Why Is This Trump Hush-Money Thing Taking so $#%& Long?
By: Laura Italiano (Business Insider)
Still.......... waiting. Look's like all those fearless district attorneys have gone fishin'.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Here's something fun: Do a Google News search on the words "Trump" and "looming."
You'll get hundreds of stories about the New York "hush-money" indictment currently "looming" over the head of former President Donald Trump. The stories go back more than two weeks, starting with The New York Times' first prediction that an indictment could be soon.
Since then, this internationally awaited potential indictment has been looming all over the networks. It's looming on cable news. It's looming in print headlines. It's looming in the headlines of online news outlets big and small, including, at least a dozen times, on Insider.
Not since Michael Myers in the last "Halloween" movie has an unreal thing loomed so persistently, so protractedly, and with so much attendant breathless suspense, as this yet-hypothetical Trump indictment vote.
"Is there a statute of limitations on looming?" veteran Manhattan defense lawyer Ron Kuby wondered of the phenomenon. "Or can it loom in perpetuity, until it happens?"
Yet despite its incessant looming (it's also nearing, approaching, and threatening, to name a few less-popular present participles), Trump's anticipated indictment vote by a Manhattan grand jury only seems to be taking forever.
In fact, "Why is it taking so long" is actually the wrong question, according to Kuby and other Manhattan attorneys.
The right question may be, "Why is this supposedly secret grand jury such a honking, spotlit spectacle?"
For 30 years, Manhattan attorney Diana Florence led grand jury investigations into white-collar crimes for the Manhattan district attorney's office, the same office investigating Trump.
She has never seen such dense and breathless coverage of a grand jury's purpose and timing.
She's never seen so many grand jury witnesses and their lawyers holding press conferences on the district attorney's front steps and trash-talking each other in the media.
Every day brings more speculation about one more witness and about apparent stops and starts in the presentation of evidence.
None of this is normal, and keeping up is exhausting. It's no wonder this all seems to be taking forever, Florence said.
"This is unprecedented," said Florence, who estimates that before going into private practice two years ago she presented some 200 white-collar cases in the same grand jury room where the Trump panel meets.
"There's never been anything like this," she said. "The grand jury is usually pretty boring, you know?"
Speculation that an indictment is either "looming" or "delayed," and that a "surprise" grand jury witness is either appearing or no longer appearing only spawns false narratives, said former Manhattan prosecutor Jeremy Saland.
Last weekend, Trump claimed, without evidence, that he would be arrested in precisely three days, on a Tuesday.
When Tuesday came and went without an arrest, Trump's false narrative changed to one of "total disarray" inside the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
"Tremendous dissension and chaos because they have NO CASE," Trump "truthed" on Thursday, after Insider broke the news that the grand jury presentation was on pause for the rest of the week.
Prosecutors are considering charging Trump with felony charges of falsifying business records, his lawyers believe.
The charges would concern Trump's alleged role in indirectly paying adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in the days before the 2016 election to stay quiet about a one-night stand she claims they had in 2006.
Trump has denied an affair and any wrongdoing.
Federal prosecutors have called the "hush money" payment an illegal campaign contribution.
Grand jurors, prosecutors, and even the court stenographer are barred from talking about what happens in the grand jury room, said Kuby, and that's true even after an indictment.
"The process of the grand jury is secret," as a matter of state law, he noted. "The deliberations are secret, and the materials submitted to the grand jury are secret," he said.
But witnesses, defense lawyers, and the grand jury target himself — Trump — have no such obligation.
State law says they can yap all they like.
And so we get star prosecution witness Michael Cohen holding press conferences after his testimony. And a defense rebuttal witness, attorney Robert Costello, dumping on Cohen's credibility after his own testimony.
"The defendant, the target of the grand jury, usually says nothing, let alone publically planning how they're going to look in handcuffs," Kuby said.
We even get Stormy Daniels, a potential witness, tweeting about Trump's "slippery fingers."
And, disturbingly, we get Trump mocking calls for his supporters to be peaceful and warning of "death and destruction" if he is charged.
"All of the children who are desperate for attention are getting the attention for which they are desperate," Kuby said.
It is in this climate of threatened violence that law enforcement has responded to repeated hoax bomb threats in the Manhattan courthouse district.
On Friday, an envelope of white powder was sent to Bragg at the office building where the grand jury sits. The grand jury was not there that day, and the powder proved non-hazardous.
