Like a Common Criminal

It was a big day on Tuesday, when Covfefool had to appear in front of a judge and plead to crimes.

The Best Moments

1. The words D***** J. T**** and under arrest in the same sentence.

2. This moment, below. Don't let the door slap you in the face on the way in. Loser. 

 

3. And the photos of the slumped, sad, humiliated orange turd sitting at the defense table. 

Alas, there was no mugshot.

But that didn't stop Don the Con from using a fake mugshot to pick his minions' pockets. He plastered one on a T-shirt, which can be yours for the low, low price of $36 or $47. I'd buy it, but it's a little pricier than my usual toilet paper. 

So... Thirty-four felony counts were filed against him by Alvin Bragg, District Attorney of Manhattan, all surrounding entries to his business records. He is charged with falsifying business records with this scheme: 

• His fixer Michael Cohen created a shell company and paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 in the weeks leading up to the election. 
• T**** reimbursed Cohen from his business accounts over time, labeling them as "attorney fees." 
• Each entry into the ledgers is an additional count. There were 34 in total; 11 counts for false invoices, 11 for false checks and check stubs, and 12 for false general ledger entries according to the indictment and Statement of Facts, which the New York Times has so niftily annotated. 
• The Statement of Facts also mentions payoffs to another former sexual partner, Karen McDougal, as well as to T**** Tower doorman Dino Sajudin to keep 'em quiet about "alleged" other dirty SCROTUS bizness in "catch and kill" schemes while in cahoots with National Enquirer publisher David Pecker (yes, David 🍆), to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. Here is the Statement of Facts with individuals identified, from The Wall Street Journal.

The business financial entries are illegal; they are misdemeanors on their own. But when made in connection with another crime (including planning another crime, even if it doesn't occur), they become felonies.

There is bigly speculation as to what the other crime is / are, as it wasn't described in the indictment nor in the statement of facts. There is speculation that it is either tax fraud (i.e., Cohen declared them on his taxes and Trumpty-Dumpty deducted them), or campaign finance fraud (i.e., POTATUS used the payments as de facto campaign donations, and their purpose was to cover up facts that would influence voters).

LSR's Takeaways

The pundits are "poking holes" in the case and saying that it's not a strong case. But they don't know all the elements, which D.A. Alvin Bragg has kept close to the chest. There's nothing "surprising" in the indictment documents, and it seems that this is evidence of "nothing to look at" for many of the talking heads. 

I think it's a good case, for these reasons:

• Michael Cohen was convicted for the same crime. Shouldn't the mastermind be brought up on charges? I think he'll be convicted. 

• As outlined in the Wall Street Journal, it is obvious that the payment was made specifically to influence the election:

When Mr. Cohen negotiated a deal with a lawyer for Ms. Daniels to buy her silence, however, Mr. Trump directed him “to delay making a payment to [Ms. Daniels] as long as possible,” instructing him that “if they could delay the payment until after the election, they could avoid paying altogether, because at that point it would not matter if the story became public,” prosecutors said. He ultimately signed off on the payment, asking Mr. Cohen and then-Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg to “find a way” to make it and agreeing to reimburse Mr. Cohen.

• Similarly, after the election both the doorman and Karen McDougal were released of their NDAs. This points to the fact that the payments were to influence the election. The NDAs served their purpose, and once he was elected, it didn't matter. Would this be true if The Big Liebowski were just trying to protect Melania?

Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Norman Eisen writing in the New York Times thinks it's a strong case too. 

The Aftermath

At the courthouse, there was a tepid showing of MAGAts, led by the blond one from Georgia. She hustled away within minutes of her taking the bullhorn, after being drowned out by anti-45 protesters wielding whistles. 

This notice was photographed in NYC and gave me a chuckle.

Besides the few at the courthouse on arraignment day, those on the right doth not protest much. Will Carless at USA Today speculates that the reason why is four-fold:

• Scooby Coup hasn't told them what to do
• Some of the extremists are mad at him for abandoning them in the aftermath of January 6
• Some extremists actually learned a lesson after 1000 charges stemming from January 6
• The Q people simply think he will beat the charges, and it's all going to plan, so why bother?

That hasn't stopped others of them from engaging in odious behavior. Dum Junior posted a photo of the judge's daughter and of course, threats of violence have been made against the judge and his family. Do we expect anything different?

Voldemoron gave a statement campaign speech after he landed back at Mar-a-loony. Most news organizations didn't bother broadcasting it. I watched for about 90 seconds before I couldn't stomach it anymore. It was the same ol' victim-boasting shit, but in the most tired, bored, worn-out way. If you really wanna torture yourself, have at it. 

The next court date isn't until December. Which is disappointing, but not. It gives room for the other cases to come forward. But it butts up into election season.

The Fun Stuff

See what you score on the T**** Indictment Quiz from McSweeney's. 

