Wonder if, in due course, this case will be seen as a worthwhile use of time, money and resources.

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'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

Trumps conviction will just harden opinion in the US. Most Americans see it for what it is, political shennighans.

By all means go after Trump and his accountants for what ia a misdemeanor no one is above the law. However bootstrapping this into electoral interference when they failed to present any evidence is a joke.

If a candidate was accused of stuffing ballot boxed you would expect the prosecution to produce witnesses to the deed.

The only evidence presented in court related to Trump and his accountants not properly recording the hush money pay off. Trumps error was to deny everything. A better strategy would have been to admit the affair and misdemeanor at the start forcing the prosecution then to focus on the Electoral Interference aspect.

It is pure supposition how America would have voted in 2016 had Trump not paid the hush money. Stormy Daniels first made her allegations in 2011 and tried to earn money back then. So any voter who was concerned about the morals of who they voted for could have checked this out if so minded.

Once you strip away the affair and the money what you are left with is a simple question. Should Trump be prosecuted for lying to the electorate about his personal life and does this amount to Electoral interference.

As I said in an earlier post Clinton lied about his affairs and George Bush (to be bi Partisan) lied to the voters he would not raise taxes.

The Electoral interference laws were not designed with this misdemeanor in mind and it would not surprise me if a higher court throws the case out but the Democrats don't care the damage will have been done.

I wouldn't vote for either candidate but this type of political action will cause a re-action the republicans will come gunning for someone.

It's sad when I did politics nearly 50 years ago one of the key differences I noticed between the UK and the USA was that there was far more bi partisanship than Labour and the Tories, that is now long gone.

Edited by Badger11 (01 Jun 2024 7.30am)

One more point

I think you are missing the point. Along with many others!

For sure this will harden opinion, that is undoubtedly true, but not because of it being any kind of “shenanigans”! That’s the bs Trump and his support group constantly drip feed into the public consciousness.

This was election interference and not simply bad, reckless or inappropriate accounting. Just consider this. As a consequence of the actions taken by Cohen the Trump Organisation paid more tax and so did Cohen! Something he was compensated for with an additional payment.

You don’t pay more tax for fun. There must be a reason behind it and that reason, carefully explained and evidenced during the trial, was intended to conceal the payments made to Daniels from scrutiny.

There could only be two reasons for ensuring it remained secret. Either it was to hide it from his family or to hide it from the electorate. These were both considered and the jury decided that the reason was to hide it from the electorate.

Thus election interference as a consequence of the deliberate accounting errors was proven. You don’t have to stuff election boxes to interfere with elections. You can encourage people to try to stop results being ratified, make spurious claims about voting machines or falsify records to conceal things that would damage your reputation.

What others did is irrelevant but Clinton lied whilst President, for which impeachment is the sanction. He was impeached. Making campaign promises that are subsequently unfulfilled is not a crime.

Whether an appellate court finds sufficient errors in law to order a retrial remains to be seen but it’s possible. What they won’t do is disagree with the jury decision. That’s done, and made on the evidence they were given.

The divisiveness is awful. Someone needs to start telling the American people the facts about the rule of law before it gets any worse.

If you watched the way both Trump and Biden made their speeches yesterday you cannot have failed to notice the stark contrast.

Trump was off the cuff, lengthy, terribly repetitive, full of obvious untruths and boring. Biden was prepared, to the point, well reasoned and accurate.

I hope they were noticed by the people.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

It had nothing to do with the legal system. It was about the divisiveness, who is responsible and who is trying to heal it.

The only way I think an appeal court could “throw the case out” would be to refuse to hear it because it was not well founded. If they hear it and decide that a significantly important enough error was made by the Judge in his instructions to the jury then it would be returned to the lower court for remedial action. The most likely of which would seem to be a retrial. Minor errors which the appeal court determines would not have affected the jury decision are ignored. Deciding whether the burden of proof has been achieved is not for any appeal court to determine. That’s the jury’ decision alone.

That though is not the end of Trump’s opportunities to kick the can down the road. He could, and almost certainly would, then issue a writ of habeas corpus, claiming his constitutional rights had been infringed. It would take years to resolve. Rich men can do that.

Edited by Wisbech Eagle (01 Jun 2024 10.17am)

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

That a lot of people have been fooled by Trump’s constant misrepresentation is true, but fooled they have been.

This is a State level prosecution. Neither the DoJ, nor the White House, or the Democratic Party are involved. They would have been scrupulous in ensuring that not only is that true but that nothing exists capable of being presented as being true. The only thing that exists is empty innuendo and prejudice.

The case was brought by the Manhattan District Attorney, who happens to be a Democrat. Which is only to be expected in New York. New York is where the crimes took place, so it was logical for the case to be heard there.

If Trump had decided to retire after 2020, or at least withdraw from politics, then it is perfectly possible that the DA would have decided not to pursue the case on the basis that any harm done could not be undone, no more harm could be done, and so prosecuting was not a good use of public money.

Trump though did not retire. He is offering himself again. In such circumstances the DA seems to have decided the people need to be shown the truth about this candidate and therefore pursuing the case is a worthwhile use of public money.

That’s not a political decision. It’s a responsible one that any decent DA would take, whatever party they belong to themselves, or whoever was the candidate.

I agree.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.