Donald Trump Conviction Open Thread

May 31, 2024 admin Finance 0

Good and patient students,

Usually, such a large story would fit into a proper post. However, this case and other Trump cases have been a beating for Lambert and he is not in his first job today. I’m in no position to step into his shoes as the press coverage was so bad during the trial that I used to go MEGO (My Eyes Are Glaring Over) when I encountered it. Lambert said he would have to spend twice as much time as he should have to better understand what was going on in court, and wear a moon suit instead of his usual wards.

Obviously the Trump side will appeal. They need Constitutional theories as it seems unlikely that any New York court will be overruled, no matter how sound the argument. I think they will look more closely at the Sixth Amendment on the basis of:

In all criminal cases, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial judge of the State and district where the crime was committed, which district shall have been previously established by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the crime; to face witnesses against him; to have a mandatory procedure to find witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel to defend himself

Lambert and other commentators pointed out that the original case did not specify which case prosecutors were relying on to convert the misdemeanor records charge to a felony. Could that be interpreted as a failure to inform Trump of the case in sufficient detail to enable him to prepare a proper defense?

Lambert has identified an additional issue, although I do not know whether it can be consolidated into a basis for appeal. In yesterday’s Water Cooler, he followed the jury’s instructions in detail, including the jury’s verdict sheet:

In “Criminal Charges,” p 27:

“Decision Sheet,” p. 53:

[1] These are the charges against Bragg; Each of the 34 cases is a separate business records case.

[2] Note the checkboxes that the vendor excludes:

Certainly voting the public is interested in knowing which the violation of the act caused Trump’s misdemeanors (if any) to be converted to felonies. A ridiculously small tax violation? A brutal and brutal scheme to catch and kill? Campaign finance violations? Merchan, apparently, doesn’t care about voters. I would guess that – with the possible help of the flex-net working law in this project – having increased the means of believing in strong definitions of consensus, Merchan would like to “not show his work,” and reveal how those definitions worked. except in reality. Whether these are reasons to complain I don’t know, but I find it appalling. “Our law”! “Our democracy”!

This sentence sheet hides the judge’s findings of fact when the crime/criminal acts that led to the misdemeanor business record case being filed. Is that an arguable violation of due process?

I hope the students will talk about what this conviction means for this campaign. You can be sure that both sides will be lashing out. Trump has apparently started a new round of fundraising based on it. If the Biden campaign makes his case more important than Trump being found guilty, does that encourage him, or is it just a variation of “Orange man is bad and I’m not”?

Another reaction. In the middle of the road USA Today had an article that Truth Social shared after the decision. From its main story about the results, how will Donald Trump’s guilty verdict affect his re-election bid? Is his political outburst here?:

Former president Donald Trump The 2024 White House campaign now enters uncharted territory: Voters’ reactions to the first major-party nominee to be convicted of a crime….

While the challenge is unprecedented, Trump’s approach is all too familiar: Attacking the legal system.

“This was a corrupt decision, from day one,” Trump told reporters in court Thursday less than an hour after the guilty verdict and echoed past comments by Republicans designed to sway voters for a conviction.

One thing Trump probably won’t have to worry about anytime soon: Prison. He plans to appeal the decision, and that process could take years.

NBC has a much splashier landing page about the decision in question than USA Today:

Contrast that with the ABC, which almost seems to treat this decision as old news:

At CBS, it’s obviously a big story but no big caps, the banner headline in every treatment column:

From Edward Luce, former columnist for Larry Summers, on Trump’s guilty verdict puts the American political system on trial in the Financial Times:

The Republican nominee now joins his former campaign manager, senior political adviser, White House strategist, and national security adviser as a convicted felon. The speed and consistency of the judge leaves little doubt about the watertightness of the decision….

Within minutes of the decision, top Republicans rushed to denounce the case as a politically motivated fraud and a miscarriage of justice. The democrats were very happy that justice was done and that no one is above the law. This polarized reaction was both surprising and alarming. They confirmed the end of this presidential election as a contest for the rule of law….

The big question is whether this decision will sway the small number of American voters who neither hate him nor like him. Polls suggest that a large portion of swing voters would view Trump differently if he were a convicted felon. But what people tell voters in the abstract has little bearing on how they will respond to the onslaught of counter-propaganda they will now face.

However, it is hard to imagine that there could be any reverse of Trump’s conviction. Even after his main challenger for the nomination, Nikki Haley, dropped out of the race earlier this year, about a fifth of Republican voters still voted “not committed” in the next primaries. If it was a small part of those who did not vote, or went to Biden, it would produce a result in a close election. Democrats must, however, be wary of pocketing a legal decision as a political victory.

The longest interview on CNN, Trump’s conviction reveals a difficult and volatile period in American history, equally focused on the issue of “the rule of law” and the related threat to “our democracy”. Initial statements from Biden’s spokespeople suggest the campaign will double down on those themes. Undoubtedly, they hope that this message will be more effective than the existing ones since there are already sentences. We will soon see with polling data what the impact is.

A CNN article interestingly points out that this persecution was dangerous:

CNN presidential historian Timothy Naftali said Thursday that Trump’s call-to-arms campaign against the legal system will mean all Republicans will be forced to put it at the center of their 2024 campaigns. “That will create, in my opinion, a flood of poison that may be worse than what we saw in the ‘Stop Theft’ campaign that preceded January 6. And that will disturb a country that is already sensitive,” Naftali. said. “That worries me because the ‘Stop the Steal’ campaign has created widespread doubt about the integrity of our electoral system and led many people to believe that fraud is being committed in 2020.”

A lingering question in the case is whether the crime — falsifying financial records to hide a hush money payment to former movie star Stormy Daniels to mislead voters in 2016 — was serious enough for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to risk the unusual political consequences of impeaching the former president. Prosecutors’ use of former Trump bodyguard Michael Cohen as their star witness, despite his conviction on tax charges and lying to Congress, was highly controversial. Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanche, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Thursday that the timing of the trial — during the election campaign — was unfair to the former president.

But the charges were not prepared by the prosecutors as Trump said. They were brought by the grand jury. The former president was given a presumption of innocence until proven guilty, and was tried by a jury of his peers. Even now, the Constitution he claims to have been stolen will protect him with a full list of complaints, as in all his other criminal charges.

But once the judge has made a decision, justice is considered done. So the Republicans’ immediate attack on the judge, the court and the verdict represents an unusual attempt by one of the country’s major political parties to challenge the integrity of the legal system.

Interestingly, Fox seems to be the first to run a story based on talking to voters. One can only take a large sample of time, so again we will need more polls and more focus groups to study (paging Frank Luntz)

And to compound things, some take on the Twitterverse. Awesome tweets in this belief don’t stand out in my feed (“following” and “yours”). Is Musk pressing the issue? From the search, especially the winning reaction:

But there are others:

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