• Snapz@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    The “hush money” framing is such a cutesy, bullshit spin to neuter the actual repeated and unapologetic fraud here. Basic human and business ethics concerns to side for a moment, It’s purely fraud against the American people without remorse and it’s actual election interference.

    You wouldn’t say that a serial killer that stabs and kills their victims is on trial for “night night pokes”. How was this allowed to get casually accepted like this without challenge from society?

    • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Can you expand more on the election interference part?

      Totally understand inciting an insurrection to be interference, but using campaign funds to manage public relations problems seems a legitimate use.

      • villainy@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        using campaign funds to manage public relations problems seems a legitimate use

        It is.

        What he did was try to hide payments made to benefit his campaign. Would you consider illegally financing a campaign to be election interference?

        • spongebue@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Not just the financing, but hiding the Stormy Daniels story during the election. They were using the National Enquirer (yes, I know) to promote Trump, make up stories to bring down his opponents, and hide the Stormy Daniels story (which was needed when the “grab them by the pussy” video leak caused chaos and arguably almost sunk the campaign). THAT’S where the election interference came into play.

          • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            They were using the National Enquirer (yes, I know) to promote Trump, make up stories to bring down his opponents, and hide the Stormy Daniels story (which was needed when the “grab them by the pussy” video leak caused chaos and arguably almost sunk the campaign)

            Isn’t this part a normal election strategy in the US? And not illegal itself?

            • spongebue@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              Honestly, I’m not sure how exactly the law is written. I believe that was a factor out of several that raised the misdemeanor of falsification into a felony (by doing so to conceal a crime). The judge’s instructions to the jury was that they needed to be unanimous that a crime was being concealed, but they didn’t have to agree on which one(s). Unless some members of the jury go to the media (for their sake, I sure hope they don’t) and that gets brought up, we’ll probably never know which way that wind was blowing.

              • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                Thanks.

                In the future I’m sure politicians on all sides will be paying people to keep certain facts quiet. I was just trying to confirm what is legal and what is illegal.

          • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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            5 months ago

            Yeah, if he was upfront about things then there would be no criminal case

            However saying he set up shell companies to carry out falsification isn’t moralising

              • suction@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                I don’t think anyone is still naive enough to think you can win over Republicunts. The way to stop Trump is to battle voter apathy and tear down barriers to vote, because the majority will not vote for Trump if they get to cast their votes.

                  • suction@lemmy.world
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                    5 months ago

                    I can find both opinions: Helps Trump / helps Biden, so probably nobody the fuck knows. I am still sure that the reason Trump won in 2016 was too many Democrat voters being put off by Clinton + the “Bernie Bro” crowd staying home.

      • krakenfury@lemmy.sdf.org
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        5 months ago

        That was not the legal issue of the case, though. Campaigns have to be very transparent with how they spend contributions, for obvious reasons, and it was easy to prove that this appropriation was obfuscated.