Ridgeview News does not agree with the opinion of this writer, but I believe in the First Amendment and the right to Freedom of Speech.
Rank these crimes: 1- Insurrection 2- Theft of classified documents 3- Conspiracy to overturn a presidential election to retain power and 4- falsifying NY business records to hide sex scandals from the voters in the 2016 election.
Sure, on the Trump Crime Scale, the NY “hush money” case appears relatively minor. But it’s the first stress test of the rule of criminal law.
Can our criminal courts withstand the pressure of the most outrageous, unrepentant, furious, dangerous defendant with a national bullhorn and a powerful motive to destroy the system before it stops him? Will our justice system hold?
Legal experts downplay the NY case: “weakest,” “relatively minor charges,” “little chance of jail time,” or “too convoluted.” True, this is just another Donald Trump falsifying business records case. Didn’t we just have one last week? Yes, but that was civil, this is criminal.
This is not a minor case in the Trump saga. This is the first ever – unprecedented – criminal prosecution of a former president. A civil judgment can cost your property; a criminal conviction can cost your liberty.
This charge is much more serious than just falsifying business records. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg: Trump conspired to corrupt a presidential election and then lied in NY business records to cover it up. Campaign corruption and a coverup that helped Trump win the 2016 election, an election with a razor-thin margin.
It’s not minor to Trump, whose attacks on the judicial systemand the rule of law have become increasingly unhinged.
The prosecutor must be “a degenerate psychopath that truely [sic] hates the USA.” “They only brought this Fake, Corrupt, and Disgraceful Charge against me because I stand with the American People, and they know that I cannot get a fair trial in New York.” “It is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country[.]”
The case is not convoluted. Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, went to prison for following Trump’s direction to pay StormyDaniels $130,000 to keep Trump’s alleged affair from the voting public and therefore to influence the 2016 election, as Cohentestified under oath. Trump falsified the records about repaying Cohen (as he is wont to do), calling Porn Payoff “legal expenses.”
It’s not the “hush money.” If Trump had just paid Stormy for a non-disclosure agreement and then reported it as an in-kind campaign donation, there would be no crime.
It’s the falsified records of unreported payments to influence an election. Follow the money. It’s always the coverup. Al Capone went down on tax evasion.
The only real jury question is whether Donald Trump intended to influence the election when he ordered Cohen to carry out the scheme.
Trump was running scared at the time. The Access Hollywood “Grab ‘Em” tape came out on October 7, 2016, a month before the presidential election. Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal had already been paid $150,000 by National Enquirer to “buy” her story and kill it. (“Catch & kill” came into the national vocabulary.) After the P*ssy tape, 26 other women came forward to accuse Trump of sexual misconduct. Stormy Daniels was going to do a “Good Morning, America” interview to talk about the time she had sex with Trump.
Would America have cared? Doesn’t matter. The world knew or should have known Trump was a perennial sex pest and serial philanderer. Second wife Marla Maples was a media frenzy. She was quoted on the front page of the NY Post saying about Donald, “Best Sex I’ve Ever Had,” while he was still married to Ivana. He married Marla two months after their daughter Tiffany was born. He had a new baby with Melania while trysting with Stormy.
Somehow America elected him anyway.
Judge Merchan has given prosecutors wide range to tell jurors about the pattern of Trump’s behavior and the series of sex scandals that the campaign sought to quash. Such a pattern is an excellent indicator of intent to do the same.
Never in his life has Trump been held to account. Now he’s facing his first criminal trial of four. He’s raging like a cornered rat. As usual he says he can only lose if the system is rigged. Trump must convince his followers that our courts are illegitimate so his criminal convictions will be meaningless.
Charged here with election corruption, Trump accuses the court of the same. “This is Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history.” To save his own neck, he will destroy the whole system if he can.
Trump cloaks his outrageous behavior as political speech. The justice system struggles to respond, to avoid the appearance of bias, to allow a maximum of political speech to a presidential candidate. An ordinary defendant would long ago have been jailed and allowed only monitored pay-phone calls.
Trump and his minions make death threats and vicious personal attacks on judges and their families, prosecutors, witnesses, and jurors. “Make no mistake, a mobster could never pose the threat that Donald Trump poses to American democracy,” former 4thcircuit justice, Judge Luttig says. He is “attempting to delegitimize America’s democracy, the Constitution and the rule of law.”
The trial itself will reveal whether the law can force Donald Trump to sit down and shut up and stay silent unless called on to speak. The rule of law requires that this defendant be controlled. The country needs to see that the law governs, not Trump.
This trial will show that our justice system can still charge a man with crimes, even an ex-president, seat 12 jurors, hold a trial, and convict a man, even an ex-president, if he is guilty. Trump’s constant attacks weaken the justice system, but still it holds.
Once Trump is found guilty, he will be a convicted felon. Do not expect him to be chastened. Trump has already promised a second term of retribution and revenge, weaponizing the very justice system against itself – freeing the convicted, pardoning the guilty, charging the innocent – while Trump alone reigns supreme – justice brought to her knees.
The justice system, the rule of law, the foundation of our democracy cannot stand a second Trump presidency with Trump empowered to wreak the havoc and injustice he only threatens so far.
Once again, it’s left to us, ordinary people who believe that no man is above the law, not an ex-president, not a candidate, not a cult leader, not Donald Trump.
Donald Trump must be defeated. Only Joe Biden can defeat Donald Trump. Vote Biden/Harris and give them a Democratic Congress. Restore justice, uphold the rule of law, and vote fordemocracy.
Surprise surprise the liberals come out with their sardonic humor and I must say this diatribe is good for a laugh or two.
I know dimwitticy (is that a word for dimwit on steroids) would want America run by shutting people up who disagreed with them like they do in communist countries would write. But wait, so is it written …
Anyhow if this ain’t a joke then the logic is scary …