Hello, friends!
For the first time in America’s 250 years of history,
Criminal charges have been framed on a US President
And he was later arrested.
Donald Trump made history with this.
34 charges have been framed on Trump,
With the maximum imprisonment of each of the charges being 4 years
It’s being said that he is facing the potential maximum punishment of 136 years.
If these charges are proven before the judge and jury.
Does this mean that Donald Trump will spend the rest of his life in jail?
What are the accusations against him?
It’s an interesting story.
“Donald Trump has been charged with
34 felony counts of
falsifying business records…”
“the nation is awaiting a
potential criminal indictment
of former President Donald Trump.”
“Donald Trump arrested 
and charged with business fraud.”
“Bringing Donald Trump down
through Manhattan to the lower criminal court
and arrived.”
“Donald Trump on defence, though, criminally”
“They know that we will defeat them,
but they’re not coming after me,
they’re coming after you.”
The story of Donald Trump’s arrest,
Begins with an affair,
That according to Trump, never happened.
It began in 2006,
Donald Trump and Melania Trump were already married.
They were married for 1 year,
And Donald Trump was hosting a TV show.
During this time, he met adult actress Stormy Daniels.
They met in Nevada at a celebrity golf tournament.
After this, allegedly, Stormy Daniels and Donald Trump
began an affair.
Fast forwarding 10 years, in 2016,
Donald Trump was contesting the US Presidential Elections.
And Daniels tried to reveal the story of their affair to the world.
She tried selling her story to a media house.
Here, the newspaper National Enquirer entered our story.
This newspaper publishes celebrity gossip
and entertainment news like this.
This newspaper was owned by a media organisation
American Media Inc. or AMI.
And the CEO of this AMI media organisation was David Pecker.
It’s said that David Pecker and Donald Trump were quite close.
So National Enquirer bought this story.
But after buying it, it didn’t publish it
The newspaper is now being accused
of employing ‘Catch and Kill’.
It means that the newspaper helped in
covering up all negative news about Donald Trump.
How did they do this?
Quite simply.
They bought the exclusive rights to such stories from the person looking to publish them,
they paid them well,
but after buying the rights, they wouldn’t publish them.
A brilliant tactic if you think about it.
Normally, if you want someone to remain quiet,
You can bribe them into silence
But doing so is illegal.
Here, to keep them quiet, this newspaper
Would approach them and offer to buy the exclusive rights to the sensational stories
under the guise of publishing them.
But they never published the stories.
And that person cannot tell his story to anyone else
Because he gave exclusive rights to the story to this media organisation.
An example of this is the story of former Trump Tower doorman, Dino Sajudin.
Friends, Dino Sajudin worked as the doorman at Trump Tower.
When you go to a big building or a 5-star hotel,
There are some people employed to simply open and close the door.
They are the doormen.
This was Sajudin’s job at the Trump Tower.
One day, in the 1980s,
He saw Trump with another woman.
Going in and heading out of the Trump Tower.
Not only this, Sajudin claims that although he was married,
Trump had an affair in the 1980s,
And had a child with that woman.
Sajudin wanted to tell this story to the world in 2015,
And the media organisation AMI,
Bought the exclusive rights to this story.
They paid $30,000 to Dino Sajudin for the exclusive rights.
Once the agreements were signed,
they never published this story.
They simply killed the story forever.
Interestingly, friends, this isn’t merely an accusation.
Rather, AMI’s CEO, David Pecker,
Admitted that his media organisation did employ the ‘Catch and Kill’ tactic.
Another incident took place between 2006-2007
When Donald Trump had another affair with another actress, Karen McDougal.
This story was bought by the same newspaper
By paying $150,000 to this actress.
As always, they didn’t publish it.
Coming back to the Daniels scandal,
About 1 month before the 2016 elections,
This was around the same time when Trump’s famous “grab them” quote was leaked.
It won’t be wrong to say that Trump’s reputation was at stake.
He was running to be the President of the US
And had news of such affairs been made public,
It would have had a big impact on the elections.
Once again, this newspaper promised to pay $130,000 to Daniels,
To buy the exclusive rights to this story of their affair.
Even as the elections were approaching,
Daniels hadn’t received this payment.
The responsibility to transfer the money fell
on the shoulders of Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen.
Michael kept delaying this payment.
But when Daniels was about to cancel this deal because of the non-payment,
Frightened, Cohen used a shell company to send this money.
Donald Trump claims that the affair never happened.
So the question arises, why did they pay her?
We have proof that money was transferred from Michael Cohen to Daniels.
When he was asked in court, Michael Cohen didn’t deny it.
He acknowledged that he made the payment
And for this reason.
Due to this, Michael Cohen was sentenced to 3 years’ imprisonment.
The 3 years ended recently,
Since some of the months were during the Covid-19 pandemic,
He was under house arrest for that duration.
Secretly paying someone to silence them
Is known as Hush Payment.
And friends, you will be amazed to know that
Making hush payments isn’t a crime in America.
Now you’ll ask why was Michael Cohen imprisoned.
Michael Cohen wasn’t imprisoned for making the hush payment,
He was sent to jail due to these crimes.
Willful tax evasion 5 times.
Giving false statements to banks.
Unlawful campaign contributions, and
Excessive campaign contribution.
The last 2 charges are related to political contribution.
Political donations.
