The trial of the century has finished, and we are still no wiser as to what the crime was. More importantly, neither is Donald Trump.
Was it paying hush money? No, this is not a crime. Indeed Non-Disclosure Agreements – NDAs – are legally binding agreements, and are not illegal in any way at all.
Keeping the payments secret? No, that is the whole purpose of an NDA. And politicians hide their dirty washing all the time.
Recording the payments in his company’s accounts as “legal expenses”? No, even if they were wrongly classified (which they weren’t), such a bookkeeping error in the U.S. would be only a misdemeanour, not a felony, for which the Statute of Limitations expired years ago.
Not declaring it as a campaign expense during the 2016 election? No, that would be a federal offence, which a New York court would have no jurisdiction over.
According to the charge sheet, the offence was Falsifying Business Records. This sounds serious, maybe forging invoices and the like. In fact, it was nothing of the sort, and the charge was merely allegedly wrongly recording payments to lawyers as “legal expenses” in Trump’s business accounts.
The prosecution made absolutely no attempt to prove that it was wrong to do so. They never called an expert witness to the stand, such as an accountant or financial regulator, to provide specialist advice on the topic. Instead, the jury was deliberately deceived into believing it must automatically be illegal.
Businesses, of course, are always paying out for NDAs. They are regarded as legitimate business expenses, and whether they are classified as legal expenses, administration or other items is immaterial.
As already noted, even if these payments were wrongly categorised in the bookkeeping, it was still only a misdemeanour. In order to upgrade the alleged offence to a felony, for which the Statute of Limitations has not expired, the DA Alvin Bragg attempted to bootstrap it to another crime. Legal scholars have called this a ‘novel legal theory’ – in other words, it has never been tested in court before.
The NY statute states that a misdemeanour, such as falsifying business records, becomes a felony if it is done with an intent to commit or conceal another crime. It is easy to see why this novel theory has never been used. If a defendant has already been punished for another crime, this would mean him being punished twice for the same crime.
So, what was this other crime? At no stage during the trial was any evidence put forward to establish this, nor were Trump or his attorneys informed as to what it might be. It is a fundamental right under the U.S. Constitution that a defendant be told exactly what crimes he is being accused of and given full sight of the evidence to be used against him. This did not happen.
In fact, we had to wait until the judge’s instructions to the jury at the end of the trial to learn that he had two possible crimes in mind:
- Tax Evasion
- Violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act
Mysteriously, the judge did not even know himself which it might be. Instead, he told the jurors they must find Trump guilty, even if they only believed he had committed another crime, regardless of the absence of evidence.
As already pointed out, NDAs are legally accepted as legitimate business expenses, and are recorded as such by businesses all the time. There is therefore no possibility of tax evasion.
Indeed, the Internal Revenue Service – the IRS – has never challenged the tax treatment of Trump’s hush money payments, never mind actually taken legal action over them.
Moreover, at no point during the trial did the prosecution attempt to dispute this, nor call expert witnesses on the topic. As the defence were not notified of this accusation, they were also unable to challenge it.
As for the FECA, the Federal Election Commission had already investigated the hush money payments and had ruled that they did not violate the Act. Indeed, Trump’s lawyers wanted to put an expert witness on the stand, Brad Smith, a former chairman of the FEC, who had also already made clear that no violation occurred.
This of course would have blown the prosecution’s case out of the water. The judge, Juan Merchan, refused to allow Smith to give evidence on this crucial issue. Nor did he allow the defence to call tax experts. I think that tells us all we need to know about his complicity with the prosecution. It is clear that he was working closely with the prosecution team from the start to get the verdict they all wanted.
Again, the prosecution made no attempt during the trial to prove that any crime had been committed with regard to Federal Election law.
As if to highlight the whole absurdity of the case, the hush money was paid in 2017, the year after the election. Quite how a payment made in 2017 could influence an election the year before is a mystery!
Most legal experts believe that the guilty judgement will certainly be overturned on appeal because there were so many reversible errors during the trial. But that appeal will probably not be heard before the election. Until then Donald Trump will be labelled a felon before the American public, which of course was always the object of the exercise.
