A show trial is a public trial in which the guilt or innocence of the defendant has already been determined. The purpose of holding a show trial is to present both accusation and verdict to the public, serving as an example and a warning to other would-be dissidents or transgressors.
Let me start this article with exposing my bias. I am a 100% Trump supporter, not because I think he should be my pastor-in-chief but because I believe his policies will help America resume “super power” status on the world and domestic stage. At the end of this article, I will list those policies that he initiated in his first administration that I support and want to see in his second administration.
Now, back to why it was a “show trial” I will do my best to identify facts, not opinions about the charges brought against Donald Trump and the trial itself. First the charges:
Donald Trump was accused of falsifying business records in the first degree, with intent to defraud that includes an intent to commit another crime (committing the other crime makes it a felony). The other crime was a violation of New York election law 17-152 by unlawful means. The unlawful means were: violating the Federal Election Campaign Act, falsification of other business records and submitting false information on a tax return. The prosecution alleged that these actions were an attempt to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election and an unlawful plan to suppress negative information, which included hush money payment made to an adult film star to hide an alleged affair. Prosecutor’s accused Trump of disguised the transaction as a legal payment and falsified business records thirty four times to “promote his candidacy.” (The 34 charges consist of 11 checks written to Michael Cohen, and 23 invoices and ledger entries supporting those checks in 2017).
To put this case in context, let’s establish some dates:
2006-Alleged affair between Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels in Lake Tahoe.
2011-Ms Daniels gave a interview about the “affair”, but the story was never published.
2016-Ms. Daniels through her agent shopped the “affair” story to media outlets.
2016-Ms Daniels lost a defamation lawsuit to Donald Trump and was ordered to pay over
$300,000 in legal fees
2016-Michael Cohen paid Ms Daniels $130,000 in October 2016 for a non disclosure agreement (NDA), presumably to stop her from talking about the 2006 encounter.
2016-Trump was elected President in November 2016.
2017-Donald Trump paid Michael Cohen $420,000 in monthly checks for “legal fees” from his trust account and personnel checking account.
2018-Michael Cohen was sent a 1099 by the Trump Organization for $420,000. He had an obligation to report that sum as income and pay 2017 income taxes on this amount.
2019-New York statute of limitations expired for “false” 2017 business records.
The Venue
The trial was held in the Manhattan Borough of New York City. In New York County, NY, 86.4% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 12.2% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 1.4% voted Independent. In the last presidential election, Manhattan remained overwhelmingly Democratic, 86.4% to 12.2%. Manhattan voted Democratic in every Presidential election since 2000. The Trump defense team requested a venue change to West Virginia. Their request was denied by the judge and the New York Appeals Court.
The Judge
Judge Juan Merchan was accused of favoritism by the defense because he gave $35 to Democratic candidates including Joe Biden. He did receive a “caution” from the Judicial Ethics board for that donation but they declared that a judges impartiality can’t reasonably be questioned by “de minimis” political contributions or political activities by a judge’s first degree relative (Merchan’s daughter). The “de minimus” claim is questionable if it is true that his daughter has raised over $93 million from donors during Trump’s trial. Another question is if justices are being assigned randomly. The probability of three Trump related cases being assigned to the same judge (Merchan) is rather small, but that is what happened. I have no way of knowing if his rulings favored one side or the other but the Trump defense team claims that he ruled repeatedly in the prosecution’s favor. Merchan precluded Trump’s lawyers from offering an “advice of counsel” defense-which would have allowed Trump to claim that he was simply following Cohen’s advice.
The Jury
As mentioned in the “Venue” section, the Jury pool was overwhelmingly affiliated with the Democratic Party. The defense was only allowed 10 peremptory challenges, which may not be fair when considering the unbalanced composition of the jury pool. The main panel of 12 was made up of seven men and five women, including two lawyers, a teacher, a retired wealth manager, a product development manager, a security engineer, a software engineer, a speech therapist and a physical therapist. Most of them get their news from the New York Times. They all affirmed that they could be fair It is extremely rare that one lawyer much less two lawyers are accepted on a jury.
The Trial-Prosecution
The prosecution called 20 witnesses, most of which were accountants and bookkeepers that testified about the payments. The key witnesses were as follows:
Stormy Daniels– she testified that she received $130,000 from Michael Cohen in exchange for signing a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to keep secret her claim that she had a sexual encounter with Trump. She also testified to the salacious details of her encounter with Trump, where upon the defense made two motions for mistrial (both denied) on the grounds that Ms. Daniels testimony, outside of the fact that she received money, should not have been in front of the jury. She did admit that “she hates Donald Trump”.
David Pecker- National Enquirer Publisher – He testified that he had a 2015 verbal agreement with Trump and Cohen to “look out for negative stories about Trump so they could be suppressed”. He further testified that he paid Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 to keep her from going public about a claim that she had an affair with Donald Trump.
Keith Davidson-an attorney who testified that he helped negotiated “hush money” deals for Daniels and McDougal. Davidson said he dealt directly with Cohen, never with Trump.
Michael Cohen- Cohen is the linchpin of the prosecution’s case, the only witness to testify that Trump had direct involvement in arranging payment of $130,000 to Daniels. He also testified that he was working at Trump’s direction when he orchestrated the payments to McDougal and Daniels. Cohen testified that he submitted monthly invoices in 2017 for legal work he never actually performed. The Jurors also heard a secretly recorded 2016 Cohen tape in which Cohen briefed Trump on plans to buy McDougal’s story.