Similarly, in Trump’s case friends,
A married person having an affair can be morally wrong,
Or ethically wrong,
But in terms of law, it isn’t a crime in most American states.
Neither is it a crime to make hush payments.
Nor is it a crime to try to clean up one’s image.
So what are the charges against Donald Trump?
Interestingly, he was charged with
wrongfully recording transactions in the bank account.
Of falsifying his business records.
This happened when he tried to pay his lawyer for the legal services.
Trump is facing 34 charges of falsifying business records.
Of these, it is alleged that he falsified the invoices 11 times.
11 false cheques and cheque stubs,
And 12 false general ledger entries.
Broadly speaking, when his lawyers were making hush payments to Daniels,
To keep her silent,
And when Donald Trump paid his lawyer regarding this,
There was some misappropriation of money.
Even though his lawyer, Cohen,
acknowledged in court about doing these things,
Donald Trump claims that his lawyer is lying.
The things that Cohen acknowledged doing
Trump denies all of those.
Trump was accused when he was paying his lawyer to pay the hush money to Daniels,
This payment was disguised as a common payment.
As a normal, legal, day-to-day expense.
Which it wasn’t.
This is why, it is a case of falsifying business records.
Friends, there’s another twist in the story.
According to New York’s state law,
Falsifying business records will be considered a crime only when
It is done intentionally to cover up another crime.
It means that merely falsifying business records isn’t a crime,
Because this can be a genuine mistake,
But it becomes a crime when
One tries to cover up a primary crime.
What is the primary crime in Trump’s case?
We’ll get to know this once the trial and court hearing starts,
But according to the experts
The primary crime would be the crime for which Trump’s lawyer Cohen was convicted.
In addition to this, tax fraud is emerging as another primary crime.
In a leaked document, it was revealed that
Cohen paid $130,000 to Daniels to remain quiet in 2016
And Trump paid Cohen $420,000 for the same thing in 2017.
Donald Trump paid more than the actual payment.
It is being seen as an instance of tax fraud.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is the lawyer leading this prosecution.
According to him, one of the primary crimes would be
That information was wrongly presented to the voters before the elections.
“damaging information and unlawful activity
from American voters before and after the 2016 election,”
To increase his chances of winning the election,
Donald Trump concocted this Catch and Kill scheme.
So that all negative news about him could be suppressed.
What’ll happen next in this case?
There are many hurdles in trying to prove Donald Trump’s guilt.
First, if this case reaches the Supreme Court of America,
There’s a high chance that Trump would leave unscathed,
Because of the Republican-appointed Supermajority in the Supreme Court.
A major disadvantage of the American system is that
In America, the Supreme Court judges are selected by the President.
So when Donald Trump was President,
he selected multiple Supreme Court judges.
And those judges are still on the Supreme Court’s bench.
Will those judges pass a sentence against Trump?
It looks uncertain.
In this context, in America,
there isn’t enough independence between the judiciary, executive, and legislative.
But it is interesting to note that
in America, Supreme Court is the final authority for Federal laws.
Laws that are directly linked to the US Constitution.
But the highest court in each state
Has the final say on the state laws.
And here, we were talking about New York’s state law
And this case is in a New York State court.
The second problem with proving Trump guilty will be that
The crime of falsifying business records comes with a time limit of 5 years.
If someone committed this crime 5 years ago,
They cannot be convicted for that now.
And the final payment made by Trump to Cohen
Was in December 2017.
5 years have already passed.
Can Trump be convicted for this crime any longer?
There’s a counter for this as well.
According to New York’s law,
This time limit can be suspended
If the accused person was living outside New York.
When Trump became the President,
He lived in the White House for 4 years,
That’s, obviously, not in New York.
And he was living in Florida ever since his term as the President ended.
So technically, the 5 years’ limitation will not be triggered here.
Also, it is interesting to note that there have been
no statements from Donald Trump’s wife Melania Trump on this case.
This is why some media websites reported that
Perhaps Melania Trump feels embarrassed due to this situation
And that she was aware of her husband’s affairs.
In response, Donald Trump claims that the entire saga is a witchhunt,
That he is being targeted.
He is accusing the judge of being a
“Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife
whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris”
“I have a Trump-hating judge
with a Trump-hating wife and family,
whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris,
and now receives money from
the Biden-Harris campaign.”
Trump made these statements despite
being warned by Judge Merchan
to stop making such threatening and inflammatory statements.
Recently, in January 2023,
a $1 million fine was imposed on Trump
Because according to the judge,
He was continuously misusing the courts
In furtherance of his political narrative.
Friends, what do you think?
Comment below whether you
think this is a witch hunt wrongfully targeting Trump
or if it is justified due to his crimes.
In my opinion, the crimes aren’t so significant
that Trump needs to be sent to prison for years,
But his unethical and immoral acts
need to be presented to the public.
So that the people know the kind of person they are voting for.
In terms of politics, interestingly, the impact can actually backfire.
Donald Trump may get more sympathy votes
in the 2024 US Presidential elections next year.
Contesting the election will not be a problem for him.
Because in America, there’s no law
preventing a person with criminal charges from contesting elections.
Even if he is convicted and all these charges are proven true,
No one can stop him from contesting the elections.
Convicted politicians are allowed to contest elections.
But this case may take months to resolve.
Thank you very much!