The charges centered on a $130,000 payment to adult film performer Stormy Daniels
A New York appeals court will be asked on Thursday to throw out Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The case made history in May 2024, when the verdict turned Trump into the first former, and now current, US president with a criminal conviction. The historic ruling did not stop him from returning to the White House, and it brought no punishment.
The charges centered on a $130,000 payment to adult film performer Stormy Daniels, made to obscure the money’s true purpose.
Trump denies any wrongdoing, and has turned to state and federal courts in hopes of unwinding the verdict. He is not expected to attend Thursday’s court session. The appeal turns on complex legal disputes, but the political overtones are hard to miss.
The lack of punishment is ridiculous.
The ability to be elected to office even with felony convictions is a safeguard. If you were barred from office if you had a felony, then this government would just keep charging everyone it hated with felonies, hoping either for a conviction, the person to go bankrupt and give up, or create enough smoke that the potential constituents don’t vote for them.
I mean, you know Ken Paxton would’ve had Talarico and O’Rourke up on charges, and enough Texans are Fox addicts that they’d have either eventually gotten a conviction for something or at least discouraged people from voting from them. And you know Trump would be relentlessly going after AOC, Omar, Sanders, Mamdani, etc.
They have tried prosecuting several elected opposition politicians already
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5356957-trump-administration-arrests-democrats/
Usually the court throws it out, but not always