It was evident from the start that this was a political show trial. Alvin Bragg had even won election as DA with a promise to “get Trump”. The judge was not selected at random, as is usually the case. Instead, he was hand-picked because of his known anti-Trump views. His donations both to Biden and the Stop Republicans campaign should have led to his immediate recusal.
His bias was evident for all to see when he refused to allow testimony from a defence witness, Bob Costello, a senior lawyer who had already testified under oath to Congress providing evidence that Michael Cohen had lied during his testimony earlier in the trial. Cohen, a convicted perjurer, was the prosecution’s key witness.
He also failed to intervene during the prosecution’s summing up, when the lawyer wrongly claimed that hush money payments were a breach of Federal Election law.
And despite their denials, it is clear that the White House was directing this operation. The number three at the Department of Justice, Matthew Colangelo, conveniently took leave of absence and by coincidence popped up as lead prosecutor in New York!
The charges could have been brought in 2017 or any time after. Instead, they were delayed until Trump had announced he was running for office again.
All of these controversies are the subject of serious debate in the U.S., particularly amongst legal scholars. But astonishingly, here in Britain the media almost to a man has ignored them all and instead lazily assumed that Trump must have committed a crime.
Naturally Republicans are up in arms at what they see as lawfare and election interference. But, significantly, RFK Jr., son of Bobby Kennedy, who is also running for President as an independent candidate, has slammed the guilty verdict as “profoundly undemocratic”.
Meanwhile Donald Trump faces jail time for a bookkeeping error.
Further Reading:
- Telegraph – William Jacobson, Professor Of Law at Cornell University.
- Politico
- MSN
- MSN
- CNN
- Alina Habba
Paul Homewood has a long career as an accountant in industry, and has also written extensively about climate and energy policy matters.
Stop Press: Michael Shellenberger has delivered his verdict on Trump’s conviction, every bit as withering as Paul Homewood’s.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
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Getting jabbed is your personal medical decision, having researched the facts in the light of your personal condition, Doing it just to travel, if that was the case, is a foolish risk, as well as a collaboration with medical tyranny.
There are no proven medical grounds that would begin to justify a decision to play Russian Roulette by injecting these very dangerous gene altering products and of course the more people play the more chance they have of winning the main prize, early death. All of this, without even taking into account the strong likelihood that these “vaccines” contain graphene oxide a nano-material which is all by itself a highly toxic substance when injected into the body.
Which vaccines are you talking about?
The mRNA vaccines do not alter any genetic material in the body. The AZ vaccine inserts some DNA into a few cells which soon die.
None of the vaccines in use contain graphene oxide. Here is a list of ingredients for the mRNA vaccines. A list for AstraZeneca is here. The confusion may arise because apparently (I just looked it up) GO already has a wide range of medical applications and modified GO may be a suitable adjuvant for vaccines in the future.
Sure.
Presumably that is ironic and you don’t believe me. What are your sources of information?
PS. ADE is back on the table, I see.
“Getting there was relatively easy. The wife and I are double jabbed – I know some people think we have sold our souls by doing this, but if it means I can take my wife and kids to Poland to see the family, then to me it is a small price to pay.”
Nope sorry. I don’t care how lovely your holiday was if you had to take a medical treatment/test you didn’t really want or need in order to go. Load of bollocks. It’s people like this who claim to be against the new normal but happily go along with it when it suits them that are preventing us from going back to normal.
Perhaps that seems harsh that I’m blaming the true sceptics closest allies rather than our enemies for the enduring mess, but if we can’t convince these people not to comply then who can we?
Sadly, Toby is one of these near collaborators! As Satan knows, the route to Hell is paved with ‘small’ concessions!
This is true. I feel like Toby et al were way too naive in their optimism that the jabs would save us all and allow life to go back to normal.
To a lesser degree I also feel others were wayyy too hasty to get the jab at the first available opportunity and are now regretting it – some are just taking this on a chin as a personal misjudgment whilst some are spitefully turning on the “hesitants” with the attitude “well I had to get it and take the risks so why shouldn’t you”.
It was obvious from early on in 2020 that the supposedly yet to be invented jabs were the raison d’être of the Coronabollox. It’s been equally clear for almost as long, that the jabs have nothing to with preventing or ameliorating a respiratory infection, that was previously known as flu.
Very hard to get yourself unjabbed. There is no point though, in these reckless souls compounding their initial uninformed stupidity and going for the kill shots, rather quaintly called boosters.
