Corsair wrote:68Camaro wrote:The hush money trial will continue to add to his popularity. Regardless of what actually happened, him paying off Daniels by means of a lawyer fee out of his personal funds is not a crime. Even CNN commentary is starting to admit that is a biased court and a non crime, and if it was anyone other than Trump no charges would have been filed.
You are correct. It is not a crime.
It's 34 crimes.
I'm honestly surprised. I never thought he'd be found guilty. I thought for sure the defense would be able to peel off at least one juror (this is New York, after all, where getting even 3 people to agree on something takes an act of providence).
Had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine who's a forensic accountant. He's been silent about it, until now, since he didn't want to breach any ethical standards, but Trump's team had tried to hire him before the trial began. So, he reviewed the indictment, the prosecution's discovery, and basically told them "I can't help you, as there's no defense from a forensic accounting perspective. The falsification of business documents is open-and-shut." I wish I knew some criminal defense lawyers though, because I'd love some insights on the felony modifiers. For the misdemeanor stuff, from what I've seen (and from the friend I trust), it seems pretty cut and dry. The felony modifiers though seem really wonky to me though. Probably standard fare for the US justice system of piling on charges knowing you just have to have *something* stick, but they just seem off to me.
In my totally-non-expert opinion, if there's a chance for appeal, it'll be on the felony aspect. The question kind of becomes whether Trump truly wants an appeal granted, as that'll almost definitely mean the DA re-tries it. I guess it'll likely come down to sentencing. I'm guessing maybe a modified house-arrest (at most), but likely just probation. If it's just probation, I don't think Trump and his team will bother with appeals, other than half-assed ones for political theater that they know won't be granted. The judge has already shown a willingness to grant Trump special treatment that no regular citizen would get, so I can't imagine them going with jail at this point. The real wild-card will be Trump's probation officer. I think people don't realize just how much power those guys/gals ultimately wield in regards to people's freedom.
From pure speculation (since I'm on a roll of farting out my brain, with no filter), the PO will likely be annoyed at having high-profile individual, that complicates their daily operations, and will always side with the path of least resistance just to save their own sanity.
"Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool." ~Eliot