff. Generally, you don't have to know that you were violating the law, just that were doing the action that happens to be against the law, at least for the basic fraud laws in question here.
The election interference part is murkier, and really all you have to do to avoid charges under the traditional federal interpretation of the federal statute is to claim ignorance; it's one of the weird exceptions and has basically rendered federal criminal prosecutions for campaign finance violations as a charming hypothetical, except when committed by campaign managers with law degrees. There is a revised standard that says you don't have to know the law inside and out, just that generally this sort of thing is not allowed, but that is untested.
There is NY election law that could be held to a lower, more traditional standard, and while itself a misdemeanor, it could be enough to trigger the felony standard. Overall, it is probably the weakest part of the prosecution's case, but the prosecution would say that falsifying the records to make sure that Trump got elected is enough.
The issue here is that NY statute requires an intention to defraud, and for the first degree felony, an intention to conceal a crime (either one you’re about to do, will do, or have done,).
intentionally concealing a prior crime kind of requires an awareness that thing being concealed was a prior crime.
An argument that trump was unaware the prior thing was a crime could knock it down to a misdemeanor. (Or get a hung jury.)
-
There's no such thing as an honest mistake with Trump (well honest anything for that matter).
Nonetheless, you can be found guilty of murder if you hire a hitman to kill someone, even if you didn't know the wording of the statute of how murder is made illegal, and you weren't involved with how the murder proceeded.
So the idea for the prosecution is to prove that Trump asked Cohen to do the dirty work to broker the hush payment, then find some way to cover it up to improve his chances for election.
That's the main link that needs to be shown, and Rob Costello's response that he was involved to help the Trump campaign was a free layup for the prosecution when they might have been on the backfoot at the end of Cohen's cross-examination.
At closing arguments next Tuesday you will get a synopsis of how the prosecution argues Trump is tied into all this.
We’re not discussing murder.
We’re discussing business fraud. Which (linked to another reply) absolutely requires intent to defraud. - and for the first degree version, an intent to conceal a prior crime.
It’s literally in the text of the law.
You may want to read the indictment and statement of facts to show what the prosecution is trying to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. A portion of the statement of facts in the indictment is below:
- The defendant DONALD J. TRUMP repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election.
- From August 2015 to December 2017, the Defendant orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the Defendant’s electoral prospects. In order to execute the unlawful scheme, the participants violated election laws and made and caused false entries in the business records of various entities in New York. The participants also took steps that mischaracterized, for tax purposes, the true nature of the payments made in furtherance of the scheme.
- One component of this scheme was that, at the Defendant’s request, a lawyer who then worked for the Trump Organization as Special Counsel to Defendant (“Lawyer A”), covertly paid $130,000 to an adult film actress shortly before the election to prevent her from publicizing a sexual encounter with the Defendant. Lawyer A made the $130,000 payment through a shell corporation he set up and funded at a bank in Manhattan. This payment was illegal, and Lawyer A has since pleaded guilty to making an illegal campaign contribution and 2 served time in prison. Further, false entries were made in New York business records to effectuate this payment, separate and apart from the New York business records used to conceal the payment.
- After the election, the Defendant reimbursed Lawyer A for the illegal payment through a series of monthly checks, first from the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust (the “Defendant’s Trust”)—a Trust created under the laws of New York which held the Trump Organization entity assets after the Defendant was elected President—and then from the Defendant’s bank account. Each check was processed by the Trump Organization, and each check was disguised as a payment for legal services rendered in a given month of 2017 pursuant to a retainer agreement. The payment records, kept and maintained by the Trump Organization, were false New York business records. In truth, there was no retainer agreement, and Lawyer A was not being paid for legal services rendered in 2017. The Defendant caused his entities’ business records to be falsified to disguise his and others’ criminal conduct.
Remember that it can be any crime that Trump was intending to have covered up through the falsified business records. So in this case it's a campaign finance/election laws related to hiding damaging information from the public.
Of course he knows his son's name! It's his name too, after all.
pretty sure he gaffed and called barron byron. I'm not finding it now, though. though he did gaff on his son's age.