Despite the cacophony of coverage, the actual work of the grand jury has remained a secret, and it's wrong to assume anything from how long that work is taking, noted Saland, the former prosecutor.
"There's no actual looming going on," Saland said. "It's taking as long as it needs to take. And it has to end," with or without an indictment, he added. "Grand juries don't go on forever."
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Since nothing about this is a 'crisis', apparently the new mantra has become 'never let political theater go to waste'.
What does Stormy Daniels have to do with charges of falsifying business records?
Motive.
Stormy Daniels is bait on the hook?
Strange the way people's minds run away with them. Cohen paid Daniels out of his own money and was reimbursed eventually with Trump's own money for services rendered. Cohen made a decision as a lawyer to help his client. It was "legal services" as reported as Trump supposedly didn't coerce him into doing so as testimony provides. Plain and simple. And they are going to keep the grand jury tied up until they force 12 votes to indict. Right now it seems they don't have them
Subterfuge. Nobody in their right mind would have used that much of their own money to have "protected" a culprit who isn't family unless they knew they would be reimbursed by the culprit. And if you really do believe Cohen did it without that promise there is a bridge here in Chongqing I'm sure you will buy from me..
Odd you would believe a convicted felon with an axe to grind over someone who testified to a set of facts different than what Cohen claimed.
I believe what makes common sense to me - you can believe whatever you wish.
I am sorry that the words of a convicted disbarred former lawyer mean so much to you.
To each their own.
good point , but considering cohen is already a disgraced , disbarred and convicted liar and thief , it wouldnt surprise me that he didnt get "stiffed" on any supposed reimbursment , there does seem to be a pattern of the "culprit " doing so in other instances , so any testimony from said individual should be highly suspect in the least .
why taking so long ? insulated layers of disconnect from point A to point B from theory to conclusion . also the DA might realize , it will be harder to get a conviction in an actual court , than it is to get one in the court of public opinion .
Where did I say there wasn't a promise..........of sorts? Cohen was Trump's attorney. He knew he would get paid back. Otherwise HE could have been the one to blow the whistle. I am sure he was on retainer and probably had that $130K basically paid in advance over the years due to said retainer. After all, an attorney produces nothing but service. No tangible goods. It is just time they provide. That's it.
He knew he'd get paid back? I thought the world knew how many contractors and others Trump had screwed over the years but Cohen trusted him? Isn't there a saying "It takes a thief to know a thief"? Chances are that if he's a lawyer, he's probably not a sucker or stupid. Well, now that I think of it he probably is, because maybe he did trust Trump.
They do. Difference is, Cohen knew things that perhaps he KNEW that Trump would not want to leak. In a way, Cohen had Trump by the short hairs...........and Trump knew it.
Maybe this backstory will help............................
You know what, Jim? I starting to think this whole damn thing is beyond my comprehension and it's quickly becoming distracting from the things I prefer to spend my time on.
Perhaps this is taking so long because the case is weak and old.
Or maybe, just maybe, the grand jury managed to include some intelligent New Yorkers who simply refuse to go along with the DA's political games.
Maybe the members of the grand jury are wondering why the DA is investing his career in getting Trump when the FEC declined to press charges after looking into the matter.
Was watching that waiting for things to unfold , towards the end of the week i started feeling like i was watching that old car ins commercial where the off/ no name company kept say got a dollar for ya .. only to yank the string as one reached for it .....
I think that accurately describes many conservatives' feelings about all the times liberals have crowed over the last 7 YEARS of "We got Trump now" stories.
Only to never see them amount to anything more than a hill of beans.
Why is it taking so long? Ask the know-it-all who was predicting it would happen a week ago.
Weak case.
Incompetent DA?
Smart grand jurors?
We will find out, I can wait.
Oh, I can wait, too!
After all, what is a matter of weeks, months or years after waiting for liberals to really, really, REALLY get Trump THIS time for the last 7 years?
How is the fucking moron DA going to get around the statute of limitations?
Maybe that is why this whole thing is taking so long? Maybe a smart juror noticed something!
Why is it taking so long?
If possible, please link to any of those things happening to or affecting the grand jury currently empaneled.
I have no idea what the book titles mean. I just felt that the cobwebs on the wheel of justice was an appropriate image for this article.
I was enquiring about the blocks of wood, but since you don't know much about the picture, never mind.