71 thoughts on “The Guilty Verdict”

        1. Infecting half the planet with a virus is such small potatoes in comparison with paying for sex. Let’s all grab our smelling salts to keep us upright as we process the outrage of this sex scandal.

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          1. Right, and lying to Congress is so… I mean, who doesn’t, really? Pales in comparison to squidging paperwork.

            After all, the ATF recently extra-juridically executed a guy for negligent paperwork:

            https://peterhalligan.substack.com/p/dozens-of-bidens-gestapo-armed-with

            It’s that important.

            (gosh, I hope nobody ever reviews our old rental applications, where we had to answer that our dog weighs 10-20 pounds, after stating that we do not have a dog)

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            1. Without an underlying felony, falsifying documents is a misdemeanor with an expired statute of limitations.

              This jury verdict will be thrown out on appeal because it’s an absolute joke.

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              1. They know that. The strategy is to just have him “convicted of a felony” and then drag out the appeals process till after the election.

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  2. Crook committed crime. Crook got caught. Crook found guilty. These other comments and readings of the situation don’t make much sense to me.

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    1. Which crime, though? That’s the mystery of the season. What’s the underlying felony that the falsification of documents was covering up? Because without an underlying felony, it’s nothing but a misdemeanor.

      I’m sincerely interested in what felony was being covered up.

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          1. …or the 55 pages of wacky jury instructions? Like, hey jury, you don’t have to agree about what Trump is guilty of, it’s OK if four of you think he’s guilty of A, four think he’s guilty of B, and four think he’s guilty of C but not B or A. As long as you all agree he’s guilty of *something* that’s good enough to render a guilty verdict.

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            1. I have noticed that when I ask the people who are happy over this verdict what the crime was, they get either upset or huffy.

              This must have been a very serious crime if not even the prosecutor can say what it actually was. 😃😃😃

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              1. I have never before heard of anybody being tried for the crime of unspecified: could be any of this list of options, but we can keep it to ourselves which one…

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          2. Cohen embezzling from Trump does not change his credibility for me. Trump is a career con man who has done illegal things (see all his settlements over the years) for decades. I wouldn’t expect the lawyer he had assisting him to be morally irreproachable, especially when it comes to money. It would be a shame if a crook hired by a bigger crook to do dirty deeds didn’t at least try to swindle the big crook out of some money.

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            1. This is all empty verbiage that has no relationship to the case until somebody explains which felony Trump was trying to conceal by falsifying these documents. Just name the actual felony. Why is that so hard?

              This is a rhetorical question. You can’t name what the prosecution failed to name. It’s not your fault that you don’t know. The fault lies squarely with the judge who let the prosecutor pull this stunt.

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              1. I was responding to a specific comment made by another poster about the credibility of a specific witness. Why haven’t you excoriated the other poster for the original comment then?

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            2. In the US, is it OK to put someone on trial for their *credibility*?

              Like, I’m not a Trump fan. I don’t like the guy any more than you do, and I think he’s a conman and a philanderer, and overall not a good person.

              But that’s not what they tried him for, and I don’t understand how anybody is out there cheering for this outcome. “Yay, we finally gotim! I don’t care how badly the justice system was abused to do it, as long as the outcome is that my enemy was got!”

              Nobody ever thinks ahead to what happens when their guy isn’t the ruling party. It’s shortsighted and stupid.

              Or are you that confident that the other side will not abuse that same justice system in the same way?

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              1. That’s an important point. My opinion about this trial and these charges would be exactly the same if Biden or absolutely anybody else were charged. Identical.

                People need to ask themselves, does every conviction over misfiled receipts make them this happy? If not, then it’s not about justice. It’s about a specific individual. And their investment into that individual is not healthy.

                My social media are littered with expressions of such glee, you’d think a serial killer were brought to justice. And I’ve never seen these people get so overwrought about filing paperwork before.

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              2. Aye.

                I emphatically do NOT think it’s a good idea to use weird legal technicalities to prosecute people for manufactured crimes that are *not* what you think they are actually guilty of. FWIW I also think it was a crap legal move to prosecute Al Capone for *tax evasion*, no matter how much he deserved it. The integrity of the court system is not well served by this.

