LegalEagle is pretty incredibly biased tbh. All his videos on issues he (clearly) has an opinion on are hard to trust. He doesn't like Trump, he doesn't like laws that go after social media platforms, he doesn't like really anything republicans do, etc and it shows in that he always presents the case for the side he likes while every piece of the opposing side he mentions always has a "but" that explains why it's totally wrong according to the side he likes.

He's not so much legal analysis anymore as he's just a "deboonker" against causes he dislikes.

All of that might be objective. Not liking a lot what Republicans do does not mean you are unfairly biased.

>he doesn't like laws that go after social media platforms

From a legal perspective you don't gotta be biased to reach the conclusion that there's not much states can do. Section 230 and and the 1st amendment are both crazy strong tools in their pockets.

Trump has made it impossible for anyone to remain unbiased about Trump.

Did you watch his video? LegalEagle thinks the charges against Trump have serious weaknesses. Perhaps not as biased as you think.

It is possible to be both biased (hoping that the charges against Trump stick) and realistic (assessing on the basis of professional expertise that the charges aren't as strong as one would like).

I'm under the impression that unfortunately such a basic level of maturity is unusual when USA politics and USA law are concerned, let alone the combination of both.

He's just a lawyer who happens to be a liberal. He obviously has a personal opinion but other than that I've never found him to be untruthful.

(Almost?) All lawyers do this unless talking informally. There's always a "but", they hate making judgement calls.

When the village doesn't like the village idiot, the word to use for that sentiment is not "biased".

Except he's not biased at all. In the referenced video, LE is clearly not sure the upgrade to a felony charge holds water. He explains the legal method that he thinks they're using.

For those that haven't watched, the summary is that falsifying business records is a misdemeanour in NY State Law. If it's done in pursuance of a felony, then the crime itself gets upgraded to a felony. LegalEagle points out the difficulty in this because the prosecution need to prove that the falsification was done in pursuance of violation election laws (which are a felony).

Yes, he obviously dislikes Trump, and for good reason, but that hasn't affected his legal analysis. Don't believe me? Watch his videos on Trump's impeachment where he says, in spite of the evidence, that he's sure Trump won't be convicted in the Senate because impeachment is, and was always intended as, a political process (as opposed to a legal process).

> (she was hushed to aid the presidential campaign)

It seems more likely that this is pretty routine with Trump and had not much to do with the camping. I doubt he started sleeping with hot women only after deciding to run for president; and there is probably a lot of money in it for the women. One of the perks of dating billionaires.

Considering he's a serial adulterer it might not be hard to show intent if this is the only case he tried to hush in this manner. If this is the only instance in which he committed fraud to hide the payment it might set an important timeline link between his campaign and the case.

Since the affair happened in 2006, I strongly doubt he went back in time to sleep with a porn star.

He certainly didn't start sleeping with hot women only after deciding to run for president, but he absolutely did make a payoff to someone he [allegedly] slept with ten years earlier during the middle of his campaign. Hard to argue the timing is unrelated to campaign objectives, even in the likely event the Trump Organization paid hush money to other people related to other disputes or allegations long before Trump established himself as a political figure,

> (she was hushed to aid the presidential campaign)

There was so much crap spewed about Trump this would not have affected the campaign in any way. If all the other crap didn't damage, why would they believe that would? He wanted to keep his private life private. She wasn't paid off until the month before the election. It was VERY clear by that point the affair would have little affect on the election.

According to which "political experts"? He got hammered with the Access Hollywood tapes. You can easily make a case that he had an incentive to not repeat that experience. The proximity to the election and the distance to the actual event is just to damning.

He also doesn't have a history of hush money payments, but rather openly admitting, even inventing scandals about his love life (he claimed he was dating Madonna ffs). So why all of a sudden would he pay hush money and try to cover up the hush money in an illegal scheme? Nothing to do with the election a few days away? Really?

If a person you had an affair threatens you that they will tell your spouse or try to damage your repudiation unless you pay them 130k, I think that would generally be considered extortion.

First, extortion would typically be with a threat of violence or destruction, so you are thinking of blackmail.

Second, criminal blackmail excludes legal processes.

Third, she didn't threaten trump, she tried to sell her story after he lied to her about being a contestant on the apprentice.

https://www.scrofanolaw.com/federal-blackmail-and-extortion/

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/19/nyregion/trump-stormy-dan...

Blackmail is a form of extortion. If it were true that extortion required violence or destruction (it does not) then so would blackmail.

I’m not exactly what you mean when you say that “criminal blackmail excludes legal process,” but if you mean that threatening to go to the police with evidence of a crime if the criminal does not give you something of value, you are absolutely mistaken.

Threatening to go to the police without seeking something of value for your silence is certainly legal, but the moment you try to sell your silence you’re going to be wandering around in the vicinity of extortion.

> “criminal blackmail excludes legal process,”

They're saying that "If you don't pay me $X, I'll tell your wife I slept with you" is not illegal, so it doesn't constitute criminal blackmail.

I’d probably run that assertion by a lawyer before I lived by it.

Pay me or I will ruin your reputation is very much blackmail. Investigative journalism would become potentially extremely profitable if it wasn't.

Of course it's blackmail. The question is if it's criminal or not.

Blackmail is a crime, so this would be a pretty safe bet.