Important history behind the current DJT hush money lawsuit

The bottom line: Trump and his justice department corrupted and subverted the federal hush money lawsuit. They obstructed justice. This case should have been tried long ago in federal court, not years later in New York state court.

Summary & commentary: The DoJ asked NY state prosecutors to not proceed against Trump while they could charge him in federal court. Later NY state and the rest of the world found out that the DoJ had been corrupted. Then, the NY state prosecution started. Once again, Trump managed to escape justice. And Merrick Garland refused to do anything about it. Bill Barr should have been prosecuted for obstruction of justice. But again, Garland apparently does nothing to fix the vast damage that Trump and Barr did to the DoJ. At this point, Garland should be prosecuted for felony obstruction of justice to protect Trump and his authoritarian DoJ thugs.

Two experts opine on the strength of the case (paywalled link):

Interviewer: Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, claims that Trump falsely recorded the hush money payments as “legal expenses.” Falsifying business records is ordinarily only a misdemeanor, but the D.A. is claiming that Trump falsified records with the intent to commit other crimes or conceal other crimes, including state and federal campaign finance violations, state tax crimes and the falsification of other business records. If he falsified business records to aid in the commission of these other crimes, then Trump could be guilty of a felony.

When the case was filed, legal analysts from across the political spectrum voiced concern about the case, mainly on legal grounds. I have expressed my own doubts about the case. Now that the trial is underway, what’s your assessment of the case today?

Expert 1: We know a lot more now about the D.A.’s theory of the case than we did before. There was a lot of speculation about whether the predicate crime — the one Trump was promoting by falsifying records — was going to be federal or state, and whether it was going to be campaign-finance related or election-interference related. Now the prosecutors have shown their hand, and their lead theory is going to be that Trump meant to interfere unlawfully with an election by concealing information that the voters might have considered. A case tends to look stronger after the prosecution picks a theory and commits to it. The evidence of deliberate falsification of records is going to be very strong.  

New York criminal practitioners seem fairly unanimous that a first-time offender convicted of something like this is extremely unlikely to do jail time. Add in his age and health, and it’s even more unlikely. The ridiculous truth is that to spend jail time in New York you’ve got to be a teenager accused of swiping a backpack or something.

Expert 2: I agree, the falsification of business records seems rock-solid based on the documentary evidence.

The question for the jurors will be Trump’s knowledge and intent. I expect some of the evidence of Trump’s knowledge and intent will come from witnesses with varying degrees of credibility, but other evidence will come from emails and text messages, including those that will corroborate witnesses with credibility issues, like Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer.” The picture that the prosecutors will paint for the jury, based on the judge’s pretrial rulings, will give the jurors plenty of evidence of motive: to prevent information damaging to candidate Trump from becoming public just weeks before the 2016 election. It’s a very winnable case for the D.A.