(03-31-2023, 10:11 AM)flsprtsgod Wrote:

(03-31-2023, 09:58 AM)The Real Marty Wrote: I think this is the most relevant part of it.  I underlined one key point:  

While the specific charges in the Manhattan case against the former president remain unknown, Mr. Bragg’s case centers on a $130,000 hush-money payment to Ms. Daniels.

Mr. Trump’s longtime fixer, Michael D. Cohen, made the payment in the final days of the 2016 campaign. Mr. Trump later reimbursed him, signing monthly checks while serving as president.
Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors appear to have zeroed in on the way Mr. Trump and his family business, the Trump Organization, handled the reimbursement to Mr. Cohen. In internal documents, Trump Organization employees falsely recorded the repayments as legal expenses, and the company invented a bogus retainer agreement with Mr. Cohen to justify them.
Mr. Cohen, who broke with Mr. Trump in 2018 and later testified before Congress as well as the grand jury that indicted Mr. Trump, has said that the former president knew about the phony legal expenses and retainer agreement.
In New York, it can be a crime to falsify business records, and Mr. Bragg’s office is likely to build the case around that charge, according to people with knowledge of the matter and outside legal experts.
But to charge falsifying business records as a felony, rather than a misdemeanor, Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors must show that Mr. Trump’s “intent to defraud” included an effort to commit or conceal a second crime.
That second crime could be a violation of election law. Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors might argue that the payment to Ms. Daniels represented an illicit contribution to Mr. Trump’s campaign: The money silenced Ms. Daniels, aiding his candidacy at a crucial time.

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Personally, in my opinion, if the above is accurate, it still seems like a stretch to move this up from a misdemeanor to a felony.  It reminds me of the way law enforcement goes after known gangsters.   
The article continues:
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If Mr. Trump were ultimately convicted, he would face a maximum sentence of four years, though prison time would not be mandatory.

Yet a conviction is not a sure thing, and Mr. Bragg’s case might apply a legal theory that has yet to be evaluated by judges. A New York Times review of relevant cases and interviews with election law experts strongly suggest that New York State prosecutors have never before filed an election law case involving a federal campaign.

Cohen's payments were his monthly retainer, there's no paperwork that shows it was reimbursement for anything. There's also quite the smoking gun in that the alleged recipient of this hush payment swore in a written and verbal statement that there was no affair to cover up and the only person who claims there was is a discredited and disbarred attorney who both lied to and cheated Daniels. This case is something only a partisan or a moron could accept as legitimate, so we understand why there's celebration in the streets today.

If you claim a payment is a business expense, the burden of proof is on you to show that it was connected to your business, and part of the ordinary course of your business and similar businesses, and that your business is paying that expense from revenues streams that themselves are legal and reported to the tax man.
Because as you know, if it's not a business expense, it comes from post tax income rather than pre tax income.  This is not a part of the law to be trifled with.

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