                When the courts don’t function for their intended purpose anymore and simply become for sale to the highest bidder, then, if we are really lucky, we might get a Bukele, who will do the right thing and damn the useless courts. But probably not. And even Bukele… it’d take a miracle for any of that to outlast his presidency.

                But, you know, how about not making our courts corrupt and useless to begin with?

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        2. None of these are a felony unless committed to conceal another felony. Nobody has named that other felony or even tried to.

          What was the criminal act that Trump tried to conceal by falsifying these documents? Having sex with a prostitute isn’t a felony. Paying her off for silence isn’t either. What’s the underlying felony?

          It’s ok. The prosecutor didn’t know either.

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      2. I don’t believe you’re sincerely interested. If you were, you would have researched that already.

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  3. Well, he’s a very innocent man. And he’s a political prisoner, like Mandela. Or maybe he’s Mother Theresa–I’ve lost track.

    Also, it’s great fun to watch the lackwits and lickspittles on Fox huffing about how America is now a sh-thole country. “No one is safe…”

    And the crime? The jurors had to make a connection from Trump’s falsification schemes to election fraud–either violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act, falsification of other business records, or violation of tax laws. The right is waxing wroth, but the judge, prosecution, and jury are quite sound: Trump and the usual gang of idiots futzed around with the records in order to “promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.” Sounds wordy, but it’s reasonable.

    What can we count on? That Trump will respond with neither dignity, intelligence, nor coherence. But he might still become president again.

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      1. Are you speaking with empathy given your own response, or condescending and pretending you have no emotional response whatsoever?

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        1. You are asking if I have an emotional response to Trump’s verdict?? Last night yet another residential area in Kharkiv was bombed. Russians did another double tap to murder first responders.

          https://x.com/ZarinaZabrisky/status/1796495068469371166?t=W9MyXandhE91RR38WkrMAQ&s=19

          I know this building. Or knew, rather.

          This is every day. Every day. Do you think I have energy left to get emotional over American self-gratifying drama? Or empathy for its participants?

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          1. Do you feel no emotions when you write about this and discuss it with people in real life? That would be exceedingly odd. It would have to be an issue you didn’t care about at all and would feel exactly the same about turning out either way.

            But then you wouldn’t be posting about it, or you’d post how all the people who care about this are idiots and it doesn’t matter that this case was brought to trial and what the verdict was.

            Given your strong emotions about Ukraine, shouldn’t you care much more about who wins this election and the possibility of Trump being even worse than Biden?

            In fact, I’d say you have a moral obligation to Ukraine to think very carefully and soberly and vote for president (without throwing away your vote on a third-party candidate). There will be a difference in the number of tragedies that keep happening in Ukraine depending on who is the next US president.

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            1. This will come as a shock, but the overwhelming majority of people don’t react emotionally to this at all. As our hippie friends would say, you need to touch some grass ASAP. It’s always a good idea not to get attached to politicians or celebrities. They aren’t emotionally invested in you, so why should you reward them with influence over your inner world?

              It’s good advice sincerely offered.

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              1. Also, I don’t think that people who have strong emotions (either positive or negative) about Trump or Biden are idiots. This is not related to IQ. I think they have a very specific type of psychological dysregulation that is quite easy to correct.

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              2. You said “an emotional response of any kind” about this trial. We’re not robots. We feel emotions in response to most of the events in our lives or things we have opinions on.

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    2. “Trump’s falsification schemes”

      schemes to falsify what? just saying ‘falsification’ doesn’t really mean anything

      “to election fraud –either violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act, falsification of other business records, or violation of tax laws”

      only the last sounds anything like a potential felony….

      Where’s the felony that turns all his jiggling the books into a felony?

      “promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.”

      Is that a felony?