And it’s almost certainly not ‘a small price to pay’!
The author is mentally deranged. The price for himself and family will almost certainly be premature death.
Virtue signalling is no more attractive than Covid mania.
Anyone with family abroad has a pragmatic decision to make, which decision is thrust upon them. I can’t blame anyone in that position risking the jab against the certainty that their refusal would make f. all difference in the face of true belief, and mean only that they wouldn’t see family.
Yes, I was just drafting a reply on the same lines. My Mrs and I are not jabbed and have no intention of being, at least not for any non-medical reason. Even if we were, I think we’d refuse to show any kind of passport using that status. We’ve never been tested either, but if push came to shove and my wife felt she needed to visit her very close family abroad, she would get tested and if she wanted me to support her on the trip then I would too. If it’s your close flesh and blood, you do what you need to do. I would like to think we could avoid having to get jabbed to do it, so far that seems to be the case with most countries – additional restrictions but you can still travel just with a test. Getting the jab would be a harder decision. I wouldn’t like to say what we’d decide. If you have a mother who might die before you see her again, what would people do?
My widowed (sceptic and unjabbed) mother lives abroad. We were lucky enough to visit her for a few weeks at the start of the summer so she could spend some long-overdue time getting to know her newest grandson. At the end of our stay we said our goodbyes knowing that it might possibly be the last time we see each other in person if these vaccine passports stop us from travelling abroad. If she gets seriously ill/dies in the future and I can only travel by taking the jabs, then she’s happy that I remain unjabbed and protect my life and future for my son. It would break my heart not to be there for her, but my Mum has a great saying that sums up this decision perfectly: “Your health is all you have, so take care of it”.
Fair point that relatives would have a view on this. Every situation is different and when it comes to your flesh and blood, especially the woman that bore you for 9 months and brought you up, I would not judge anyone.
I’m not sure where you are going with this one. On the basis of what you saying, we might as well all get the jab and be done with it.
Fairly soon though, we will all be facing intense pressure to conform and get ourselves jabbed. Resisting such pressure is the only chance we have of coming through this mess alive. So absolutely nothing justifies the risk these very foolish people have taken in their decision to collaborate with the psychopaths who are running this shit show.
I think where I was going is that there are degrees of pressure and situation and each one is different. I have chosen to remain unvaxxed but it has been an easy choice for me, so far. It is less easy for others. I can have a view on what circumstances I regard as reasonable to give in under, but it’s easy for me to have that view.
Yes there are currently many different forms and levels of pressure, which will affect us as individuals in different ways. However, that is just for now and I very much expect that all of these various pressures will fairly soon merge in terms of increasing severity, as we head inevitably towards a world of near vaccine compulsion, then forced vaccination and internment/elimination.
Covid always was simply cover for the introduction of a grotesque form of totalitarianism. In this very bleak but realistic scenario, there is no option “to give in” and survive in any meaningful way. Giving in means that they will have won and the transhumanised world that is planned for those few that survive the vaccines and other experiments will not be worth inhabiting. Resistance to the very end is then the only option.
It’s fairly obvious where I’m going, and the corollary you make is indeed nonsense (“we might as well all get the jab and be done with it”)
I have had no jabs (despite the urging of some – even on this site – who have fallen for the ‘vulnerable’ trope). Most of my acquaintances and family (largely sceptical, but unconvinced of the anti-jab arguments) have – for mistaken but genuine motives.
My resistance has had absolutely no effect, except in terms of making some others think and question their decision as more data has emerged. The issue is separate from that of compulsion and coercion, and from the wider issues about the imposition of pointless and totalitarian NPIs.
Cutting your own and your family’s throat is a totally pointless gesture – aka ‘virtue signalling’ – when the vast majority are willingly taking the jab, and totally unaware of the reasons why it’s not benign.
I don’t believe in confusing pyrrhic battles with heroism.
To be fair the chap obviously wanted to see his family in Poland, also no mention was made of the kids having the jabs.
We don’t know all his personal circumstances that meant that he had to visit his home country, so please don’t condemn him.
