The insanity at the heart of the Trump trial

[Right_in_Virginia]

The insanity at the heart of the Trump trial
Washington Examiner, May 3, 2024, Byron York

THE INSANITY AT THE HEART OF THE TRUMP TRIAL. Perhaps the weirdest, and by far the most unjust, thing about former President Donald Trump’s trial in New York is that we do not know precisely what crime Trump is charged with committing. We’re in the middle of the trial, with Trump facing a maximum of more than 100 years in prison, and we don’t even know what the charges are! It’s a surreal situation.

Yes, we know that Trump is charged with falsifying business records of payments made to the porn actress Stormy Daniels in 2016 and 2017. But falsifying business records is a misdemeanor with a two-year statute of limitations, meaning prosecutors would be prohibited from charging Trump with that crime after 2019, which was five years ago. They obviously missed that deadline by a mile.

We also know that New York law allows falsifying business records to be upgraded to a felony if the alleged falsification was done with “intent to defraud that includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.” In that case, the statute of limitations extends to five years, which would have allowed prosecutors to charge Trump as late as 2022. Prosecutors missed that deadline, too.

Trump was indicted in 2023. How did that happen? Because of COVID-19, when New York extended its statute of limitations by a year. That allowed prosecutors to slip the charges in right before the new, one-time-only, six-year extended statute of limitations expired.

But here’s the thing. What was the “intent to commit another crime or aid and conceal the commission thereof” that prosecutors used to raise falsification of business records from a misdemeanor to a felony? In nearly every case of alleged falsification of records that has been charged as a felony in New York, the defendant was charged with another crime — that is, prosecutors made it clear what the other crime was. In Trump’s case, the indictment did not specify any other crime. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said the law did not require him to specify the other crime.


More: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/daily-memo/2990728/the-insanity-at-the-heart-of-the-trump-trial/

[Right_in_Virginia]

FTA

So Trump faced felony charges without knowing what he was accused of doing. And the really amazing thing is that the trial is now underway and Bragg has still not specified what the other crime is. It is a key element of the case. Without it, the charges against Trump could never have been brought because they were misdemeanors long past the statute of limitations. It is the other crime that makes this whole prosecution possible. But the prosecutor has not specified what it is.

If that sounds vaguely unconstitutional to you, you’re right.