David Corn’s latest installment in his newsletter Our Land has a refresher course in the story of how Donald Trump’s sexual encounter with Stormy Daniels became a criminal case. Corn links to an earlier report, and has brought it up again with some additional comments. Here’s what he had to report a year ago:
The case may not depend only on the word of former fixer Michael Cohen.
With a possible indictment of Donald Trump, it’s a good moment to review how the porn-star-hush-money caper may make him the first president or ex-president ever charged with a crime. Such a refresher reminds us just how tawdry the Trump world has been, and it provides a cast of characters beyond Michael Cohen, the Trump fixer turned Trump foe, who might be star witnesses should this case reach a courtroom.
In a trial, the sleazy tale will be relentlessly scrutinized, and each side will try to shape the narrative to answer several critical questions in its favor: For what reason did Cohen pay Stormy Daniels $130,000 days before the 2016 election to stop her from airing the allegation that she and Trump had an extramarital (for him) tryst? Was it to protect Trump’s presidential bid or to spare Trump and his family personal embarrassment? (It certainly could be both.) Did Trump personally direct this payment of keep-mum money?
New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg can charge Trump with a felony only if Trump’s alleged falsifying of business records related to the hush-money payment was conducted to cover up fraud or another criminal act. That means the case hinges on the issue of whether this payment was made to influence the campaign and qualifies as a possible campaign law violation. Trump’s legal team will likely contend the payment did not violate campaign finance laws, even though in 2018 Cohen pleaded guilty to a federal campaign law violation for buying Daniels’ silence with these funds.
There’s much more at the link. Multiple people were involved in burying the story and falsifying records to keep the story from coming out just before the 2016 election. It was not a simple job.
Well, as we now know Bragg has indicted Trump on this, and with the legal gaming going on around Trump’s theft of classified documents, RICO charges in Georgia over the election, and instigating an insurrection, this is the criminal case that will be first to go to trial.
Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen was the fixer who was covering up this for Trump. He oversaw a big cash payment, and did a number of other things to attempt to conceal what had been done. Corn has this to say in the latest Our Land newsletter, which should be available for non-subscribers in about a week.
...It might be fitting that the sleaziest case will go first. But this prosecution ought not to be diminished. It also involves alleged criminal actions taken to influence an election—or prevent an election from being influenced by Daniels’ claim that Trump had a tryst with her at a 2006 charity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe while his wife, Melania, was home with 4-month-old Barron. And here’s an important fact: The Justice Department and a federal court have already declared that a crime occurred in the commission of this $130,000 payoff.
Those of you who might need a refresher course in the Trump-Daniels Affair are fortunate. About a year ago, I published a comprehensive rundown of this nasty business based on court records and public accounts. If you believe possessing a thorough knowledge of all this will impress your friends, you should read this article. But for our purposes now, you only need to recall this: Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to arranging the bribe paid to Daniels, and he was sent to the hoosegow for that and other infractions of the law. That is, a crime did happen. The question now is whether Trump will be held accountable for it.
emphasis added
This might seem like a trivial case — what’s the big deal about lying about sex? — but it goes deeper than that.
...It was classic: The boss got off; the lieutenant did the time. Bragg seeks to remedy this unfairness. Legal experts will tell you that the case—with its 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide the $130,000 payment—is not a slam dunk. But it is important. As Norm Eisen, a former Obama White House counsel, puts it, “It is really an election interference case—the gateway drug to what later developed with election interference in 2020.” And in the aftermath of Trump's $83 million loss in the sexual assault and defamation civil case brought against him by E. Jean Carroll, a trial that showcases Trump's alleged infidelity could reinforce negative attitudes about his personal conduct.
And there’s more: This is a state prosecution, not a federal affair. Should Trump be convicted in this case, he could not pardon himself if he were to return to the White House. Nor could he order this case shut down were it to last that long due to appeals. One wonders what might happen if Trump is sentenced to prison and he wins the election. Will he defy the New York legal system? Will marshals from the Empire State seek to haul him in and find themselves in a standoff with Secret Service agents? As bizarre as the Trump years have been, they can become wilder.
The Supreme Court is already trying to thread the needle of what the 14th amendment clearly demands, how far Presidential Immunity goes, along with how much power should state governments have versus the Federal Government. As Corn points out, Trump could be facing time in a New York State prison — and imagine the mess that would be.
If he’s found guilty, that will create an entirely new legal dilemma: how do you incarcerate a convicted ex-president? Would Trump end up in house arrest in Trump Tower, or at his Westchester Golf Club? Personally, I’d vote for Guantanamo, but that would be up to the Feds.
It’s going to be hard for the media to get past the sex part of the story and get across how much bigger this case really is. It may also seem trivial compared to stealing classified documents and lying about it, inciting an insurrection and lying about it, or trying to interfere with an election and lying about it — but it’s still a crime.
David Corn’s closing words put it in perspective:
“It reveals so much about the man: his phoniness, his personal dishonesty, his hypocrisy, his corruption. Of his many alleged crimes, it may not be the greatest. But it may be the Trumpiest.”
This meme currently going around shows just how much trouble women are handing Trump these days:
UPDATE:
Stephen Colbert’s open the other night gave a run-down on Trump’s legal situation, and it was a masterpiece of framing the situation we are faced with, the one the media can’t handle. Multiple court cases, deranged behavior — and you should hear the audience reaction when Colbert asks them how they feel about Trump facing criminal justice at about 4 minutes in. There’s a bit of Fani Willis laying down the word as well.
Enjoy!