I have now returned to my home in Thailand and I REFUSE to have the jabs. I have paid over 550 quid for the RT-PCR tests to enable me to go to the Uk and return here. I am currently in 15 day quarantine at a cost of 1500 quid – alot of money as I am sure you will agree.
I am single so although i have taken a fnancial hit it has at least been doable.
It could be said why bother to return to the UK for a holiday but after 3 years i was desperate to see friends and what family i have got left.
“…unlike in the U.K., where if you choose not to wear a mask you are looked at with a mixture of disdain, smugness, disgust and pity,”
I cannot second that statement at all, to the contrary, and I have never worn a mask in the UK.
Maybe those looks were due to other factors?
yes, the author is talking bollox.
Some people do this, although, by now, they’ve pretty retreated to lurking in dark corners of M&S and Waitrose stores. 🙂
I still see quite a few masked up zombies in the local Co-op. Mainly older people, more particularly older men. What a set of tossers they are.
Life is even more back to normal in those regards in the UK, if you want it to be, live that way and ignore the MSM.
Much better than continental fascist hellholes like Germany, Austria, France or Italy, that’s for sure, and not just for the unvaxxed.
So far!
Small price to pay? You don’t even know what the price is yet. You got coerced my guy.
He just bought a lemon, but it was discounted!
….unlike in the U.K., where if you choose not to wear a mask you are looked at with a mixture of disdain, smugness, disgust and pity, the Poles respect your decision and leave it at that.
In the UK, for me at least, more or less the opposite applies and I view the masked with disdain and disgust, but without smugness and hardly any pity. These people, whether they know it or not, are complicit in the criminal activities of governments, Big Pharma and the clique of psychopathic oligarchs who are closely allied to the WHO and the WEF.
I am loathe to criticise the author for having the jabs and that he considers it a price worth paying to see his family. At the end of the day it is about having the freedom to choose and to make our personal decisions without fear or favour. Have the vaccine, don’t have the vaccine, just as long as we are all allowed to go about our business totally unhindered whatever we choose to do. I do not have family that live in other countries but I can understand the different decision making processes of those that do.
Indeed. It seems at times the comments section is at risk of becoming an extension of Life of Brian, with people deriding others for holding sceptical opinions of the lockdowns but taking the vaccine. There is that almost constant undertone of being labelled a ‘splitter’.
It is simply an individual choice. One can choose their fights with the Establishment, with the system or with proponents of lockdowns, anyhow they please. Plenty of people wore Nazi badges yet worked to undermine the system. There are bigger challenges.
PS great choice of username.
I am puzzled as to why any sceptic would take the vaccine on medical grounds as I have not found any reliable data which would allow me to decide the benefits outweighed the risks. But it’s their choice and I would not deride anyone for it.
What I would “deride” people for is thinking that getting jabbed is a small price to pay for going on holiday, going to a nightclub, watching football, approving of vaccine coercion and propaganda or passports, using their vaccine status to gain access to things denied to the non-vaxxed, any support for vaxxing children or the young, and being generally naive about the motivations behind mass vaccinations from governments or big pharma. I personally think that the vaccines should never have been approved under the emergency use license so the whole program is an abomination.
If people are forced into a corner with regard to seeing close family, or their job, I again would not deride anyone for that.
That is the rub of it. Knowing I will not see my friends or family abroad again has wavered my commitment to being unjabbed, untested and unmasked. It’s not as though I or many others can expect to wait it out. This is it.
But this also doesn’t make me hate the powers that be any less or subdue my desire to see them all rounded up and blown to kingdom come – it entirely reinforces it.
I will get back at these politicians and public ‘health’ officials and associated criminals the way I want to. Millions will do the same. The Soviet Union was rotted out from the inside by many who complied with the system but dragged it down through an enormous black market, satire and underground networks linking dissidents and spreading their messages. The same will happen to China and it’s cronies in the West.
I think we should all resist as much as we can and avoid being overly critical of others who resist less, while encouraging them to resist as best they can given the circumstances
I am puzzled as to why any sceptic would take the vaccine on medical grounds..
Puzzling it will remain, though likely much more so.
My sense is that most of England is almost back to normal now.
Am in North Yorkshire currently and other than some people choosing to wear masks you would hardly remember Covid exists. I do not wear one and nobody has scowled at me. Many other people do not wear them either. Traffic during the day also seems to be at normal levels and I even saw a completely full bus earlier.
