Love to see him locked up, but what actually is the crime here? Of all the things Trump has done wrong, this is the only one I couldn't figure out. Where's the actual crime? He had sex with someone, and he paid them not to bang on about it? Am I missing something?
Well for one, it is a campaign finance violation. Political donations need to be tracked. If Trump spent money to keep Stormy Daniels from talking, then that would benefit his campaign, and the hush money would be considered a campaign donation (which in this case wasn't declared).
The prosecutors may also be looking into how Trump actually paid her. He may not have paid the hush money out of his own pocket, but from the Trump organization. Depending on how the payment was structured within the organization, it might have been done illegally (since there are rules about how businesses can move money around. I don't think "payment to a
**** star I banged" would be considered a legitimate business expense.)
Overall, it should be a pretty easy case to make. After all, this was one of the things that his former lawyer Cohen was sent to jail for (not to mention that they have Trump's signature on a cheque.) Although I am surprised that of all the legal problems Trump is facing, this case seems closest to indictment, since things like the investigation into theft of classified documents or the Georgia election case seemed to be further along.
And of all the things that Trump has done, this seems like a pretty small thing to prosecute him over. But still... he broke the law. If Cohen deserved jail for it, then Trump does too. And hopefully it will open a floodgate of charges from other jurisdictions all trying to get a piece of Trump. And frankly, after all the setbacks/disappointments we've had regarding Trump's criminal history, I'd be happy to see him brought to court for, well, ANYTHING at this point.
- Bragg went against his prosecutors in deciding not to pursue criminal fraud charges
- Republicans allowed Trump a free pass over his attempts to blackmail Ukraine and over his support of terrorism in 2 impeachments
- Muller failed to recognize the lack of integrity of the GOP over his investigation into Russian election interference (he documented various crimes Trump could have been charged with, but he assumed republicans would do the right thing. They didn't, and as a result Trump wasn't charged over any of it.)
- His tax fraud, Trump University and Trump Foundation crimes were all treated as civil cases, so no jail time possible
- His delay tactics managed to see him avoid any sort of repercussions over emoluments over his washington DC hotel.
- The Georgia election case could see indictments, but the process there seems to be sloooow (with one grand jury hearing evidence but only making recommendations that another grand jury will have to consider)
- Garland seemed to be overly-cautious in dealing with Trump's document theft. Fortunately he brought in Jack Smith, who seems to be a lot more...aggressive. Unfortunately it seems like they may try to merge the document case with an election interference case (which might slow things down since they will have to wait until both cases are ready for prosecution.)
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