A Trump trial puzzle

[UPDATE: I read this article today by a former federal prosecutor that also makes the point that lying about his liaisons with Daniels and McDougal was a bad strategy.

But it’s also clear that Trump’s lawyers are pursuing a flawed and risky strategy. Why? Most likely it’s not them, but him. Trump is the client, and he gets the final word on major decisions. So far as I can tell, this team has managed to stay on Trump’s good side by indulging — perhaps necessarily — his worst traits and instincts. It may be their downfall.

Most devastatingly, lead attorney Todd Blanche, in his opening statement, repeated Trump’s claim that he never had a sexual encounter with Stormy Daniels. That was followed by days of testimony last week that — if you believe Daniels’ very persuasive account — effectively demonstrated that a central plank of Trump’s defense is a lie and has been a lie for years, and that the jury cannot trust even Trump’s lead counsel to tell them the truth.

A bunch of Trump-supporting legal commentators have claimed that Daniels’ testimony was irrelevant to the case — a truly baffling interpretation of events given what actually happened. Prosecutors had no choice but to put Daniels on after Blanche affirmatively called her a liar in his opening statement, and they had to elicit considerable detail about the sexual encounter in order to establish her credibility in response to Blanche’s attack inside the courtroom and Trump’s years of attacks outside of it. Not only was that the appropriate way for the government to defend the integrity of its investigation and its witness, it was also an unmissable opportunity for them to tank the credibility of Trump’s entire legal defense.

But the author does not speculate as to the motive behind this poor choice of strategy.]

We are in the fourth week of the trial of serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) and it has been as tawdry as expected. The main (but not only) charge is that SSAT falsified business records to claim that $130,000 given to his former fixer Michael Cohen was a retainer for legal services when it was actually reimbursements to Cohen for payments made to suppress damaging information emerging just before the 2016 election. The latter reason would constitute an illegal campaign contribution. The statement issued by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg when the indictments were first announced in April 2023 has the following:

In one instance, American Media Inc. (“AMI”), paid $30,000 to a former Trump Tower doorman, who claimed to have a story about a child TRUMP had out of wedlock.  

In a second instance, AMI paid $150,000 to a woman who alleged she had a sexual relationship with TRUMP. When TRUMP explicitly directed a lawyer who then worked for the Trump Organization as TRUMP’s Special Counsel (“Special Counsel”) to reimburse AMI in cash, the Special Counsel indicated to TRUMP that the payment should be made via a shell company and not by cash. AMI ultimately declined to accept reimbursement after consulting their counsel. AMI, which later admitted its conduct was unlawful in an agreement with federal prosecutors, made false entries in its business records concerning the true purpose of the $150,000 payment. 

In a third instance – 12 days before the presidential general election – the Special Counsel wired $130,000 to an attorney for an adult film actress. The Special Counsel, who has since pleaded guilty and served time in prison for making the illegal campaign contribution, made the payment through a shell corporation funded through a bank in Manhattan.

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No end to Trump’s financial sleaze

Serial sex abuser Donald Trump’s (SSAT) has already been found guilty of fraud in a case that required him to pay hundred’s of millions of dollars in penalties and is now undergoing an appeal. Then we have the current fraud trial in a New York City court. As if that was not enough, ProPublica has come out with another potential fraud case as a result of a tax audit that may make him liable for another $100 million. Like the first trial, it involves dubious accounting practices.
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RFK Jr.’s brain worm is not funny

I am not a fan of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He seems to be somewhat of a crank and his run for president seems to be a vanity project in order to push some of his outlandish views. But his revelation that he has a dead parasitic worm in his brain has created a media storm.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday detailed the medical abnormality he experienced in 2010 that he said was caused by a worm that entered his brain and then died, marking his first public explanation of the incident.

Kennedy said he recalls experiencing “brain fog” and “having trouble with word retrieval and short-term memory,” during that period in a podcast interview on “Pushing the Limits with Brian Shapiro.”