      From my lofty perch in Yurp… this looks like a bog standard 3rd world show trial carried out for political (rather than judicial) means and more like something I’d expect from Bangladesh or Zimbabwe (no offense to the many fine individuals living in those countries) rather than a country that assumes that it is a global leader and superpower.

      disclosure: I don’t like Trump politically or personally, wouldn’t have voted for him in 2016 and don’t think he was a very good president. Better than Obama for sure, probably better on average than Biden but that’s a very low bar.

      Neither party is sending their best into the races.

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      1. Nobody has been able to name the underlying felony. And unfortunately, Trump made yet another hiring mistake and found a lawyer who has not been able to deliver this message in court. Instead, the trial became an arena for the absolutely moronic denials that he had sex with the prostitute at all. As a result, the jury saw the issue as: if he had sex with the prostitute, he’s guilty. Juries need a simple, easy framing. The Trump defense did not provide it. Yes, Alvin Bragg is a political hack. But Trump did everything to self-sabotage.

        None of which denies the fact that there’s no underlying felony.

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    1. To be fair, the fight had always been to let convicted felons get jobs AFTER they’ve paid their dues. Nobody wants them to have the the top power in the country without having paid for the crime. That’s how you get Netanyahu and perpetual wars.

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  6. Martin Armstrong –
    “Trump found guilty in NYC – as expected”:
    https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/rule-of-law/trump-found-guilty-in-nyc-as-expected/

    It’s the “as expected” part, of course, along with the financial angles and the takes on historical “conspiracy”, that make this more interesting.

    So …

    Here’s a scenario for you: you go on with Business As Usual despite finding theft and corruption … and then what happens?

    More entrenched, more brazen?

    Or more litigious, knowing that the rule of law means nothing when you can get a corrupt judge and an envious jury to bleed or bankrupt you, in addition to becoming subject to “being run out by a process” as Gil Scott-Heron once put it?

    Not like it didn’t happen once to me already, and Federal law didn’t protect me from the damage caused by a state and a city, as I was entirely within the law but had been made a target of the administrative state.

    Clearly Donald John Trump is gulity of the Gedankenstraftat … clearly, in a manner that only K in “The Trial” and “The Castle” could model.

    Trump’s done “The Trial”, next comes “The Castle”? Real life parodying literature indeed.

    Well, perhaps I too would like to engage in willing violation of Federal law …

    What’s one where they just kick you out? 8 USC 1481(a)(4)?

    Oooh, so tempting, it’s like that Mojo Nixon “black mark” on my “permanent record” that’ll follow me for the rest of my life.

    And I thought they were joking about High School Is Forever in the US …

    Funny thing is that this would likely put an abrupt halt on this kind of potential unlimited random state persecution personal legal liability bullshit in the future …

    So why does Trump need to be that most odd thing, an American Saviour?

    That’s the thing that’s interesting to me.

    Letting the bureaucratic tyranny burn itself out? Is that even an option?

    So if Trump had moved outside the US, would the legalistic Trump Derangement Syndrome people have followed him?

    Answers to this last one do have some measure of applicability to the present situation …

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  7. I thought the main crime was using the campaign funds for an illicit purpose/personal gain, is this not accurate?

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    1. OK, when are we going to prosecute the rest of them? Do you think other presidential campaigns have run such a tight ship, that nothing sketchy could be found in their receipts? This prosecution will have been WELL worth it, if it leads to auditing EVERY campaign’s finances and prosecuting everybody.

      Or do we only prosecute for that, when the Dems are running a braindead zombie, and they’re afraid he’ll lose to anybody who looks actually alive?

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      1. …to be clear: this is a classic example of rules for thee but not for me. We’re all gonna tacitly agree that we have so many rules that everybody is guilty of something– probably a lot of somethings– but that we will not attempt to enforce those rules until we need to get you out of the way.

        The right answer is to rationalize and simplify the laws, tax codes, etc. so that they are easily understandable by a person of average intelligence, and then enforce them the way we’re supposed to: everyone is equal under the law.

        Prosecute everyone who violates the law, or prosecute noone. It’s not OK to selectively prosecute your political enemies.

