On Step-Up Charges, Secret Warehouse Studios, and Rescue Wombats

More show notes for the coming New York hush money trial

Good Evening:

I went to do an interview for a documentary on CIA interrogations the other day. The crew had set up in a warehouse in Georgetown.

Great location for a hostage video.

I did make it out alive, however.

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Today’s #BeastOfTheDay is this rescue wombat:

lovinganimals.dg

A post shared by @lovinganimals.dg

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Trump Trial Diary, April 1, 2024: About that Step-Up Charge

There are many ways for a criminal case to be weak.

When we say that the prosecution has a weak case, we most often mean the evidence of the charge is marginal or unpersuasive. But this is an issue for trial, which is when the prosecution actually puts its case on.

We cannot yet say that the New York hush money case is weak on this basis. And as long as we’re guessing, it probably isn’t weak in this sense. The New York case is, after all, relatively simple, and that which we know of the evidence seems compelling: multiple sources of information that are all mutually corroborative on the key points.

Sometimes, however, we mean something else when we say a case is weak: that it is trivial, that even assuming the evidence is compelling, we don’t care all that much. For reasons I argued the other day, I do not think the hush money case is trivial, though it is certainly more trivial than the other criminal cases against former President Trump.

Still another sense in which people contend this case is “weak” is that they claim it rests on unsettled legal foundations. That is to say that even if the evidence is strong, the strong evidence points to conduct that may not be unambiguously violative of a criminal statute.