FollowMesorah,
I thought you didn’t want to get into the nitty gritty. I gave you the top level overview without all the fluff. It is exactly what the Jury saw and convicted him on.
“The first is that he was clearly paying to keep a story quiet. unequivocally, that is not illegal and was never the issue.”. That is an issue since it is part of the illegal scheme.
“Paying Cohen” and “false business entries” were all corroborated by direct evidence.
Here is a small summary of what the 34 charges were and the evidence and testimony.
The $130,000 payment was made by Mr. Trump’s fixer/lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, in the final days of the 2016 campaign. It was done at Mr. Trump’s direction.
Pecker testified that he schemed with Trump to hush all the stories of his affairs. We see how important this was to him that he was will to pay big money for it.
While “hush money” payments are not necessarily illegal, Mr. Trump reimbursed Mr. Cohen during his presidency. (Isn’t it great imagining Trump sitting in the oval office , signing a Trump Org. Business check because of an affair he had , at the same time that he publicly announced that he renounced his position in the organization and given everything over to Jr. But, that is a side point ) In internal records, Mr. Trump’s company classified the repayment to Mr. Cohen as legal expenses, citing a retainer agreement. There were no such expenses or retainer agreement.
The records related to the reimbursement underpin the 34 counts of falsifying business records: 11 counts involve the checks issued to Mr. Cohen, 11 center on monthly invoices Mr. Cohen submitted to the company, and 12 involve entries in the general ledger for Mr. Trump’s trust.
( If Trump would have been honest , he probably would have never gotten indicted. But he is a dishonest, backstabbing, cheapskate, as Mr. Cohen and all the Trump associates who are currently in jail can testify to. )