Tag Archives: Deadline

Down The Rabbit Hole With The Trump Trial

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On Friday, Byron York posted article at The Washington Examiner about some of the insanity surrounding the New York trial of President Trump. A number of laws have been ignored in order to proceed with this trial, and Byron York lists a number of them.

The article reports:

Yes, we know that Trump is charged with falsifying business records of payments made to the porn actress Stormy Daniels in 2016 and 2017. But falsifying business records is a misdemeanor with a two-year statute of limitations, meaning prosecutors would be prohibited from charging Trump with that crime after 2019, which was five years ago. They obviously missed that deadline by a mile.

We also know that New York law allows falsifying business records to be upgraded to a felony if the alleged falsification was done with “intent to defraud that includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.” In that case, the statute of limitations extends to five years, which would have allowed prosecutors to charge Trump as late as 2022. Prosecutors missed that deadline, too.

Trump was indicted in 2023. How did that happen? Because of COVID-19, when New York extended its statute of limitations by a year. That allowed prosecutors to slip the charges in right before the new, one-time-only, six-year extended statute of limitations expired.

But here’s the thing. What was the “intent to commit another crime or aid and conceal the commission thereof” that prosecutors used to raise falsification of business records from a misdemeanor to a felony? In nearly every case of alleged falsification of records that has been charged as a felony in New York, the defendant was charged with another crime — that is, prosecutors made it clear what the other crime was. In Trump’s case, the indictment did not specify any other crime. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said the law did not require him to specify the other crime.

So Trump faced felony charges without knowing what he was accused of doing. And the really amazing thing is that the trial is now underway and Bragg has still not specified what the other crime is. It is a key element of the case. Without it, the charges against Trump could never have been brought because they were misdemeanors long past the statute of limitations. It is the other crime that makes this whole prosecution possible. But the prosecutor has not specified what it is.

One of my lawyer friends tells me that a trial must deal with whatever the defendant is charged with in the indictment. The Fifth Amendment “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.” In this case, the prosecutor has not even specified the crime that made the prosecution possible. Is there anyone in the New York State legal system who has actually read the U.S. Constitution?

Who Is In And Who Is Out At The White House Briefing Room

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On December 17th, the new White House briefing room seating chart was unveiled. A website called Deadline posted the details. If this is the most transparent administration in history, they sure are transparent about removing press that does not follow the mainstream media narrative from the room.

The article reports:

On Friday, the White House Correspondents Association unveiled its new seating chart for the space, with such outlets as The Grio, The Washington Blade, local station groups and business networks are getting assigned seats. Outlets like One America News Network, BuzzFeed and The New York Daily News no longer have assigned seats compared to the last revision in 2017.

The changes will take effect as of Jan. 3.

In a letter to members, WHCA President Steve Portnoy wrote that criteria for seating assignments included long-standing service on the beat, “ensuring that the seats are dependably filled, as assigned” and “seeing to it that the briefing room reflects the country it covers.”

…“To enhance diversity in the briefing room, assignments have been given to organizations that target Black, Hispanic and LGBTQ audiences, as well as readership and viewership that lies across the ideological spectrum,” wrote Portnoy, White House correspondent for CBS News Radio. “The WHCA has also for the first time granted seat assignments to local television station groups, which reach viewers in markets across America.  Additionally, business networks that have covered the White House for years have finally been granted spots on our chart.”

The most visible seats are, obviously, in the first row, and those assignments have not changed: NBC News, FOX News, CBS News, AP, ABC News, Reuters and CNN. Nor has the second row: The Wall Street Journal, CBS News Radio, Bloomberg, NPR, The Washington Post, The New York Times and USA Today.

The organizations new to the seating chart from 2017: Telemundo, CNBC, The Grio, Fox Business, Nexstar, Newsy, Gray TV, EWTN, Cheddar, Hearst, Spectrum, Newsweek, The Daily Caller and The Washington Blade. All are sharing seats.

I wonder when the idea of diversity will actually include diversity of opinion.

Leaving California

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Yesterday Deadline posted an article about The Daily Wire, the conservative media company started by Ben Shapiro, Jeremy Boreing and Caleb Robinson. The Daily Wire, founded in 2015, has always been based in California.

The article reports:

The Daily Wire, the conservative media company started by Ben Shapiro, Jeremy Boreing and Caleb Robinson, plans to move its headquarters from Los Angeles to Nashville.

Boreing said that the move was being made due to a declining quality of life in the city, including high housing costs and homelessness.

The publisher’s 75 employees based in Los Angeles are being given until Oct. 1 to decide whether to make the move, Boreing said. He said that it looked like about 80% would make the move.

The article continues:

“The dream of California and the weather were enough to draw us all here and keep us here, even when it was hard,” he said. “But it’s hubris to think you can keep making it worse and worse for people and that somehow the idea of temperate winters will be enough to make them stay forever.”

He said that he plans to move in November, and much of the staff will follow after that.

“L.A. benefits from the fact that, while it leans left, it draws individualists out to find their fame and seek their fortunes. They’re an ornery bunch. But they aren’t so ornery that this out of control government can’t break them.”

He said that they considered moving to Texas, but chose Nashville because it “offers the creative talent we need to keep growing the business.”

“We were shocked by the reception when we announced the move,” Boreing said. “But, of course, our employees see all of the same challenges we see and it’s even harder for them to afford this place.”

California used to be ‘the place to live,’ but due to bad governance, it has become a haven for homeless people and drug addicts. The cost of living there has gone through the roof as a result of high housing costs, high taxes, and over-regulation. There is still hope for California to return to normal, but it would take a voting population that wanted to correct the errors of the past.