In 2018, Michael Cohen pled guilty in federal court to concealing more than $4 million in personal income (not Trump related) from the IRS, made false statements to a federally-insured financial institution in connection with a $500,000 home equity loan, and, in 2016, caused $280,000 in payments to be made to silence two women who otherwise planned to speak publicly about their alleged affairs with a presidential candidate, thereby intending to influence the 2016 presidential election. In 2018, he was sentenced to 3 years in prison and substantial fines. He faced additional fines for lying to Congress and the Mueller Investigation. Mr. Cohen acknowledged that he “hates Trump” and that he stole money from the Trump organization.
The Trial-Defense
The defense called only two witnesses. However, they tried to call Brad Smith, former Commissioner of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and government lawyer to testify on the complicated and highly specialized area of Federal Election Law. Judge Merchan denied the defense’s ability to call that witness.
Hope Hicks- Trump’s former campaign and White House communications director. After the “Access Hollywood tapes” ( in which Trump talked about rich men and women), Hicks asked Cohen to chase down a rumor about another tape, that turned out not to exist. She testified that the Wall Street Journal published an article about the McDougal payment, that Trump was concerned about how his wife, Melania, would take it. She also testified that in 2018, when Cohen told reporters he made the “hush money” payments out of his own funds without Trump’s knowledge, that Trump told her that “Cohen felt it was his job to protect him from false accusations and that is what he was doing. He did it out of the “kindness of his own heart” She added however that this was “out of character” for Cohen to take such an action on his own.
Robert Costello-attorney and ex-federal prosecuto. He testified that he offered Cohen his services after his 2018 arrest. Costello testified that Cohen told him that “Trump knew nothing about the hus money payments”. Cohen ultimately chose a different attorney.
Jury Instructions
The jury instructions were standard boiler plate with three notable exceptions: (1) The instructions included a line that “the law provides that a defendant may not be convicted of any crime upon the testimony of an accomplice (Michael Cohen) unless it is supported by corroborative evidence to connect the defendant with the commission of that crime.” (2) Merchan gave the jurors three possible “unlawful means” they can apply to Trump’s charges: (A) falsifying other business records, (B) breaking the 1971 Federal Election campaign Act or (C) submitting false information on a tax return. For a conviction, each juror would have to find that at least one of those three things happened, but they don’t have to agree unanimously on which one it was.
(A) The payments to Cohen were not for legal fees but were to reimburse him for the Daniels payout. Falsifying business records is a Class A misdemeanor under New York Law
(B) The accusation here is that Trump through Cohen made a donation in excess of $2,700 to his campaign by paying off McDougal and Daniels. The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 regulates the influence of money on politics. At all relevant times, the Election Act set certain limitations and prohibitions, among them: individual contributions to any presidential candidate, including expenditures coordinated with a candidate or his political committee, were limited to $2,700 per election, and presidential candidates and their committees were prohibited from accepting contributions from individuals in excess of this limit. Cohen had already pled guilty in federal court to violating this law. Note, that a candidate is permitted to give unlimited amounts to his own campaign.
(C)The 2017 payments to Cohen should not have been grossed up to include taxes, classified the payments as income and submitted a 1099 form to the IRS and Mr. Cohen.
(3) The jury asked to hear again what they described in a note as the judge’s “rain metaphor” instruction. It advises jurors that they can infer that it’s raining by seeing someone’s wet umbrella, even if they don’t see the rain themselves. The request suggested they were weighing Trumps intent, which can be only inferred, not proved.
Political Influence
There is a question of politics influencing this case. The facts in this trial have been known since 2017, yet no charges were leveled until 2024, 6 months before a Presidential election. The #3 official in the Department of Justice, Matthew Colangelo, resigned his position and joined the prosecution team in New York. This trial took Donald Trump off the campaign trail for 4 weeks, in the middle of the 2024 Presidential campaign. Judge Merchan has issued a gag order on Donald Trump, limiting his ability to speak out about the trial.
My Conclusion
Based on all the facts I have been able to uncover about this trial, I think there is significant smoke but not enough evidence to say there is a fire. The lynchpin of this case hinge on the believability of Michael Cohen. I think an unbiased jury would have come to the conclusion that Cohen is a serial liar, thief, and felon whose testimony was unworthy of consideration. He also has two classic motives to lie about Trump; vengeance and, greed. Cohen admitted that he wants to see Trump in prison the same way he was imprisoned, and that he was making millions working in the media.
I think Trump has plausible deniability that he had no first hand knowledge about the falsified records with the intent to conceal “another crime”, such as breaking election laws. Trump’s intent to suppress the Daniel’s story could be reasonably agrued that he wanted to protect his family. Without Cohen, there is no proof of intent to violate election law. If election laws were violated then it should be charged by the Federal Election Commission in federal court. To date they have declined to prosecute.
Why I will vote for Trump’s policies
I don’t think anyone who is fair would deny that Trump has been the victim of “law-fare”. Twice has been impeached but not convicted. He has four criminal indictments against him, and several of his key supporters have been imprisoned. I believe the 2024 election is “We The People” versus the “elites” in government, administrative state, intelligence agencies, big business and universities.Trump has shown that he is the only politician strong enough to stand up and defeat the “elites”.
I support the following Trump policies: sealing our southern border and deporting illegal immigrants, revitalizing American manufacturing and creating jobs, refraining from engaging in endless foreign wars, revitalizing the US energy market to eliminate all oil imports, and appointing judges who believe that the US Constitution should be the law of the land. These policies all came from his administration in 2017-202
