Trump's NY Crimes Are Garden Variety

The Media Handwringing Over the Charges Are Wrong

Donald Trump, former president of little accomplishment, has been charged with crimes that are garden variety campaign contribution violations. The Media “concerns” with the charges are misplaced.

Trump has been accused of falsifying business records, normally a misdemeanor in NY. He approved and wrote checks to Michael Cohen to reimburse him for payments that Cohen paid to Stormy Daniels, aka Clifford, in order to suppress her story about her affair with Trump when she was 27 and he was 60. This was shortly after Karen McDougall’s claimed one year affair with Trump, she the 1998 Playmate of the Year.

There is a recorded meeting in the Oval Office between Trump and Cohen confirming the reimbursement agreement.

Trump didn’t want the Stormy Daniels affair story or the McDougall affair story to become public knowledge as he thought they would cause him to lose votes in the 2016 election. This was right after the famous Access Hollywood tape release where Trump boats of kissing women without permission and in grabbing their genitals. Pussygate it should be called.

So, Trump gets his fixer, Cohen, to pay Daniels from Cohen’s own money, and then Trump agrees to reimburse Cohen through payment of phony invoices sent by Cohen to Trump for “legal fees.” There is the falsification of business records charge as the Cohen invoices and Trump payment for what was described as legal fees was actually reimbursement to Cohen for the Daniels’ hush money payments.

Trump also got his buddy David Pecker, then head of the National Enquirer, to pay McDougall $150,000 to catch and kill her Trump affair story. This was in reality a campaign contribution to Trump by again suppressing a story that could lower Trump’s 2016 vote. Pecker’s payment to McDougall was an illegal campaign contribution over the individual limit. Pecker also paid a doorman at Trump Tower $30,000 to kill a story that Trump fathered an undeclared child out of wedlock.

So, the falsification of the Trump payments to Cohen were the falsification of business records under NY law.

The reimbursements to Cohen, made after Trump was in the White House in 2017, were the same type of arrangements in garden variety corporation payments of bonuses to employees who are then expected to make campaign contributions to the employer’s candidate. Then there are payments made to spouses and children to get around the limits on campaign contributions. And there are payments to business partners to get around campaign funding limits for one partner. Of course, there are many other campaign funding schemes.

These campaign funding schemes are routinely prosecuted for violation of federal campaign finance law. There are NY laws on campaign funding and schemes to get around New York requirements can also be prosecuted.

So Trump’s garden variety campaign funding scheme by reimbursing Cohen is no different from these many other schemes. And those violations of federal and New York political campaign funding limitations are the second crime that fits together with the first crime of alteration of business records to make Trump liable criminally for a felony under New York law.

Any good prosecutor spending time to carefully develop the case and present all the evidence to the jury should have little trouble getting a conviction. Alvin Bragg has twenty years of prosecutorial experience, and he should be able, with his colleagues in the District Attorney office, to present a damning case against Trump.

Trump should start to consider life at SingSing or another fine New York prison.

The prison officials might even give Trump a gold paint sprayed cell to make him comfortable and feeling right at home for a few years. Lock him up!

Next up, Fanni Wilis in Fulton County, Georgia. Indictment 2 for Trump.