The nearly 20-page indictment accuses former US President Donald Trump of 34 episodes of wrongdoing, mostly for falsifying business information, writes Politico.
Manhattan prosecutors believe Trump hid the hush money by passing it off as legal expenses and also kept a story about a woman who said she had an affair with Trump from publication. According to prosecutors, the former president violated New York’s corporate records law as well as campaign financing rules.
All 34 charges are fairly similar, each carrying a four-year prison term,
although judges rarely hand down actual prison terms for such offenses.
The charging document itself is a dry enumeration of facts in legal language. However, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office has also released a 14-page document detailing the allegations.
The main question surrounding the charges read on the 4th of April is how exactly Bragg will get the charges classified as a felony. The charge at the heart of the case – falsifying business records – is only a misdemeanor. At the same time, if the violation is committed to cover up other illegal activities, it becomes a criminal offense.
An obvious possibility to make the allegations more serious is the confession of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen
that he made a transfer to porn star Stormy Daniels at the request of the then-presidential candidate. Trump repeatedly and fraudulently falsified business records to conceal information, the statement said.
The report states that the participants of the scheme violated election laws, however, no information is provided about specific laws violated. Cohen’s guilty plea to violating federal campaign finance rules in 2018 is also cited. Bragg reported that Trump and those close to him tried to hide violations of state and federal legislation.
References to violations of federal law will be the focus of Trump’s lawyers’ pretrial actions. They have already publicly stated that violations of state law cannot be considered a violation of federal law. However, such a defense strategy will not cancel the charges against Trump, but the case will be considered a misdemeanor for which the punishment is lighter. That, in turn, would mean a victory for Trump in the legal, public relations, and political fields.
If all 34 charges are tried as misdemeanors, the chances of Trump going to jail are extremely slim. The maximum penalty for 2nd-degree falsifying of business information is up to a year in prison for each count.
Also, reducing the severity of the charges increases Trump’s chances of delaying the trial.
The charges do not include tax fraud, as some legal experts had hoped. However, Bragg’s report reveals an interesting note: Trump and his staff engaged in deception by paying New York State more than was necessary.
Trump allegedly paid Cohen more for his services than necessary to offset the amount he paid in his attorney’s taxes, which was inflated by the payment to Daniels, which was billed as a fee for legal services. The manipulation of Trump and Cohen has benefited the federal and state purses, which could also be the reason why no tax fraud charges have been brought.
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