Like, it’s crazy to me that anyone would assert that the charges are baseless or that they’re solid before the charges have even been announced. How do you know they’re baseless?
I agree that the number of charges doesn’t make a point one way or another, about the strength of the charges.
I’m asking how someone can be absolutely certain in their speculation about those charges.
Is the NYT saying the charges are particularly strong, or are they saying the charges are particularly weak? I haven’t seen that from them, but if they are then I have the same questions.
I’m not holding anyone here to a higher level of scrutiny than the NYT. I merely asked where someone’s confidence came from.
It’s funny, Republicans used to often wax in about the sanctity of the rule of law. For some reason, the entrancing powers of Mr. Trump led many to throw that away to stand behind the demagogue.
We should demand better. I live in New York. 2/4 most recent governors left office as part of a deal to avoid prosecution. Prominent legislative leaders were convicted and removed from office.
Regardless of party, there needs to be a standard. Breaking the law and laundering money to buy the silence of a sexual dalliance is a serious crime. Former NY Governor Spitzer was facing federal charges for money transfer violations of his own money to solicit an escort.
Mr Trump seeks to make this a political matter because that distracts from the heart of the matter — his actions. The people who in good faith donated to his campaign wanted to “make America great again”, not pay hush money to porn actresses.
As New York Judge Sol Wachtler said in 1985, “If a district attorney wanted, a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.”
Explanation at https://abovethelaw.com/2016/02/criminally-yours-indicting-a...
That's why we have grand juries, to make sure a crime is truly serious before revealing in public the alleged crime.
In all due time, the charge will be public and we will see the evidence ourselves. The news event is that the prosecutors have crossed one of the major hurdles of a typical criminal court case and have convinced a grand jury to proceed.
I’m also generally much more skeptical of state level pre-indictment processes which generally aren’t quite as buttoned down as federal pre-indictment processes (though, that’s a pretty broad generalization).
But, the indictments will come out soon, and the evidence supporting them eventually, so time will certainly tell.
