As a thought experiment, I’m trying to think how I would feel if it turned out that a Democratic Presidential candidate who was not elected President were to be prosecuted for falsifying business records in pursuit of a federal crime for which he or she were not also indicted. OK, that’s confusing and general. Let’s make a hypothetical.
Which is actually kind of difficult, honestly, but let’s see what we can do. Elizabeth Warren? I’m going to pick the Senator because she was the 2020 candidate that I felt most positively about. So let’s imagine that someone had some dirt on Elizabeth Warren that she wanted to keep quiet—nothing in itself criminal, but bad behavior of some kind. And in order to further her Presidential campaign in the 2020 primaries, she had paid off that person with money from… a business? I don’t really know much about her money, but it’s plausible that she either still has a legal business of some kind, or that she has a corporation to run her book money or her speaking fees or something. Anyway, so we’re hypothesizing that she has a business of some kind, and that she had that business write a check, or had the business reimburse someone who wrote a check, with the purpose of hushing up a story of some kind, and then had the business list that payment under some other heading. And, of course, did not list the transfer of money in any campaign finance filings—the underlying criminal act is violation of the campaign finance stuff, and the falsification of the business dealings is only criminal in that it was in furtherance of that criminal act.
How would I feel about Elizabeth Warren being indicted and charged under those conditions?
I think I would feel like it was a waste of prosecutorial time, but I don’t think I would be outraged. She fucked up (hypothetically and indeed counterfactually) and she got caught, and that’s bad, but the person I would blame in that case would be… Elizabeth Warren.
Or whoever it would be. Hypothetically.
Here’s the thing: I don’t think Our Previous President is the only politician to pay someone off to hush up a scandal of some kind. It’s completely possible that he is the only Presidential candidate to have run that money through a business, falsifying the record of a business in violation of the law (if the allegations are correct). Certainly no other Presidents or even Presidential candidates have been caught doing so. And if they had been, the question of whether to bring charges shouldn’t have been the question of whether they won the election.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
My unsophisticated thoughts on this whole thing more or less amount to:
1. Going after someone this politically problematic over a bookkeeping misdemeanor seems petty and foolish.
2. On the other hand, you go to court with the charges you have. If you can’t get him for conspiracy to commit murder, get him for tax evasion, right Al?
3. As long as he dies in prison, I don’t care all *that* much what put him there.
4. But HOLY CRAP PEOPLE HE TRIED TO HAVE A MOB OF HIS GOONS OVERTHROW THE ELECTED GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES why are we fucking around with bookkeeping misdemeaoners.
Sigh.
I don’t really have strong feelings about whether the indictment is a good or bad idea. If the evidence is there for the charge (and that’s a big if) it makes little sense to me to not indict him simply because he was President for a few years, or because he was also committing other crimes in other states. I don’t really think that the NY indictment makes it less likely that he will be indicted in GA or on the document mishandling charges, or even on January 6 charges.
On the other hand, it is very confusing and complicated, in terms of what charges should be laid in what jurisdiction, and it is my opinion that it would be better for the country and for me personally if we did not elect any further lawless frauds to the Presidency.
Thanks,
-V.
I’m going to add that prosecuting a former President for a falsifying business records—so long as they have evidence that it _was_ a crime, has the advantage of confirming that Presidents are not above the law, while making it clear that the crime in question was not intended to benefit the country, nor was it even questionably in pursuit of his Presidential duties (of course, he wasn’t President at the time, but still).
The thing about all of the terrible post-election stuff is that presumably he genuinely believed and believes that he had won the election, that the real miscarriage was the fraudulent certification of the vote by the states, and that extraordinary action was necessary for the nation’s benefit. Similarly, his attempt to extort dirt on Hunter Biden from Zelinsky appears to have been made in the belief that there _was_ such dirt, and that it was being nefariously covered up, and it would be to the nation’s benefit to uncover it. Now, I don’t think that was, within the meaning of the law, a _reasonable_ belief, but that’s a fairly murky area to make that that sort of precedent for.
In this case, whatever happened between Trump and the woman in question, the hush money was paid and the books cooked for his own benefit only. And it’s hard for me to imagine even his supporters, even those still supporting him at this point, believing that he paid that money and falsified those records for them.
Thanks,
-V.
> The thing about all of the terrible post-election stuff is that presumably he genuinely believed and believes that he had won the election
I really don’t think he believes that. :^( I think he’s just a wannabe dictator, but more like a crime lord than an ideologue. Cerebus doesn’t love you, he just wants your money.
> it’s hard for me to imagine even his supporters, even those still supporting him at this point, believing that he paid that money and falsified those records for them.
I guess I haven’t talked to any of them, but I totally assume that they think that if he did break any laws, he only did it to Make America Great Again TM, which I think they consider to be something he’s doing for them.
I would say that I am waiting to see what the charges actually are before making any claims about the propriety of bringing charges in this case.
I am curious about what you think of the John Edwards case as parallel to this particular Trump case..
I have been thinking about him… The thing is, I wasn’t remotely tempted to excuse Senator Edwards or think of him as innocent–I totally have the recollection that the moment people found out he had the affair, we all dropped him like the proverbial potato, and the allegations of hush money criminality were barely even the icing on the urinal cake. Would I have felt at all different if his ticket had won the election? I don’t know. I certainly don’t remember feeling outraged that he was being prosecuted, and I don’t remember feeling outraged that the prosecution was dropped after the first trial was hung.
Thanks,
-V.