I agree that Central London very much feels a ghost town currently. This is because the so called professional middle classes are choosing to work on zoom and are not venturing to offices or riding on trains to get to them. But the real world very much seems to be getting on with life in most of England.
My son travels into Manchester working days. From what he says it very much mirrors central London in its ghostliness.
Also because London is missing its tourists and temporary residents from overseas, although they seem to be trickling back now.
It will remain a trickle.
On the tube in central London on Saturday at least no ghost town. Piccadilly station was like ..well you know
I was in North Yorkshire a couple of weeks ago, and was much heartened by the lack of masks outdoors. Nor did I see any undue antagonism.
But no, things are not back to normal when hospitality businesses feel compelled to continue with ‘optional’ restrictions, whatever they personally feel, and you have, in many cases, to queue before entering an eating place (although I was heartened to see pubs with barriers being spurned for the open alternative).
I’ll suspend judgement until the autumn rise in infections is well underway.
No new normal?
Have to be jabbed or tested to get in. Have to wear a mask in airports hotels and big establishments. And by the sounds of it plenty of masks around, albeit not much peer pressure.
No new normal? Have we really forgotten what normal is?
The most I would concede to these maniacs running the world is to wear a mask on a plane and be tested and quarantined, and that only if I absolutely had no alternative but to travel abroad. To get jabbed simply for a holiday smacks of collaboration to me.
I live in an upscale hi-rise whose main appeal is the Club Level with its pool, spa, gym, outside patio and lounges. All are off-limits to the unjabbed.
My teen daughter is desperate to attend normal in-person school where they have now banned the unjabbed.
All of my extended family is abroad and off limits to the unvaxxed.
My livelihood is a business located in an overseas territory that is now off-limits to the unjabbed.
Still not complying.
Medical info is private have you considered just lying?
all the above require vaxx cards/certificates. (i also forgot to add bars, restaurants, etc also off limits)
Anywhere that requires a certificate of stupidity is obviously not worth the bother.
Principles are principles, well done.
In all other settings, masks are not worn and, unlike in the U.K., where if you choose not to wear a mask you are looked at with a mixture of disdain, smugness, disgust and pity, the Poles respect your decision and leave it at that.
Sorry, but that’s just a crap – I never wore a mask since day one where I live and never once have I been looked at in disgust or pity etc. In fact everyone has been very good about it – mind you, my exemption card helped a bit I suppose? A friend of mine in Spain told me that he wished he was over here in Britain at the height of the covid paranoia that swept Spain – over there people were locked up in their homes for weeks at a time without knowing when it would end and the reaction of the Spanish public to anyone who went out anywhere without wearing a mask was like going out without your trousers on. Im open to any criticism of the British public reaction to covid – but I think the above is just very unjust.
I’ve never worn a mask and have never been harassed about it, other than by a masked up and visored old lady in the local park café. She shut up when I told her that she wasn’t entitled to know why I was bare-faced. I don’t have an exemption card and nor do I want one.
The new normal is not normal. Please support: COVID19 Assembly take legal action against MHRA to halt child vaccinations – https://www.LCAHub.org/
To those who take the injection in order to fit in, to avoid ostracisation, to cave to peer pressure, or from a misguided belief that it’s their path to freedom & travel – I say they are weak in mind, body & spirit. I pity them. Including an increasing number of close friends and my own family.
The jabby jab is a train you shall never get off. Boosters for life. You either sacrifice your future for a present, or you sacrifice your present in order to have a future. I choose the latter.
I will not convert to the new normal ideology. I will not submit. I will not break. I will not give up on trying to reach those in the throes of the mass delusional psychosis.
Being double jabbed with experimental gene therapy is NOT a small price to pay. Legally and clinically it is NOT a vaccine.
“The wife and I are double jabbed – I know some people think we have sold our souls by doing this”
If ‘some’ people are right then you have sold your souls and they will be reaped shortly. The problem is no one can believe it’s possible that our leaders could commit genocide because this is the West. I think we should assume the worst in the unprecedented climate of coercion and force. I’d rather not take the chance for a holiday – hoping to be one of the
survivorsslaves they’ll need to do the work. I’d prefer to fight but unless the majority awaken it would be pointless suicide.