At last, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office prosecutors have disclosed the fundamental offense they claim Donald Trump was committing when he purportedly fabricated financial documents.
According to Fox News, “This week, New York prosecutor Joshua Steinglass stated that the additional offense involved breaking a New York law known as ‘conspiracy to promote or obstruct election.'”
The text of New York Law 17-152 is as follows:
“Any two or more individuals who engage in a conspiracy to support or obstruct the election of any person to a public office by unlawful methods will be guilty of a misdemeanor.”
Regarding Michael Cohen, Donald Trump, and former National Enquirer owner David Pecker, co-counselor Michael Colangelo of Steinglass said that in 2015:
“Those three men got together and planned a plot to rig the election.”
Nevertheless, all of the purportedly fabricated business documents were claimed to have occurred in 2017, not in 2015. Trump claims the payments were for legal services rather than compensation for whatever money Cohen may have sent to Stormy Daniels, but the forged transfers are transactions in which Trump’s firm paid Cohen.
By the way, Daniels still owes Trump $300,000 plus interest for the pointless lawsuit she filed against him.
In Colangelo’s account, the “capture and kill” plot worked as follows: Cohen would alert Pecker to articles that Trump wished to remain undiscovered, and Pecker was privy would purchase the material and the story’s rights to ensure that it remained unpublished. Prosecutors assert that Trump, through his payments to Cohen, ultimately provided the funds for purchasing the article rights.
In addition to the alleged payment to Stormy Daniels, Colangelo claimed to have used the same strategy in two other cases:
“One was to stop a story about an alleged out-of-wedlock child that a former doorman at Trump Tower was attempting to sell. According to Colangelo, the sum was $30,000. It turned out that the doorman’s account was false. Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, received the next payment. McDougal claimed to have had a romantic and sexual connection with Trump. According to Colangelo, Cohen requested that AMI purchase the article. According to Colangelo, AMI gave McDougal “unlimited life rights” to her tale in return for $150,000.
The prosecution’s hypothesis is flawed in a few legal areas. Firstly, as stated in the underlying Act, there must be a conspiracy “to promote or hinder the election…by criminal methods.” Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) are not prohibited.
Second, the indictment makes no mention of any plot or conspiracy, as Andrew McCarthy noted.
In addition, all offenses in New York State have a two-year statute of limitations. I am not absolutely sure if the underlying offense for the accusation of falsifying business documents has to be inside the statute of limitations because I am not a lawyer and I do not play one on TV either.
Everyone involved in the “catch-and-kill” tactics related to the 2020 election, such as the 51 former intelligence officials who misrepresented the source of the Hunter Biden laptop story, those who orchestrated the censorship of the New York Post story, and those who coordinated the deplatforming of any critics of Joe Biden, had better be on the lookout if this absurd legal fairy tale somehow leads to a conviction.
Author: Scott Dowdy
