Is paying a tart a crime in the US? Often enough being one is, but is $130k for a shag actually illegal?
If it isn’t, then what actually is the charge?
Is paying a tart a crime in the US? Often enough being one is, but is $130k for a shag actually illegal?
If it isn’t, then what actually is the charge?
Depends where the money came from and how it was identified in the accounts. Some suggestion this was campaign fraud rather than pying off the bimbo
She said it didn’t happen on record.
He said it didn’t happen.
The lawyer said he paid it himself from his own pocket.
The payment is legal anyway.
If done as part of campaign, it’s a low level crime misdemeanour (Clinton was quietly fined 13K for a worse crime).
Statute of limitations has run out if it’s a misdemeanour.
Hence, it’s all political.
We already know you can get done for “murder” in the United States even when all the forensic and medical evidence proved you were innocent. So I don’t think it matters very much what it says in American law books, and I don’t think their pussyhat-wearing Democratic activist judges are any more fair or impartial than Lavrentiy Beria was.
It’s Who?/Whom? time, all the time, in the Imperium of Clowns.
I believe he is charged with 1st degree orangeness and second degree badness.
Does this mean every time a company fires someone and pays them for an NDA they are committing a crime?
With the inevitable Democrat appointed judge and a New York jury I am surprised there is not more speculation about what will happen when, rather than if, he is inevitably found guilty.
They may be able to invent crimes Beria-style but inventing the desired sentence, namely pronouncing him ineligible for future office, is another matter altogether. Open-ended incarceration in direct contravention of the 6th Amendment (Hello SCOTUS. Is anyone awake there?) might work with hapless January 6 protestors but this is a different ball game.
I am therefore of the opinion that the hyper-partisan US legal system is painting itself into a very dangerous corner.
I am therefore of the opinion that the hyper-partisan US legal system is painting itself into a very dangerous corner
Are they?
How many divisions does Trump command?
He is very possibly guilty of felony concealment of the payment to Daniels. Statute of limitations is extended due to change of residence. However, indictment and later conviction would not render him ineligible for running for office or assuming the position if elected.
Since everyone and his dog knew about the payment, it doesn’t strike me as very effective felony concealment…
How many divisions does Trump command?
At least 75 million voters. Genuine ones unlike many who rose from their graves to carry Biden over the line in 2020.
The charge is false accounting because he labelled a payment to his lawyer that is alleged to have reimbursed him for paying off Daniels as a “business expense”.
That’s it!
They don’t have to go into whether the “affair” ever happened or whether she was greenmailing him or anything … just that he misclassified the payment in his accounts.
If it turns out that the payment was actually for work done by the lawyer, then Trump will claim it’s a witch hunt and demand the Reublican nomination for 2024 as anyone opposing him is tarred withthe “witch hunt” label. So one wonders.
John77, that’s not quite all it is. The allegation is that this “false accounting” or false business record creation, which is a breach of New York law, was in furtherance of a violation of federal campaign finance law. So it’s interesting, which is a bad thing for your case to be – I haven’t seen anyone point at a precedent where it’s a NY offence to further a federal offence. What sticks for me is that the feds declined to prosecute Trump after they prosecuted and convicted his lawyer, which leaves the weird situation that the middleman went to jail and the principal never got charged. On the other hand, it’s Manhattan and it’s a jury trial (it’s the jury, Steve, not the judges), and the orange turd is loathed in Manhattan. It’ll be very hard to bring this to a verdict before the election, after which, if he wins, he’s probably home free. So I wish they hadn’t done it – high chance of losing, and the effect is probably two things – boost the OT’s chances of nomination and election – and increase the witch-hunt and banana republic rhetoric and heat. Two bad results.
Tom Fuller
I think the plan is not to stop him from running, but stop him from financing the run. He can’t raise funding if under indictment, they then delay or postpone the trial indefinitely.
John – the 75 million voters the US government cheated live on telly?
The ones they’ve sicced the FBI, IRS, CIA, CNN and ADL on?
The ones they’ve imprisoned for over a year without charge, for taking an unauthorised tour of the Capitol?
The ones whose towns and cities the federal government burned down in 2020, using their black and antifa proxies and with air cover provided by every mass media outlet in the world and every big multinational corporation on the planet?
What are the kulaks going to do about it? Vote harder next time?
Lol.
I hope you’re not right. The experience of watching a presidential election being stolen in real time on that Wednesday morning was hard enough to take over here. It should have been far worse for the 75m and yet ..…….nothing.
This is how you get More Trump.
Two weeks ago Donald Trump was a bitter geriatric lashing out wildly at anyone and everyone. More than half of Republicans were wondering what it would take to get him to step aside for Ron DeSantis.
Today he is a martyr.
