1 year ago
25
The 34 count indictment against Donald Trump can be pretty dry reading, even for someone eager to see Trump donning a new shade of orange, containing as it does just count after count of falsifying business records in the first degree. By elevating those charges to the first degree, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg raised the level of the indictments to felony.
The charges were not delivered as part of a “speaking indictment.” That is, the list of charges doesn’t contain any facts, witnesses, or other evidence that caused the grand jury to vote in favor of the charge. That’s no unusual, but it is disappointing for those who hoped the indictment would give some sense of new evidence, or breakthrough testimony, that would give this case more undeniable momentum. Also not featured in the indictment is any charge of conspiracy.
However, accompanying the indictments is a statement of fact that absolutely reads like precisely the kind of statement that would come with a conspiracy charge. It lays out a narrative in which Trump’s actions—both the hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and the catch-and-kill money used to silence model Karen McDougal—were directly intended to deny the public critical information in advance of the 2016 election. With the charges themselves so simply laid out, it’s going to be this statement that everyone looks into to see what’s behind the case against Trump.