Jack Ohman

John Darkow

Jeff Danziger

Ann Talnaes

OMG I love this letter from Michael Moore. I have to share the whole thing.

Dear Criminal Defendant #4913961R:

Thank you for showing up without incident yesterday for your arrest and arraignment. You appeared somewhat bewildered as to why you were there. As this is only the first of a number of criminal charges and arraignments for you that will follow from other prosecutors, I think it’s only fair that I give you the lay of the land as to what’s ahead and why this is happening. 

First — and I don’t know why no one has told you this — but your assessment is correct: We ARE out to get you and bring you to Justice. You tried to illegally overturn the election and overthrow the government. You were refusing to give up your seat in the Oval Office and decided to stage a coup. It’s that simple. And now the vast majority of the country wants a legal way to stop you from causing any further destruction. And truthfully, we don’t really care how we get there. As long as it’s honest and legal, we the people are going to throw whatever available book we have at you. Somebody should tell you this. I just did. 

Have you read the 34 felony count indictment and its “Statement of Facts” against you? I have. Wow — I mean, it’s stunning in its brilliance and construction. It puts you in a real chokehold and yet allows the prosecution even more room in the coming months to crush you even further. I’m thinking you must have some sense of this and your impending doom. 

The prosecutor you’re up against, Alvin Bragg — the one you call “an animal” and “a criminal” — he’s been a prosecutor for nearly 20 years. He’s helped put hundreds of criminals like you away. I know, I know — he’s Black. Just like those five innocent teenagers in Central Park that you tried to get a jury to send to the electric chair. Just like the thousands of families you and your father refused to rent your apartments to for decades until the federal government stopped you. Yes, that kind of Black! Yes, karma does suck! Yes, that was your father in the KKK parade way back in the day. Now you’ve got three Black prosecutors — the Manhattan D.A., the New York State Attorney General and the Fulton County, GA, prosecutor — all coming after you. Revenge for sins against them and all who look like them? I hope so! But, seriously, Black America has never really made us truly pay for their suffering, either the cruelty meted out to their ancestors by our ancestors, or the hand they themselves have been dealt by a society that still seems comfortable with the average white family in 2023 having a net worth 8 times that of the average Black family.

No, Defendant #4913961R, these Black prosecutors, whom you hurl racist insults at — including the one where you, New York’s leading racist, called them “racists(!)” — they are serious professionals who are just doing the job the majority of voters sent them to do. One of those jobs is to send you finally to prison. 

All 34 charges against you are felonies. You conspired with others to silence people who had information the voters might possibly like to know before they cast their vote. You only won because of the 77,000 votes you got in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. How many would have changed their minds if they knew certain things about you? Your hush money payments went to at least three individuals, all with the intent of keeping the public in the dark in order to throw the election your way. And to cover it up, you told your lawyer, Michael Cohen, to take out a “home equity loan” for himself to pay off these individuals so it wouldn’t look like you had anything to do with it! What an idiot!

So, Defendant #4913961R, do you now understand why this is happening to you? And why we don’t care whatever the reason is they’ll be sending you to Sing Sing soon?

You attempted to blow up our democracy. 

You led a violent uprising in which people died.

You tried to overthrow a presidential election, an election that you brutally lost. 

You are on tape privately bullying the Georgia Secretary of State to illegally stuff the ballot box with 11,780 votes for you that did not exist. 

Then You got 147 Republican members in Congress to vote to steal the election for you! Is there a greater act of treason in a Democracy than the outright theft of an election and thus the overthrow of the elected government?

You hate this country and what it stands for.

And the vast majority of us know it. That’s why we tossed you to the curb in 2020 and then put you on a garbage barge to Florida. You are correct to assume we and the prosecutors we elect will charge you and arrest you for ANY legal reason we can find.

Last night, in your continuing crusade to incite violence, you and your son posted a photo of the Judge’s daughter online. It was your way of threatening him with violence. You know it will take only one of your psychopathic supporters to commit a heinous act. Do you have any idea what tens of millions of American parents would do to you if you did anything to threaten their child’s life? 

You’re upset because you think we’re prosecuting you because of a porn star? HAHAHA! 

Look, we’d arrest you for anything we legally could — littering, parking tickets, jaywalking, you name it. 

Anything to stop you from staging another coup. Anything that would stop you from endangering the life of that Judge’s daughter. Anything we can legally do to stop you, we will. You remember Al Capone. They could never get him on the murderous crime organization he ran. So they got him for lying on his income taxes. Nobody cared. The public wanted him put away by any legal means necessary. We’re Al Caponing you, Don. 

Your crime spree, which began in 1973, is coming to an end. 

Deal with it. Pack a toothbrush.

Let's get on with our Al Caponing. Next: Fulton County, Georgia. Indictments are expected any day. 

#Resist