> could violate campaign finance laws by using the wrong account

My understanding is that there is no limit to the amount of a candidate's own money they are permitted to spend on their campaign. So what legitimate state interest could be advanced by laws that nitpick the exact boundary between what is and isn't campaign funding when it comes to the candidate's own money?

Do candidates have to report all their food expenditures as campaign funding-- since they obviously couldn't campaign if they don't eat? :)

I think it might be more like a business expense report when you travel. If I'm on a business trip and get a coffee, that's a business expense because I'm traveling for the purposes of work. If I'm working from home and go get a coffee, that's not a business expense. Replace business expense with campaign expense and there are likely rules about what a campaign can pay for and what it can't as well as rules around using personal money for campaign expenses, subverting the necessary disclosure rules.

I read a headline just a bit ago that there were 34 counts in the indictment so I'm guessing what they found spans more than a single transaction.

> A Grand Jury (for those that don't know) is composed of citizens, about 16-20 or something, that proceed like a court case understanding laws and evidence presented, including witness interviews, and the result here is that they chose to indict. This means that 12 (or more) citizens decided there was enough evidence that specific laws might have been broken to bring charges against him.

There's also a famous saying, though, that any prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich (interestingly, I never knew the original author of that quote was a judge who subsequently served 13 months in prison, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Wachtler).

But, the overall point is that the bar for grand jury indictment is intentionally low. I'm not going to speculate on aspects of the indictment because I don't know what they are yet (and it always amazes me how so many folks always dig in to be part of "their team" even before they know what the game is), but before the indictments I did see some legal experts who were definitely not Trump fans argue that it was not a case they would've brought.

> some legal experts who were definitely not Trump fans argue that it was not a case they would've brought

Legal experts or not, unless they have seen the evidence (incl witness testimony) and charges their speculation is as good as any internet commenter. I read a headline that there are 34 charges in the indictment, could be many unique ones or it could be one of those things like 34 wire fraud charges because there were 34 transactions from 34 accounts or whatever.

Yep, I totally agree. These commenters weren't commenting so much on the specifics of the case, but in generalities of prosecuting these types of crimes (i.e. where the underlying act, paying hush money, is not a crime, but the record keeping/campaign finance violations are).

But yes, 100%, folks should calm down until the contents of the indictment are made public.

Jon Stewart's show or maybe one of the podcast episodes commented on how the mainstream media goes absolutely crazy over the potential of him getting caught or in court or whatever. Like weeks of talking about purely speculative things with zero actual news. It gets the networks lots of revenue.

To be fair, a lot of the conversation that goes on when these topics come up are around the legal and social ramifications. There was an expectation that he was going to be indicted, and so it's important to think about if that's a good idea, and also weigh the pros and cons.

It's important to hear from politicians, former prosecutors, scholars, historians, and also to get input from people in other countries as well. How would it impact world perception? How would it impact US soft power?

It's also important to think about the civil implications. Could there be riots? Targeted domestic terror attacks against law enforcement (which has happened)? How is law enforcement prepared to handle it?

I think when robust conversations like these happen, it's easier for the public to understand when a prosecutor makes a move. Because it's not the prosecutor's job to explain this to anyone. Some people (even in this thread) really need a civics lesson. Like, people expecting the defense to have a crack at the grand jury, and if they don't then it's somehow a biased process or that due process has been violated. That's just how it works, and Bragg doesn't have to explain that to people. But because we have no other mechanism to do this, it's really the media's role at this point, which is sad, but that's where the conversation happens.

For those unfamiliar, the charges came from the Southern District of New York, which is notoriously corrupt/politically motivated if you look at history. The federal courts in DC are as well, as well as numerous districts across the nation where questionable charges are brought or questionable court decisions are made. These are the courts you go to when you have friends in office or on the bench and you want to prosecute or go after your political or business enemies. You know, the kind of people keeping Epstein's client list secret.

Can you support your accusations and claims with some evidence?

Because, to me it sounds like you are disparaging an entire court district as a means to an end.

In which way is the entire Southern NY and DC court districts corrupt as a general label? (meaning, you would have to show more than a single anecdotal case you don't happen to like, or more than merely disliking the politics of a specific prosecutor etc.)

"Everyone knows" is not a legit anything, as you would probably know. From which perch are you observing this? Does politics play a role in your statement?

Just because a case is in New York State court does not mean that only New York State law will be at issue. It’s common for a state court to be asked to opine on the law of another state or on federal law.

That being said I don’t know if the NY statute that elevates the misdemeanor into a felony requires the predicate crime to be specifically prohibited by NY statute.