Alvin Bragg may be one of the Soros Whores, but he couldn’t have done better for The Donald if he’d been working full-time for The Committee to Elect Donald Trump. Money will flow to Trump’s coffers, Republicans will close ranks around him (whether they want to or not) and Trump will be in his element… a street fight.
It’s an uncomfortable feeling that Trump, like Berlusconi before him, may only run for office in order to escape the conviction awaiting him. All the more reason to get all those who may enter the race to cede to De Santis now. US proescutors aren’t above deals, a “don’t run and we don’t charge” deal would be a win for them, and the rest of the world.
Dennis – it’ll be great for his fundraising, but no, this is not how you get more Trump.
Because voting harder won’t make any more difference than it did last time.
This is why I was (and am) so pissed off at the Rishi coup in Britain. Because it’s not just a coup, it’s a permanent transfer of power from dumb taxpaying votercattle to the political class.
The window of opportunity for peaceful, democratic change was open in 2016-2020-ish. It’s closed now. In response to the populist surges they’ve superglued the locks and blocked off all the other escape routes, too.
Anybody trying the Trump 2016 script in 2023 will quickly find himself banned from the internet, unable to use banks and other financial services, and probably jailed (especially in the UK and Europe, which don’t even pretend to have free speech anymore). Social Credit arrived in the West with the first lockdown.
There is hope, but not in politics.
‘ If it isn’t, then what actually is the charge?’
The charge is: being Donal Trump.
The original crime such as it might be, illegal use of funds, passed the statute of limitations and cannot be prosecuted. However it is alleged this was done to interfere with the electoral process to avoid adverse publicity which might affect the outcome of the election – this makes it a Federal Crime with no limitation.
On the other hand the suppression of the details surrounding Hunter Biden and his infamous laptop specifically to avoid adverse publicity scuppering the electoral fortunes of Biden Sr, was not a Federal Crime – it’s only a crime if Trump does it, like keeping allegedly classified documents in a locked room, unlike Biden’s classified documents in an unlocked garage.
US proescutors aren’t above deals, a “don’t run and we don’t charge” deal would be a win for them, and the rest of the world.
Too late, Bit4R. They’ve sewn the wind and will reap the whirlwind.
Unlike Dennis, I think this is more likely how we get more Biden [Deep State] than more Trump. I’m not convinced the American middle ground wants Trump any more than they did in 2020. For precisely this kind of disruptive, unsavoury shit.
@ napsdjam
Except there wasn’t a violation of federal campaign law to further (according not only to logic but also to the Feds). Did the Drumpf campaign seek votes on the basis that he didn’t have an affair with Ms Daniels? Would he have garnered any more votes if he had done so?
PJF – I’m not convinced the American middle ground wants Trump any more than they did in 2020
I’m not convinced the American middle ground wants their children to be introduced to drag queens, anal lube and 57 genders at school, yet here we are.
The point of the senile gerontological regime is that the American middle ground doesn’t matter. The thing that’s wearing America’s institutions as a skinsuit hates the native population and is almost done replacing them anyway.
That’s why Dennis spends a lot of time in the little mosque on the prairie.
I’m not saying this gets Trump elected, what I’m saying is this keeps Trump from being phased out in favor of Ron DeSantis.
Paying for a shag is illegal. Paying someone to shut up about it – whether or not you shagged them is not.
The actual issue is ‘where did the money come from?’
Some pots of money have restrictions on how they’re used.
“The charge is: being Donal Trump.”
Equally doesn’t matter that he isn’t even guilty of that.
Aside from all of Hunter crack and hookers and daddy’s loans that paid for all that stuff, here’s a spot on analysis of Biden’s body language when he denied raping a congressional intern in 1993:
https://youtu.be/TUiIlMuCwAA
And yes, this guy also did a video on Prince Andrew.
When Biden first joined the Senate in the 70s, after his wife and daughter had died in a car crash, he did the swearing in ceremony two feet away from the hospital bed where his surviving son Beau was recovering. Only a fool would think he hasn’t had the nerve to use campaign funds incorrectly over the past 50 years.
Trump paid a porn star and it’s very unlikely he used campaign funds to do so, since he was already under intense media scrutiny at the time (and he had the private funds to make the payment himself, anyway).
This indictment will be the greatest gift to the GOP since Hillary’s “basket of deplorables” comment. They couldn’t even make the January 6 bullshit stick. The “QAnon Shaman” guy was just released after Tucker Carlson aired his video surveillance footage. Democrats and RINOs had their 15 minutes of fun, and their incompetency is catching up with them. Fetterman had to go to a mental health facility like a month after starting his Senate term, republicans have the House, government involvement with social media censorship is being publicized, Biden’s handling of classified documents canceled out Trump’s documents at Mar-A-Lago, and the majority of Americans don’t like the direction the U.S. is heading.
