spectator.org
In Sum, Trump’s Defense Focuses on Accounting, Prosecution Obsesses Over Adultery
“This is a documents case,” Todd Blanche, Esq. said yesterday morning in Manhattan Criminal Courts Building Room 1530.
In closing argument to the jury, President Donald J. Trump’s lead defense counsel focused on the actual charges in District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s indictment: 34 counts of falsification of business records in pursuit of an amorphous second crime.
In a classic bait-and-switch, however, chief prosecutor Joshua Steinglass summarized a case about accounting practices with a display of sex obsession.
These two attorneys seemed to address two different cases as they prepared the seven-man, five-woman jury to deliberate as soon as this morning.
After thanking them for their patient, attentive service, Blanche reminded jurors that Trump is accused of cooking the books to conceal unspecified acts of fraud — perhaps an illegal conspiracy to win the Oval Office. The jury, Blanche said, has to decide “whether and to what extent President Trump, in the White House, while leader of the Free World, had inaccurate bookings in the ledger of his personal account in New York City.”
Blanche then clearly and methodically elucidated why Bragg’s indictment belongs in the landfill of history.
Blanche clarified that the relevant business records were invoices, vouchers, and checks. Among Bragg’s 34 charges, 11 cover the invoices that Trump’s then-personal attorney, the notorious Michael Cohen, sent to the Trump Organization. Bragg’s indictment never shows how Trump broke the law by receiving an allegedly fraudulent document, any more than a shop owner would be a vandal because a brick sailed through his display window.
In any case, “Not a single email with an attached invoice was sent to President Trump directly,” Blanche said. Cohen sent his invoices for “services rendered” to Trump Tower, where the president’s accounting team processed them as routinely as the other invoices that cascade into that global company daily. Cohen billed Trump in 2017 for his retainer, legal work tied to Trump’s pre-presidential ventures, and reimbursement for and a fee atop his $130,000 payment to skin-flick star Stormy Daniels.
Next, the Trump Organization created vouchers, or accounting entries, based on each invoice’s stated purpose. “Every single invoice that came into the Trump organization that came from a lawyer was booked the same way — as a ‘legal expense,’” Blanche remarked. “The government has made this a crime. That is absurd.”
In a shockingly underreported, extraordinarily exculpatory detail, Blanche said that Trump’s bookkeepers did not concoct devious phrases to camouflage payments. Instead, the company’s MDS accounting software featured a drop-down menu to record the purpose of each outgoing check. The Trump Organization employed the drop-down menu’s “legal expenses” option in these instances.
“They used the same notation, so all legal expenses could be reviewed at the end of the year,” Blanche said.
Next, these checks — from Trump’s personal and Revocable Trust accounts — were sent to the White House where he signed them, often at the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk, sometimes elsewhere. Sometimes Trump scrutinized them. Sometimes, he casually signed them while speaking on the phone.
“That’s the scheme,” Blanche said. “President Trump signed checks for legal expenses that were listed as ‘legal expenses.’”
Bragg’s indictment further accused Trump of faking business records with an intent to defraud.
Blanche demolished this fantasy by noting that “The Trump Organization disclosed these payments to the IRS.” Michael Cohen’s 1099 forms reflected the amounts that Trump paid him. Trump’s team also reported these disbursements to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.
This simple question should turbocharge reasonable doubts: Who the hell telegraphs fraud to an ethics office?
As for the prosecution’s hint that the elusive secondary crime was a conspiracy to influence the election, Blanche stated the obvious: “Every campaign in this country is a conspiracy to get someone elected.” Blanche added, “It’s not uncommon for candidates to work with the media to promote themselves and undermine their opponents.”
This includes the National Enquirer’s so-called catch-and-kill program, in which it has bought and buried stories that might embarrass such luminaries as Democrat politician Rahm Emanuel, actor/governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, golf legend Tiger Woods, and others. The tabloid, Blanche said, has suppressed negative stories on Trump since 1988 — 27 years before he ran for president. Rather than a campaign-finance violation, the Stormy Daniels payments were business as usual.
Blanche saved ample ordnance for Cohen himself, whom Blanche called “the human embodiment of reasonable doubt.”
