i put this question to two of our legal experts who are here with us today. both were veteran prosecutors who have seen this both from a federal and a state perspective. can either of you walk through us walk us nonlawyers through this part of these charges you want me to take a crack you go ahead. okay, the first thing to note is that the statute in new york that says you can bump this up to a felony requires that you have an intent to commit some other crime. you don t actually have to commit that crime. so that s why you wouldn t necessarily need to charge it and that s something alvin bragg said also if one of the crimes you re thinking could be used and then that s not something you could charge in state court anyway this goes to the question in the last segment where he said isn t
steven hough injured becky mangled. the judge, good afternoon. defensive oils good afternoon your honor. todd blanche for president trump. susan necklace for president trump as well. once again, joseph tacopina fo a president donald j trump the judge. good afternoon this matter is on fo arraignment. anything that we need to adjus for we conduct the remain? prosecutor not from the people, you honor. the judge. defense? defense lawyer no, your honor the judge will, well let s ramos trump. the clerk. donald j trump, the grand jury of new york county is file indictment 715 for three o 2023 charging you with crime of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the firs degree how do you plead to this indictment, guilty or no guilty defended mr. trump not guilty the one term donald trum presidency was of course marke by more than its share o
the crime of unlawfully or conspiring to unlawfully aide candidate is unlawful, a crime in new york law, i know this i dumb question but i want to ask, is there a federal preemptio problem? is there a problem that he is candidate for federal office and not new york office with that theory? not according to the da page one paragraph to, they sa in writing, election laws an lying for tax purposes that is lost plural. their theory of the cases that what enhances it, we have al had our crash more than one election crime the da today as i reported spoke about examples of that that is their theory of th case and also, chris races this point, if this were only misdemeanors, big if, yeah, an in different contexts, someone might play out to avoid jail time but mr. weisselberg is i rikers for the h charges falsifying business records an other fraud.
to the question here the facts are established. there are the receipts so the facts are not really in dispute. everything in terms of the defense is going to be a big set of questions about law about federal preemption about the sort of, doing it as a conspiracy to further anothe crime, they don t charge conspiracy but basically doing this for the purposes of committing another crime the unlawful help. and the big thing that i jus thought of, watching him sit there, sullen in angry at th defense table, is, this is a guy who has acted lawlessly hi whole life, recklessly, with regards to the law he is one of the most notoriou litigants in the country, at suing and being sued, who ha never crossed the line fro civil to criminal law. and there is something sort of profound about tha distinction. i was thinking about thi social media meme about, wha is something that is class when wrecked folks do it and - stay drinking. you re at the country club, oh you, are sitting on the stoo drinking
weisselberg and from pecker. there s an argument to be made that the district attorne bag has a better prosecution o the facts then the feds do because he alone has the business records crime that is not a federal crime. that is not something that the would be able to bring in th southern district. so, it is tricky if michael cohen was a full an open, total disclosure cooperator in the southern district - still decided not to go forward, i don t get to, but i do understand why we are where we are now with bragg can we also make the note that this office, this da office, prosecute this - all the time there s one sense in which the goose news about this is thi is a mundane business record crime that is not uncommon and it is not uncommon from this prosecutor so, his most recent victor against trump llc s make up the trum corporation was about business records and tax records, e cetera, so this is something that would happen to anyone. you want to talk about thi what happened thi