Surprise Verdict guilty on all 34 counts
No verdict today. Jury sent home
Court has just begun. The jury has asked for page 7 through 35 of the jury instructions read to them. and Testimony from Pecker and Cohen. they will come back to the courtroom for that.
There's been some confusion about what jury is actually looking at and what they will need to find trump guilty.
The Big Picture is did Trump pay Michael Cohen $400K+ in 2017 for legal services or did he reimburse Michael Cohen for paying Stormy Daniels and another expense. These payments were spread out over 11 checks.
Trump is charged with falsifying business records in the first degree.
11 falsified invoices
12 falsified general ledger entries
11 checks
For a conviction, the jury will need find that these are false and they will need to find Trump caused them to be false.
If they find that Trump will be guilty of a misdemeanor. The jury needs to be unanimous on this
However, it becomes a felony if the records were falsified to cover up another crime. The DA is saying that other crime is a NY election law to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.
The jury needs to be unanimous this occurred.
The DA is proposing three different "unlawful means"
- violations of federal election campaign act
- falsification of other business records; or
- violation of tax law
The jury doesn't not need to be unanimous about which unlawful means occurred.
The is because in NY you need to prove the ELEMENTS of the crime. The jury needs to unanimous on the elements, of the crime, but they do not need to be unanimous on the MEANS of the crime. (The witness saw the murdered beating the victim in the head and then get in his car. Witness got the license plate. Beating is the ELEMENT. Beating with a rock vs a hammer is MEANS of the crime)
The story the prosecutors are saying is that David Pecker, Michael Cohen and Donald Trump met in Trump Tower in 2015 and conspired. Specifically they are saying they violated this law
Section 17-152 - Conspiracy to promote or prevent election. Any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. N.Y. Elec. Law § 17-152.
As part of these scheme Michael Cohen formed a company that executed an NDA with Stormy Daniels and paid her $130,000 in 2016. Later Trump reimbursed Michael Cohen this money plus extra money for tax purposes. This occurred over a series of 11 checks.
So today the jury has asked to hear David Pecker's and Michael Cohen's testimony. This is the beginning of the case. It's where the prosecution started.
The prosecutor had a snappy line for this in closing arguments, let me see if I could find it.
So it's about how the NDA was paid for. I believe if Trump just paid her with his own money in 2016, they couldn't have charged him with any thing.
Unfortunately, there's a few pieces of evidence where Trump has called it a reimbursement including this tweet. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/tweets-may-3-2018
He also revealed it as personal debt on a government form.
I also think legal expenses would be for working on the contract, the NDA itself, but not paying the contract the $$ to SD. Like if buy a business for $100,000 and my lawyer works on the papers, the lawyer isn't expected to the pay the $100,000 to the owner of the business.
Trump's lawyer said the tweet shows there was nothing shady.
Tax issues
The other crime in the NY statue doesn't have to be committed by Trump. Cohen plead guilty to campaign violations. David Pecker signed a nonprosecution agreement. I know there are jury instructions about this. The agreement can not be viewed as Trump being guilty of that crime.
they went over a lot of your questions in closing arguments. transcripts can be found here https://pdfs.nycourts.gov/PeopleVs.DTrump-71543/transcripts/