Page 12 of that document I linked provides greater detail to the theories and ties them to the case facts with references to specific charges presented to the grand jury.
I'm not sure what else you are looking for.
Let me be as clear as I can, because I think you're misunderstanding some key aspects here. Unfortunately this means I have to get "wordy" and repeat myself on some things I've already posted on this subject:
The prosecutors are framing the trial as a “
conspiracy” case – specifically,
a conspiracy to steal the 2016 election. In the prosecution's opening statement, the DA said to the jury, “This case is about a criminal conspiracy and coverup.”
However, the grand jury
did not charge Trump with conspiracy, and
it is not a crime to suppress politically damaging information, so it could not be a conspiracy to do so.
The crime of conspiracy is not charged in the case. What is, are 34 counts of falsifying business records. That offense is normally a misdemeanor, but Bragg enhanced it into 34 felonies by claiming that, in making false bookkeeping entries, Trump fraudulently intended to cover up another crime.
Nowhere in the
indictment does the grand jury allege that this crime was a conspiracy. To be clear:
1.
There is no conspiracy charge in the indictment
2.
There is no such conspiracy statute in New York law
3.
Bragg has no authority to enforce federal campaign law. The statute actually charged in the indictment gives him
no such authority under New York constitutional law
4. As to what you previously provided in this thread, that wasn't the indictment. That wasn't "presented to the Grand Jury." It was simply the judge's decision on a number of motions. It does not provide what "other crime" Trump is accused of, to elevate a misdemeanor to a felony. As I said previously, you can't provide what I asked for because Bragg has not provided it.
5. What Bragg has attempted to do is alter the grand jury’s indictment with his own “
statement of facts” which is a document he drafted and published in conjunction with the unsealing of the indictment,
as if it were part of the indictment. It is not.
** Bragg’s “statement of facts” does not use the word “conspiracy.” He uses “scheme" because suppressing politically damaging information is not a crime and therefore it cannot be the objective of a conspiracy.
** He uses the word
scheme because of its "bad" connotation. In fact, the agreement between Trump, Pecker, and Cohen was not illegal, even if Bragg calls it a “scheme” and the prosecutor calls it a “conspiracy.” The NDAs used as a means to suppress information were a lawful contract, not a crime.
** Bragg is trying to convict Trump of conspiracy without having charged Trump with conspiracy. He has injected into the case federal campaign-finance law he has no jurisdiction to enforce
** The statement of facts makes only an allusion to Trump’s involvement in a “scheme” in which participants “violated election laws” (not otherwise specified); and it alleges that the payment of hush money by Cohen, was “illegal” because Cohen has “since pleaded guilty to making an illegal campaign contribution.”
** However, Bragg avoided specifying the statute to which Cohen had pled guilty, which was a federal statute that the state prosecutor has no authority to enforce.
** Regardless, there is zero evidentiary value in what Bragg touts as Cohen’s admission of guilt to federal campaign-finance felonies ---> Which Cohen made while trying to sell himself to the Justice Department as a cooperator, hoping for leniency in an unrelated federal fraud case.
6. Even if assume that Trump is guilty of 'falsification of business records' it does not render
Cohen’s payment to Daniels “illegal.” NDAs are perfectly legal
7. Under the
Fifth Amendment (which has been held to apply to the states), “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury.”
** This requires a felony charge to be spelled out in an indictment whose criminal elements have been established by probable cause to the satisfaction of a grand jury
** The problem is not just that there is no indication the grand jury was presented with an election-theft conspiracy offense;
there is no such conspiracy crime in New York penal law. As a state prosecutor,
Bragg has no jurisdiction to enforce federal law which
Congress vested “exclusive” criminal- and civil-enforcement authority, in the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission.
** The grand jury indicted Trump for falsifying business records, not criminal conspiracy. Bragg’s statement of facts is not part of the indictment; yet he has used it to modify the indictment as if Trump were charged with criminal conspiracy. That’s not allowed.
The charges must be stated with specificity in the indictment.
7. So, Trump is charged not with a conspiracy but with 34 felony violations of a New York statute that makes it a crime to falsify business records with the fraudulent intent to conceal “another crime.”
** What other crime? The penal statute in question doesn’t say. That’s a big problem because New York State’s constitution mandates that a statute must spell out any statutory terms it is incorporating. Under Article III, §16, of the state constitution,
incorporation by reference is not permitted.
** To be more specific, Trump is charged under
§175.10 of the state penal law with “falsifying business records in the first degree.”
** Under Article III, §16 of the New York Constitution:
No act shall be passed which shall provide that any existing law, or any part thereof, shall be made or deemed a part of said act, or which shall enact that any existing law, or part thereof, shall be applicable, except by inserting it in such act.
This is a due process provision meant to prevent exactly what Bragg has done here: force a defendant to go to trial without being put on notice of the charge.
** Article III, §16, mandates that if a prosecutor is to be enabled by a penal statute to enforce another law, including federal law,
the conduct proscribed by that other law, or at very least the citation of that other law, must be spelled out in the penal statute. A penal statute may not just vaguely incorporate “another crime” by reference and leave everyone guessing about what that other crime might be – i.e., what conduct it proscribes, or at least
where in law it is codified.
** Therefore, If the New York legislature meant to give state prosecutors authority to enforce federal campaign law, then to be in compliance with the New York constitution they had to do it expressly —
by expressly describing the specific conduct that they were purporting to criminalize, or by at least referring to the specific provisions of federal law they were purporting to authorize for state prosecution.
** Not only would that have put the public on notice that a state prosecutor might try to use the state business-records crimes to reach campaign-finance activity in federal elections; it would also have given the federal government notice so that it could object.
**
As I’ve provided before, Congress gave the Justice Department and the FEC exclusive enforcement authority over federal campaign law to ensure uniform application nationally. To allow any local prosecutor in the country, despite having no federal jurisdiction, to implicate these laws and impose his own version of them is the antithesis of what Congress intended.
8. To summarize a bit: Bragg’s prosecution violates the U.S. Constitution because he is trying Trump on a crime that is not charged in the indictment and is not even a New York crime.
Bragg’s prosecution also violates the New York constitution because the felony business-records-falsification statute he invokes fails to spell out, expressly and with specificity, the “other crimes” that trigger it and fails to spell out whether the state legislature intended to empower state prosecutors to enforce federal campaign law.
6. Even if Bragg arguably had jurisdiction to enforce federal campaign law – the so-called hush-money payments charged (
based on lawful NDAs) were
not campaign expenditures for which that law mandated disclosure
www.documentcloud.org
