I saw on CNN today an article that said that the only facts that are not pretty well established is that "if trump knew he was signing the fraudulent checks because he was so busy being president, that he might have just been signing everything."

This defense could work pretty well in a vacuum because the intent is pretty hard to prove - and the prosecution needs to show that the fraudulent records (the checks) were signed with the intent. But I think its a pretty stretched argument that 1) trump knew about stormy's deal, 2) Trump knew about the payoff with cohen, 3) Trump was too busy to see what he was signing for the business - and didnt intend to actually pay cohen the deal they made.

Did the defense offer any theory/evidence of what else the checks were for? I have not seen that. While the burden of course is on the prosecution, it’s not apparent what other possibility exists. The timing is bad for Trump: the checks begin fairly soon after the Stormy deal is cut. The checks add up to the amount agreed upon in the Cohen deal. Trump is notoriously cheap and attentive to money — he wouldn’t pay Cohen for no reason at all. He couldn’t have thought that Cohen was paying Stormy with no expectation of reimbursement.

While Trump has no obligation to testify, it is hard to develop an alternative theory of the payment without Trump’s testimony.

Thats why at this point the only real defense I can see is the prosecution not meeting their burden that trump knew what he was signing was tied to the cohen payment, and he was just signing checks for the company.

Obviously this doesnt make any sense because why was trump signing company checks while president/some weird go around to get the checks to trump - while other types of payments were signed by his kids.

He signed checks that allowed Cohen to steal $60K from him so that assertion is down in flames.

The case centers around the falsifying of documents, not the signing of checks.

Yeah, with my best attempt at intellectual honesty given my limited understanding of the facts and the law, I'd like to think we are all pretty sure what was going on. And it's just a matter of how much doubt there is, "pretty sure," not being good enough for a jury. Where the jury will end up - have zero inkling.

Wasn't there a recorded phone conversation with the defendant in which Cohen was assured that he was going to be reimbursed?

---

_________________________________________________
"The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare" - Juma Ikangaa

http://www.litespeed.com

Yeah the recording said something along the lines of "what do we have to do to make this go away, 150?"

Is it just me and my BDS, or was this Costello thing basically a clown-show that will not sway the jury in the Defense's favour?

---

I only swim.
I used to run. (31:09 10k)
I never did Triathlon.
Sue me.

I have covered this before with you: checks are business records. One-third of the counts in the indictment concern the checks.

ETA: see count four, for example.

https://manhattanda.org/...Trump-Indictment.pdf

The fact that Trump overpaid Cohen does not mean Trump would pay Cohen with no idea what the checks were for. It is no surprise that Trump is not matching the checks to Cohen against some vendors’ invoices. So, he got ripped off. There is a big difference between that and a claim that Trump paid Cohen each month with no inquiry as to what the checks were for.

I have never been on a criminal jury, but I cannot see how/why you would bring a single witness for your defense, have that witness say things that were refuted by emails, act like a clown, etc.

Why even bring forth a single witness? I think if I was on a jury, I would question why this was the best I could do for my defense.

Yeah, Trump knew about the deal with Stormy. Indeed, he initiated the whole payoff scheme, as Pecker testified. There are questions about Trump’s knowledge about exactly how the $35,000 checks match up against the Stormy deal. But, it is a stretch to think that Trump thought he was getting the $130k as a freebie from Cohen while simultaneously paying $35,000 per month to Cohen for services that Cohen never rendered.

Yeah, in hindsight, that was a mistake. You can put on no defense and just insist that the prosecution has not met its burden. Once you start putting on a defense, most jurors probably expect you to have some real substance. Given the points the defense scored with Cohen, it sounds like they should have left it there.

I haven’t followed the minutiae of the evidence on the documents, but I’d assume that a halfway competent prosecutor should have been able to construct a coherent and persuasive document trail.

If the remaining issues are Trump’s knowledge and intent, the jury has to evaluate the primary oral evidence (“is this liar lying about this aspect?”) and decide whether it can draw the required inferences as to what Trump knew and intended from the documents and the oral evidence.

Trump’s lawyers’ decision to keep him out of the box is no doubt wise and one of the easiest they will ever have to make. But it does mean that if the jury is convinced by the prosecution case, the one person whose direct evidence could dispel that certainty is kept silent.

Not really calling any other substantial evidence after five weeks of prosecution evidence can be very smart, but is also very risky. In hindsight they will either be lauded as geniuses or derided as incompetent (which I really doubt they are).

For arguments sake, what is the outcome of 1) trump knowing of the scheme, 2) knowing cohen paid it off, 3) knowing about the retainer agreement - but not planning on paying it (something similar to Pecker), 4) Trump just signing anything in front of him because he is too busy.

Coudlnt that defense just be that he didnt know what he was signing that he meant to skirt the campaign finance laws but not the fraudulent documents side of things.

OK, we've heard all the evidence and all that remains are the closing arguments.
So...

PLACE YOUR BETS! PLACE YOUR BETS!

Guilty on all counts
Guilty on some counts
Not Guilty on all counts

Sum up your prognostication however you want, but what do you think is the outcome?

I'm going with guilty on some counts.

I think there's too much there on paper, texts, emails, phone logs, (especially Exhibit 35), etc., for him to completely skate on this.

That all seems basically right. They are in the courtroom and, unlike us, can get some read on the jury.

That hypothetical sounds like an acquittal. Trump was careless with the records, but had no intent/knowledge that they were false.

Really tough to predict. My wild ass guess:

Guilty on the misdemeanors, hung jury on the felonies.

Yeah that is the only real defense I could see being brought up by the defense (which it hasnt).

But that would somewhat be negated by the weird back channel through the body guard to get these invoices instead of just having the trump org take care of them.

But I think the book keeper said she would send checks like once a week to the body guard, I dont think we know the substance of all those checks. But it would be really strange to have the work around for things that dont really matter - while president.

My wild guess is: Not guilty on all accounts, and it comes out 20 years from now that one of Trump's underlings had a pressure campaign against one of the juror's family

Mr. Ike, I respect your opinions quite a bit, but I have to ask: do you think there was *anything* that would have convinced Trump's lawyers to allow him to testify? The jurors could have been holding up torches and pitchforks while yelling "hang him!" and they wouldn't have allowed Trump to take the stand. "Reading the jury" really had nothing to do with it, as the decision was made well before this trial was convened.

---

----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"

By all accounts the shit show with Costello’s testimony was a product of Trump overruling his attorneys. I don’t see how his own testimony would be any different, if he really wanted to take the stand. He’ll do what he wants.

And what he wanted to do was bluster about taking the stand and then not take the stand. He’s a lot of things but he has a healthy fear of prison and likely recognized the jeopardy his testimony would introduce.

It’s not like his credibility would take a hit for saying one thing then doing another.

---

The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W