Is this really about TDS or is it simply a complete difference in how some are viewing the law?
I must confess. Reading Andrew McCarthy, Jonathan Turley, Alan Dershowitz, and others in my legal blogroll there is a lot of consistency in how they are viewing this case. I rely a lot on people who generally seem to dispassionately discuss the laws regardless of their personal opinion and that makes be believe that they are better explaining the law and how things are really going in the New York Trump Trial. Do they always provide the opinion that you want to hear? Nope, but better to be an objective legal analyst than a cheerleader for your "side".
But when I read other "legal experts" from places like CNN or MSNBC they rely on much different reasoning. They seem to believe that the prosecution is doing a good job "proving their case" and that they believe the jury will be swayed by the testimony of people like Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen.
So what is the difference?
From what I can understand, these liberal legal analysts seem to believe that the prosecution does not actually have to prove that there was anything actually falsified in the bookkeeping. They seem completely unconcerned that Trump has not been tied to either the invoices/receipts for the payments or the bookkeeping entries. They also seem unconcerned that the bookkeeping entries appear "correct" and not at all falsified. They do not seem to have a problem with the idea that signing a check is a crime that carries three different seven year prison sentence, even if the person signing the check did not create the invoice, create the receipt, fill out the check, or enter the payment into a book.
They seem to believe that if the prosecution can prove that something fishy was going on with all of these NDAs and burying of stories, that the payments to Cohen are simply "falsified" by default. They are buying into the concept that this case is really about the 2016 election rather than what Trump was actually indicted for. In other words, they believe that the underlying charges are somewhat irrelevant to the trial (which is really about other things).
Now obviously McCarthy and Turley have issues with more than just the fact that the underlying indicted charges have not been proven and barely been addressed. They also fail to see the "other crime" and continuously point to the fact that NDAs are not illegal, that burying stories is not illegal, that ultimately these are not campaign contributions much less illegal campaign contributions, and that even if they were, the Manhattan court has no jurisdiction to hold anyone accountable for a potential federal crime. Meanwhile, none of that is of any concern to the liberal legal analysts.
Maybe it is just me. I believe this is wishful prosecution and wishful analysis. That being said, perhaps the jury is not as smart as the legal analysts I read, and more in line with the thinking of the liberal analysts that they otherwise probably read themselves (if they so choose to read anything like that).
Byron York on X: "Am curious about the full meaning of 'at the outset' in this NYTimes story. On the 'other crime' question, does there come a time when Bragg specifically accuses Trump of violating or intending to violate a specific law? The prosecution has finished its case without doing it. https://t.co/Df93eNZdpC" / X (twitter.com)
Victoria Taft reports that Cohen spoke about meeting with Robert Mueller's 17 Angry Democrats.
Very suspiciously, Mueller agreed to drop decades' worth of jail time for Cohen -- if he out-of-nowhere pleaded guilty to campaign finance charges.
Why?
Well, the 17 Angry Democrats were trying to set up a predicate for eventually charging Trump. Cohen's admission to phantom crimes would be that predicate.
The prosecution's case then came down to the testimony of Michael Cohen. Cohen not only admitted to recording Trump without his knowledge or consent, but he said the recordings showed that Trump was actually just following his advice.
"The most important thing about the audiotape is that there was an audiotape. For most lawyers, watching... listening to this tape is, is really an appalling moment. The very idea that an attorney would tape a client without their knowledge or consent just shatters every aspect of professional conduct, but the tape really doesn't offer much," George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow on Monday.
"Like much else in Cohen's testimony, he gives these details of…
My liberal friends are convinced that Trump is going to prison for criminal behavior. They won't be swayed from this.
“That being said, perhaps the jury is not as smart as the legal analysts I read”
What’s the old saying, “Do you want your future dependent on 12 people to stupid too get out of jury duty?”