        This whole “I don’t like you, let’s find out where you tripped up” thing is not justice. Equality under the law, however imperfect in practice, is one of the things that has made America a good place to live, for so long. Any time you cheer on the violation of that principle, whether it benefits your side or someone else’s, you’re cheering on the destruction of the US as a functional, livable country.

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      2. Campaign violation laws are prosecuted on the federal level. Alvin Bragg is a Manhattan DA. What he was prosecuting in the Trump case is only what’s in his purview , and the list of charges reflects that.

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          1. That’s precisely the question. Bragg argued – and I kid you not – that he doesn’t need to specify or prove the underlying felony. The jury can just assume that it’s there and it can be anything from a list of several things. Once the jury was told that (and the judge shockingly allowed it to stand), the verdict was guaranteed.

            This cannot possibly stand up on appeal because it’s simply not what the law says. The judge messed up in a big way. I wouldn’t even blame the jury because how are they supposed to know these legal complexities that most people can’t understand?

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            1. He didn’t mess up. He did exactly as he was told.

              Denninger reports that the judge disallowed testimony on the fact that “this sort of situation has come before the FEC, and they’ve ruled that in fact there is no “corruption” of an election by a candidate who seeks to bury that information — whether they succeed or not and therefore there was no underlying and required predicate crime.”

              He reports on it in typical vulgar and cranky fashion here:

              https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=251397

              and I am sympathetic to his… unsympathetic arguments.

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        2. …and dang. I was hoping we could get *something* positive out of this. We’re seriously just pretending that state-level paperwork violations involving a known embezzler (who is not being prosecuted?) are a federal crime? The NPR list is darkly hilarious. Trump is guilty of… receipts? I have seriously never seen anyone found guilty (or not-guilty!) of a piece of evidence before. Usually they list a specific violation of a specific law in that slot, no? I would really like to see a clear explanation of that by a legal expert. It doesn’t make any sense to me.

          I note this is Trump’s biggest fundraising event ever.

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          1. We hear a lot about the 37 counts of the indictment like there were 37 serious crimes committed but people aren’t even trying to look at the text of these counts helpfully provided by the known far-right outlet NPR. Truly, the crime of the century has met its just rewards. Wrong paperwork was filed! Stop the presses! Democracy is in peril because paperwork must be correct at all times or its fascism, Nazism, and dictatorship combined.

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              1. IMO that’s a stellar argument for abolishing the IRS and streamlining the tax code.

                If you can go to jail for overpaying your taxes, because you put the wrong number in the wrong box… then there’s something wrong with the law.

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          1. Awesome! When are we going to start prosecuting Democrat candidates for campaign finance violations involving laundering money from foreign governments?

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    2. Somebody kindly left the list of charges earlier in the thread. There’s nothing about the violation of campaign laws. It’s all about falsified business records. The 37 charges are different records that were falsified. But that is a misdemeanor per se. It only becomes a felony if the records were falsified to conceal a felony.

      And now the important question: what was that felony? Mind you, that original felony was not even charged, let alone explained to the jury.

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      1. That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to explain here. This is a misdemeanor with an expired statute of limitations. And the big question is, if there was an underlying felony, why was it never charged? If there were any sort of proof, it would be charged, right? Why wasn’t it?

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        1. As for the argument that “Trump was always a crook and we know it from his past settlements”, it’s a prized feature of the American justice system that prior bad acts should have no impact on how the existing charges are adjudicated. Especially, prior acts of which nobody was found legally guilty. People should be judged only on what they are specifically accused of in this specific trial. “He’s an icky person and I don’t like him” has no place in a court of law.

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          1. “the argument that “Trump was always a crook and we know it”

            I’m reminded of a scene from a Mexican movie (el patrullero) about an idealistic young man who joins the highway patrol…

            In training one teacher says “Siempre hay infraccion! Si ustedes siguen un vehiculo en la carretera primero lo detienen y luego le buscan infraccion!”

            (There’s always an infraction! if you’re following a vehicle on the highway first stop it and then look for the infraction!).

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            1. In what concerns paperwork, the only people who are not guilty of messing it up in some way and at some point, are the illiterate. But then, somebody surely messed it up on their behalf.

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