It’s far more likely for some Biden voters to switch parties or refrain from voting, than for Trump to lose any support. There’s no more pandemic, no more January 6 hype, and people are exhausted with the fear mongering about “extremists.” No doubt there will be another major foreign conflict within the next 1 ¾ years attempting to distract from all of the other chaos Biden and his handlers caused.
Steve, I’ve stepped away from the conspiracy vehicle. I think Trump lost in 2020 because he motivated the Dem base as never before; disillusioned too much of his own by dancing with Fauci; and generally appalled the floating middle.
@PJF
The middle ground is well aware that taxes, gas prices, wars and political bullshit all increased under Biden. One silver lining of Trump’s Twitter ban is it allowed voters to see Biden’s fuckups without the distraction of Trump’s rants. All of the political maneuvering and lack of transparency, as well as chaos, has been caused by the Democratic Party these past two years. Every bit of their effort has been put into silencing opposition, controlling the press, and increasing “equity,” rather than keeping the economy and America’s global standing afloat.
Remember how Ken Livingstone won the 1981 Greater London elections, snatching control from the Conservatives? You do? How weird.
It was actually a centrist called Andrew McIntosh who lead Labour to win in 1981, after beating off Ken in a leadership election. Less than 24 hours after the GLC election, Ken had orchestrated an internal coup and taken over. “Londoner’s voted for Ken!” Bollocks. GLC voters never voted for Ken Livingstone’s policies, as the GLC was abolished six years later.
“Paying for a shag is illegal.”
Dayumn… That’d make 90% of the modern dating scene illegal… 😛
– The middle ground is well aware . . . – [list of conservative opinions and grievances]
Dhffhjf, what you think the middle ground believes and what it actually believes might be different. Trump’s persecution and silence, Biden’s fuckups and weirdness; and the Dems owning all their scheming malfeasance (plus Antifa, Hunter, tranniebollocks . . . ) also applied right up to November 2022, and the expected midterm landslide just didn’t happen for the Republicans. Squeaked the House and that was it, federally.
PJF – Trump is crude and off putting to a lot of the electorate, but think of how trivially easy it would have been to prove him wrong on election fraud.
Just open the books and prove he’s a loser.
Rather than, idk, spending millions of dollars on lawyers and getting FBI goon squads to raid the homes of people like the MyPillow guy.
Conspiracy theories are passe, they’re pretty much openly bragging and laughing about it now. Have been for a while, tbf, but conservatives are slow learners.
I’m pretty much with PJF here, though with a couple of caveats.
– Postal voting was a huge factor in 2020, and another downside of Covid for Trump. It boosted voting on both sides, but very very likely much more on the Dem side. There was no enthusiasm for Biden anywhere.
– Without Covid and the affect on the economy Trump would likely have won. The economy matters, and most were feeling pretty good about that.
– 2022 wasn’t all that bad, despite the rallying effect of the Roe v Wade leak. (That was more shady business). Hard to compare as it was mid-terms, but the Republicans switched the popular vote from 48/51 to 51/48 in the House. The Senate was never likely as most of the seats up for election were Republican.
This arrest is yet more flouting the rule that you should not do X if X will be something your enemy can later use against you. I hate to think where all this might end
@PJF
First off, those grievances were not at all “conservative.” The middle ground has always leaned toward the bread and butter: economy, taxes, crime, gas prices, food prices. The only time they care about an issue is if it affects one of those things, or butts into their everyday life. The trans thing isn’t an issue per se, but it is an issue of an independent has kids in a public school that ascribes to that ideology. Just looking at the bare bones I listed before, Biden is a failure, while Trump had cheaper gas, allowed states to take on crime and illegal immigration when they wanted, and stayed out of people’s private lives for the most part. He also kept us out of war, which avoided a bunch of other bullshit independents hate. Regardless of how anyone feels about Covid and vaccines, Trump and Pence facilitated the entire process of getting 3 major vaccines to market with Operation Warp Speed. Keep in mind, the first vaccine approval occurred 6 days after the 2020 election, which easily could’ve swayed public opinion if timed differently. For all intents and purposes, we were still in the middle of a pandemic with no end in sight in 2020 and many people still believed it was racist to say China caused it. Trump also didn’t issue any federal lockdown orders or mandates, and that bullshit only came from governors in blue states. The American middle ground is very well aware of how intrusive or non-intrusive their governor was during Covid. They are also aware of how safe or unsafe their city is, and they know of at least one or two of the local politicians who allowed that crime, and also saw at least one or two instances of the federal democrats dismissing their concerns.
There were definitely some people who were done with Trump’s tweets. And some people who (only right after the incident) were turned off after January 6. None of these people were conservatives. They were a fraction of the independents and ex-Bernie Bros who hate the establishment. For most independents, they don’t give a shit about J6, abortion, trans stuff, Ukraine, Trump’s indictment, political rhetoric, Hunter’s laptop, or classified documents. All of that is inside baseball. They are, for what it’s worth, noticing one liberal talking point after another being debunked. They don’t have to like Tucker Carlson to believe it, because it’s all on video anyway. The mainstream is now backtracking on claims about Covid, January 6, etc. Again, independents don’t really care about that stuff, but it does reignite their already strong distaste for politicians and the news media.
