President Donald Trump was found guilty yesterday of falsifying business records to cover up allegations that he paid porn star Stormy Daniels to influence the 2016 presidential election. However, under New York state law, altering business records is a crime only if done to conceal a violation of another law. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg argued that the documents were altered to cover up donations to win the 2016 election in violation of federal campaign finance laws or by defrauding voters of information they had a right to know. Neither claim stands up to First Amendment scrutiny.
Federal campaign finance law was partially upheld the following year. Berkeley vs Valeo, 424 US 1 (1976). In this case, it was ruled that the election expense limit was clearly unconstitutional because it violated the First Amendment's right to freedom of expression. Under Berkeley vs Valeo, individuals like Donald Trump can spend unlimited amounts of their own money to promote their campaigns. However, the Supreme Court Berkeley Contribution limits were maintained on the extent to which individuals or groups could influence elections. Alvin Bragg claims the Trump Organization's $130,000 donation to pay for Stormy Daniels hush money exceeded federal campaign finance limits on donations. The federal government itself has adopted a policy of not prosecuting hush-money payments as illegal campaign contributions after suffering an embarrassing defeat in the prosecution of Democratic vice-presidential rival John Edwards, who paid hush money to a mistress he was with. A child out of wedlock.
In 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 US 310, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment prohibited the government from restricting independent spending for political campaigns by closely allied corporations and groups, such as the Trump Organization. It was ruled. Under civil unionIt was completely legal for the Trump Organization to pay Daniel $130,000 in hush money to cover up his relationship with Donald Trump.
opinion civil union It was written by former judge and liberal icon Anthony M. Kennedy, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas, and Justice Samuel Alito. All three still serve on the Supreme Court. Given the current membership of the court, the following outcomes are very likely: civil union He will win again today by a vote of 6 to 3. Berkeley vs Valeo If they claim to be an obstacle to Trump's victory, the Supreme Court should strike down federal election law's campaign contribution limits today, in 2024, as violations of free speech. Organizations that contribute to election campaigns may pay for advertising to promote candidates or may pay hush money to keep bad or false stories out of the news. Either way, the effect is to help the candidate. You can donate money for good publicity. And you can even donate money to avoid bad publicity. The First Amendment protects free speech in both cases.
Campaign finance limits discourage those who want to campaign from speaking out. They changed Congress so much that today lawmakers spend 70% of their time raising money instead of legislating or meeting with constituents because campaign finance limits are so ridiculously low that they have not been properly raised to keep up with inflation. 1970s. Post-Watergate campaign finance laws as a whole are and always have been blatantly unconstitutional.
Federal campaign finance laws are protections for incumbents that make it too difficult for challengers to take down incumbents who have much higher name IDs and the franking privilege of unlimited free correspondence with voters by mail. That's not to mention the power incumbent lawmakers have to redirect pork spending back to their own states and districts to get re-elected endlessly.
The First Amendment's free speech clause also debunks Alvin Bragg's claim that Trump deceived American voters by preventing them from hearing about Trump's affair with Stormy Daniels. A theory as expansive as the “voter cheating” theory would ultimately eliminate free speech from American elections. Voters have no “right” to know about Donald Trump’s sex life. He was obviously not monogamous, as he was married to his third wife, and voters who adhere to traditional values voted for him anyway because of the good conservative judges he appointed to the Supreme Court.
Therefore, there was no predicate offense that Trump could have been covering up when he claimed to have altered the Trump Organization's business records. Trump's conviction in the Manhattan trial was unconstitutional because it violated the First Amendment as originally understood.
The U.S. Supreme Court must quickly hear this case considering its impact on the 2024 presidential election between President Trump and President Biden. Voters need to know that the Constitution protects all of Trump's alleged hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. This is especially true since the judge in Trump's Manhattan case erroneously allowed Stormy Daniels to testify in graphic detail about the sexual aspects of her alleged affair with Trump. The testimony tainted jurors and 2024 presidential election voters and was irrelevant to the question of whether President Trump falsified business records to conceal crimes. The Supreme Court needs to clarify what the legal rules are on matters that significantly affect elections for federal offices like president. In a hyper-partisan borough of Manhattan, a hyper-partisan city like New York City, or a hyper-partisan state like New York, it cannot be acceptable to criminalize the conduct of a presidential candidate in a way that violates the federal Constitution.
The Roman Republic collapsed when politicians began criminalizing politics. I am gravely concerned to see this pattern repeating itself in the United States today. Criminalizing political differences is deeply wrong.