Regardless of the punishment imposed, Trump’s business interests would likely suffer more than they already have if he is convicted. Falsifying business records carries the possibility of up to four years’ imprisonment-although, judging from past enforcement statistics, jail time would be an unlikely outcome. What would a conviction mean for Trump’s businesses?Ĭonviction could mean serious personal consequences for Trump. And because issuing a false financial statement is unquestionably a crime under New York state law, adding these charges would provide prosecutors a clear path for some of the obstacles mentioned above. Although the indictment focuses on hush payments related to the 2016 election, a separate civil lawsuit initiated last year by New York Attorney General Letitia James alleges that the Trump Organization, and Trump personally, routinely provided false statements of financial conditions to banks, tax authorities and other third parties.Īlthough the district attorney’s new criminal charges are independent from the attorney general’s civil charges, it remains possible that prosecutors will decide to refile an indictment to include criminal charges against Trump for his role in allegedly falsifying these business records. Could more charges be coming from New York?Ībsolutely. On the other hand, quantity has a quality of its own: By bringing so many charges all related to the same underlying event, the prosecutors are clearly trying to signal that Trump knew what he was doing and specifically intended to keep his affair secret. On the one hand, convincing a jury of that level of specificity in a defendant’s mental states can be hard-and it can be especially difficult when the defendant does not communicate via text or email and has a reputation for destroying records. In this case, prosecutors will need to show Trump not only intended to defraud state officials by keeping the payments secret, but that he specifically intended to conceal his commission of a second, separate crime. Intent, what the criminal law calls “mens rea,” is what distinguishes acceptable business practices, like nondisclosure agreements and trades secret policies, from crimes like bribery, blackmail and obstruction of justice. There’s nothing inherently illegal about agreeing to keep information secret, nor is there necessarily anything wrong with paying someone for doing so. Proving a defendant’s mental state is often the hardest part of any white-collar investigation. First, there’s the challenge that bedevils virtually all white-collar cases: proving intent. In order to convict Trump, prosecutors will have to overcome two major obstacles. Will Trump be convicted? How strong is the case?
Thomas discusses the charges brought against Trump and what a conviction would mean for his businesses and presidential campaign.
But while there will be many fraught political and constitutional dimensions to these proceedings, at its core this prosecution represents a straightforward case of white-collar crime.” “It marks the first time in history that a U.S.
“This is an unusual criminal case, to say the least,” said Will Thomas, assistant professor of business law at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Most well known, Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty in 2018 to his role in paying $130,000 in “hush money” to retired porn star Stephanie Clifford (aka Stormy Daniels) in order to keep secret her earlier affair with Trump. Former President Donald Trump’s indictment on 34 charges of falsifying business records concerns behavior beginning in 2015, when then-candidate Trump took efforts to secretly keep negative stories about his past out of the national press.
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