You are assuming that the middle ground immediately saw what was going on in 2020. Most citizens are not going to notice any problems or improvement until it affects them directly. Many people didn’t believe in the crime wave, illegal immigration or groups like AntiFa, until it ended up on their doorstep. Once these problems spread to the suburbs, people started noticing. In liberal cities, some mayors, DAs and AGs started to change their strategy when protestors began marching past their residences. Only months before the election, people still believed the CHAZ/CHOP zone in Seattle was a peaceful protest. Biden has been hiding from the press and dismissing questions since he began his 2020 campaign, but it took until recent months for a few reporters to complain about censorship and lack of transparency.
In 2020, it was still considered a conspiracy theory or, worse, bigotry, to say Trump did some things right. Now, even the New York Times will admit it, even if they don’t give the guy any credit.
Adding to Steve’s point, the desperation and need for distraction from the democrats is clear as a bell to the electorate. And at least a few independents have learned that voting based on someone’s personality might not be best. After all, Biden was pitched as the friendly grandpa who would “bring the adults back to the White House.” The guy he put in charge of nuclear waste crossdresses, frequents a dog-play BDSM group and steals women’s luggage for fun. Independents know at least that much.
And I don’t “think” about what the middle ground believes. I grew up in Western Pennsylvania, close to Ohio and West Virginia, and I’ve been both a democrat and republican throughout my life. Not an expert, but I know a thing or two. The fact that you considered those issues “conservative” speaks volumes. About 10 years ago, the idea of American conservatives being anti-war was ridiculous, and now most of them don’t want to get involved with Ukraine, let alone any place in the Middle East. Many don’t even like government-run police departments anymore. There’s a lot of nuance about 330 million Americans you’re not understanding here.
One more point. Regarding the 2022 midterms…
The main electoral objective for an American citizen, whether they realize it or not, is to create gridlock in Congress. The federal government is the largest and most corrupt it’s ever been, and the less they do with our tax dollars, the better. Yes, the Senate confirms Biden’s federal nominees, but the House stops bills from getting to the Senate and ultimately the president’s desk. Biden has already had to flounder on things like student debt forgiveness and climate change initiatives, as well as Second Amendment violations, because one congressional chamber has been compromised.
Face it, the US is done as a democracy. Its now a banana republic cum dictatorship where if you are in with El Presidente and his ruling party you get to do pretty much as you please up to murder (see Teddy Kennedy) and if you aren’t you get law enforcement from the Constable Savage school of jurisprudence.
There’s no voting your way out of this, not least because he who counts the votes determines the result. The only way out is for the Republican states to secede from the union, and form their own country. Let the rest have the armed forces and the Military Industrial Complex, and their fantasy that they are the global top dog. Thats going to come crashing down fairly soon, and anyone with a brain would want to be well out of it before it does.
@Jim
100% National Divorce.
I would never underestimate the USA: baled us out in the World War and protected us in the Cold War. Imagine if the USA decided to invade Mexico for no good reason that its got corruption, low-lifes and someone offered some rude to a well connected auto executive’s wife on a visit to Fresnillo or Puebla – I would guess the Mexican population, half of whom seem to have tried to get into the USA at some point, would surrender pronto.
That separation of powers and the federal structure is still hanging together.
Trump energises the opposition vote so I wouldn’t be surprised if they want him to run over DeSantis as they think he’s easier to beat, on that basis as stated above I wouldn’t be surprised that this is more about making sure he runs not DeSantis
Right now they must be worrying about how to get people to turn out and vote for Biden, Kamala is a bust and there’s doesn’t seem to be anyone else lined up who the public would swing behind if Biden doesn’t run
“Right now they must be worrying about how to get people to turn out and vote for Biden,”
Lol. If they managed to ‘get people out to vote’ last time when the Biden campaign was coming over like a cross between the Invisible Man and an ad for Alzheimer’s awareness, then I really don’t think they’ll have any problem upping the vote next time by however many million they need………their only problem is that they might have to invent so many votes that there would end up being more ‘votes’ cast than there are registered voters in any given State……..
Jim, it looks to me as though there are many Red States with large Blue state capitals, so I don’t see how secession would work, without large scale population migration.
@Rowdy
You say that as if it’s never been done before.
Doesn’t mean it has to be done by force. Some lefties might decide they’d rather grin and bear it than live in Wokeland under the power of Washington, DC.
And look at all the liberals (even rich celebrities) leaving New York and California to live in less shitty states. Kevin O’Leary won’t stop talking about how great South Dakota is nowadays.