Someone please ask the rock-ribbed, law-and-order, God-fearing evangelical Conservatives of America if they stand four square with (checks notes) the mobster-affiliated head of the Hell’s Angels and a convicted tax cheat in their moral support of the ex-President on trial for fraudulently hiding hush money payments to the adult film actress he bedded in a hotel when his third wife was caring for their newborn 3000 miles away
So it sure feels like we’re going g to have a verdict next week in #Individual1’s criminal trial.
The prosecution has shown ample evidence that there was a payoff to Daniels, by Cohen, from his personal funds, which were reimbursed through sham invoices for non-existent legal services.
The intent of the payoff was to kill the story in the closing days of the election. After he won he even tried to avoid reimbursing Cohen, and iced him out.
That establishes the foundation for the charge: recording a pass through payment to a third party as legal services (a misdemeanor) in furtherance of a crime (impermissible campaign contribution, the felony Cohen went to jail for)
Most of the evidence for this comes from David Pecker, Hope Hicks, and other #Individual1 cronies, and is basically unchallenged.
The defense mounted some arguments that the payments were for extortion, the motive was to keep it from Melania, and that payments to a lawyer are legal expenses, duh.
These are unpersuasive but could be used by a juror or two as reasonable doubt and be the basis for a hung jury.
The testimony by Daniels and Cohen drives home the main points with emotion, color, and detail—but adds very few relevant facts.
The defense is focusing on the credibility of them both. They accurately claim that their sworn testimony contradicts their public denials of the encounter and payoff.
The redirect addressed this pretty simply: #Individual1 paid them to lie, it was part of the deal.
Defense also puunded on their money and vengeance motives. Again, prosecutors parried: they suffered threats, infamy, and prison. Compensation and retribution are not indications of malice but of justice.
So what will the affirmative defense be? All indications are that there won’t be one. There’s no contradictory paper trail about the payoff or compensation. No written retainer for Cohen or evidence of his work product. No documentation disproving the encounter or proving extortion. No testimony that he wanted to keep it from his wife perpetually.
Most importantly there will be no emotion, color, or detail about his side of the story unless he takes the stand himself.
Of course that’s extremely inadvisable. His lawyers in past trials refused to let him do it, and lobbied to let him give part of the closing argument instead, for one reason: to protect him from cross-examination. That tells you something.
So the defense summation will basically be “Daniels and Cohen are whores and liars who hate him and you should throw the whole case out for that reason.”
While factual, and maybe persuasive, it doesn’t address the mountain of fact and testimony that corroborates their story.
So in a just world this jury, like others who have seen damning facts against him with no affirmative defense, should come back quickly and unanimous for conviction. In the past when only money has been at stake that’s what’s happened.
With prison at stake they might be inclined to be far more careful and deliberate. Unfortunately there’s fame, risk, and money in this for them, too. Taking a day or two to cross the Ts and dot the Is is responsible. And there may be an obstreperous holdout or two who knows that an 11-1 mistrial prevents a retrial before the election. Nothing is certain with juries. But the fact is that he’s never won a jury trial where he’s appeared in court.
If too quickly, they’ll jump on that as proof that it’s rigged.
If too slowly, they’ll argue that there was reasonable doubt and activists bullied the patriotic holdouts.
Otherwise they’ll appeal based on Daniels’s prejudicial testimony, which they did not object to at the time but instead demanded a mistrial for. And they’ll say he’s not REALLY convicted until the appeal is heard.
Regardless, he wants an uprising. He won’t get one.
There’s no evidence that the public thinks this is bogus. Even his supporters believe he probably committed a crime. They just will vote for him anyway. They’ve already discounted his rape judgment and three fraud judgments (university, foundation, corporation).
How this plays out at the debates, convention, and general election is anybody’s guess. Clearly he won’t be humbled, he’s beyond that. He’ll lean into being a convicted felon as more victimhood.
Independents and swing voters may have a different view. They’ve signaled more trust in the system than I’m prepared to give them credit for, and a decisive conviction might be what they need to at least sit on their hands if not switch their vote.
The other likelihood is total decompensation. He’s been getting progressively weirder with the stress of the trial, and the stress of sentencing might tip him into something even his zealots just can’t stomach.
You can conclude that I think acquittal is unlikely. There are attorneys on the jury. When the prosecution has physical evidence and the defense has none, it’s extremely rare for any jury to fail to convict, and I can’t imagine lawyers going along with it.
The last possibility is some split decision for the jury to demonstrate evenhandedness. The charges allow that to a limited degree. Not “some checks were frauds but others were OK,” there is no basis for that.
But they could convict on 37 misdemeanors and find no underlying crime that elevates them to felonies. This is an outcome to appease both sides and make no one happy. It removes prison from the penalty and reduces it to money that he’ll raise from his gullible supporters the same day, claiming that conviction on a lesser charge is actually vindication.
To me this is the most depressing outcome, far worse than a well-defended acquittal. It settles nothing.
Do not ask a language model questions involving reasoning, factuality, or moral judgment. Language is a vehicle for those, but it is not the SOURCE of them. And there is an enormous amount of language in the public sphere that’s devoid of them—and that trained the models.
Thank you, @cabel, for the hundreds of new followers. Just a heads-up to all the new people. You’re not going to get much Tech True Crime on my feed. I post a lot of retrocomputing stuff, but you’re also going to get leftist politics, ridiculing cryptocurrency and generative AI, San Francisco Giants baseball, and atrocious puns. Also geezer reminiscing about Good Music. Be warned,