“Michael Cohen is the GLOAT,” Blanche declared. “He’s literally the Greatest Liar of All Time.” Blanche continued: “He lies constantly. He’s lied to Congress. He lied to prosecutors. He lied to his family, business associates.”
Worst of all, Blanche lamented to the jury: “He came in here, raised his right hand, and lied to each of you.”
Blanche concluded by expressing something obvious but worth saying aloud, given this case’s maximum-profile defendant.
“This is not a referendum on your views on Donald J. Trump. It’s not a referendum on how you voted in 2016, 2020, or how you will vote in 2024. It’s on the evidence presented in this court.”
With that, Blanche’s summation, which began at 9:42 a.m., concluded at 12:53, a two-hour, 11-minute interval, with a 10-minute break.
After lunch, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass began his summation at 2:13 p.m.
Little did jurors know that Steinglass would not stand down until 8:01 p.m. — five hours, 38 minutes, and three breaks later
In stark contrast to Blanche’s opening remarks, Steinglass expressed zero appreciation for the jurors’ civic-mindedness, nor did he begin with any evidence of Trump’s falsification of invoices, ledger entries, checks, or any other business records. In other words, Steinglass, at least initially, ignored the very crux of his office’s indictment.
Instead, Steinglass prattled on about sex. He appeared to be prosecuting Trump for serial adultery.
Steinglass mentioned Dino Sajudin, a former Trump World Tower doorman who peddled a story about Trump supposedly fathering a love child with an ex-housekeeper.
Next, Steinglass spoke at great length about Karen McDougal. Steinglass claimed Trump called her “a nice girl.” Ergo, they must have hopped in the sack.
Then there is the Queen of Spice herself, Stormy Daniels, about whom Steinglass had plenty to share. He repeatedly said that the catch-and-kill effort involving her story, and others like it, were “the antithesis of a normal, legitimate press function.” Few would disagree that acquire-and-annihilate is abnormal, illegitimate journalism. Unfortunately for the prosecution, there is no law against running a shady paper that purchases-and-padlocks news.
Steinglass claimed that this “scheme” constituted a federal campaign finance violation. That’s a perfectly fine assertion, but for three inconvenient truths:
The U.S. Justice Department never filed criminal charges against Trump or anyone else related to L’affaire Stormy.
The Federal Election Commission voted on issuing civil claims. The proposal failed, and the contemplated action flamed out.
Regardless, under a DOJ-FEC memorandum of understanding, those two agencies have “exclusive jurisdiction” to enforce federal election law. Alvin Bragg has as much authority in that realm as he has to jail turnstile jumpers on the London Underground.
Just before mentioning “the estrogen Mafia,” the apparently oversexed Steinglass inserted a baffling reference to the greatest sex scandal in U.S. history. He circled back to Karen McDougal and cited her desire to appear on Dancing with the Stars. This way, Steinglass purred, “She could revive her career and also not be the next Monica Lewinsky.”
Say whaaaaat?
Steinglass also tossed in some introductory-level quantum mechanics. Echoing Schrödinger’s cat, Steinglass said, “There are no records of encrypted calls between parties. The absence of records does not prove that a call did not take place.”
Um, OK.
A prosecutor in a murder case likewise could tell a jury: “The absence of a sniper rifle does not prove that an assassination did not take place.” However, this sounds like the main attraction in the Museum of Reasonable Doubt. Steinglass’ comment is what Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger himself would have dubbed “a ‘blurred model’ for representing reality.”
After two hours, I had no choice but to leave all of this behind and prepare for my close-up on Fox Business Network’s The Bottom Line.
Admittedly, in my absence, somewhere between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., Silverglass might have remembered to explain precisely how Donald J. Trump created bogus business records in 2017 to influence an election in 2016. But even if Joshua Silverglass eventually presented such evidence, it should not have been an afterthought. After all, as Todd Blanche established, “This is a documents case.”
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor.
The post In Sum, Trump’s Defense Focuses on Accounting, Prosecution Obsesses Over Adultery appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.
New Posts (Home)
ChatBox
Popular Posts 
Game Zone
Top PodCasts