He was initially told by doctors that he had a tumor in his brain, and was planning to have it removed before he met with another doctor who looked at images of his brain and said it didn’t look like a tumor, Kennedy said.

While I completely oppose his candidacy, I am disturbed at how some are reacting to the news, treating it as a source of humor. People’s health problems can be a source of concern. Learning that one has a worm in one’s brain, even if it is dead, can be terrifying. While it can raise legitimate questions about whether they are capable of serving in the office, it is not funny and I wish people would stop treating it as such.

The competition between US and Chinese electric vehicle companies

President Joe Biden is ramping up the trade war with China by keeping the tariffs serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) placed on some Chinese products and adding new ones or increasing them. In particular he is expected to placed tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs).

The Biden administration is getting ready to announce new tariffs on imports of goods from China — products like electric vehicles deemed to be policy priorities.

The announcement, which could come as early as next week, was confirmed by a source familiar with the tariff deliberations, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the formal announcement of the decision.

The administration has been reviewing tariffs on Chinese goods since President Biden took office – steep duties on about $370 billion of imports from China each year, put in place by former President Donald Trump as one of his signature policy moves.

The Biden administration has decided to keep those Trump tariffs in place — and in addition, add a range of strategic items to the list. The decision was first reported by Bloomberg.

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Hard times for Trump allies

John Catsimatidis is a billionaire who is a Republican donor. He also owns a radio station WABC and Rudy Giuliani had a time slot on that show that he used to rant about his usual pet peeves. But WABC at some point warned him to stay away from topics like the 2020 election, possibly because of fears that his reckless spewing of conspiracy fantasies about the 2020 election being stolen because of rigged voting machines and software might get the station sued by Dominion and Smartmatic voting systems, the way he has been sued. He already is on the hook to pay $148 million for defaming two Georgia election workers.

But Giuliani did not heed the warnings and so the station has suspended his show.
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What the hell is wrong with the Catholic church?

You would think that by now people would have got used to the extent to which the Catholic church went to shield pedophile priests. But then comes along a story like this about a bombshell secret deposition that reveals the callous disregard the church had towards the victims of a priest while covering up his abuses, and even promoting him and allowing him to retire with full benefits.
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Kristi Noem’s disastrous book tour

As if her story about shooting her pet puppy Cricket was not bad enough, South Dakota governor Kristi Noem is also under fire for a false story about meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. Jordan Klepper weighs in.

In China, a zoo has apologized for dyeing two dogs black and white in order to fool visitors into making them think they were pandas. It struck me that this may be a good strategy for dogs to avoid Killer Noem.

Old bitter comedians

It has become common to hear well-known comedians bemoaning that they are no longer allowed to do the kind of comedy they want to do because audiences have become too touchy and sensitive and object to what they like to think of as ‘edgy’ comedy. People like Ricky Gervais, Bill Maher, Louis CK, and Dave Chappelle are among the most prominent whiners.

Now Monty Python’s John Cleese has also joined in, framing his complaint in the form of saying that people no longer understand irony.
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Tories reeling after local elections in the UK

Elections to local councils last week saw the Conservative party suffering huge losses. They won 515 seats, down by 397 form what they held before, while all the the parties gained seats. The Labour party was the biggest gainer, winning 1,158 seats, an increase of 232.

This does not augur well for the Conservatives in the next general elections which have to be held by January but are expected to be held a few months earlier, on a date of prime minister Rishi Sunak’s choosing. Public opinion polls have long indicated that they will be swept out of power after 14 continuous years of rule and these local elections cemented that view.

In general, a party that loses so badly might seek to replace its leader with someone new in the hope of turning its fortunes around. But it is not clear that this will happen to prime minister Rishi Sunal since there is not much time left before the general election and the party has recently had so much turmoil in its leadership that a fresh round of leadership fights is not something that they will relish.
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