You called him a felon before the sentencing. You will call him a felon after the sentencing. I cited lawfare before the sentencing and will continue to cite lawfare.
Nothing has changed.
It basically holds the decision of the jury to convict in tact, while essentially giving no punishment for the conviction.
In a way, it proved one of Trump’s points - there is a 2 tier system of justice in the US. If you have money and / or power and can afford good lawyers (like Trump), you get away with stuff with a dismissed case or a slap on the back if there is a conviction. For the average Joe like us, if you do the crime, you do the time.
Tell me next time you are prosecuted for calling payment of a non disclosure agreement a legal expense used to cover up an unspecified other crime. No one would notice or care if you called a non disclosure agreement a legal expense…or object to it.
Umm - I use to be a forensic accountant. I spent a good portion of my career helping prosecutors prepare such cases for court. It’s all in HOW the accounting was done. Calling fraudulent accounting entries “expenses” is one of the most popular forms of committing financial crimes. It’s one of the things that brought down both Enron and Arthur Anderson.
Trump wasn’t charged for calling a payment for a NDA a legal expense a crime.
Trump didn’t pay for the NDA Cohen did. Cohen then billed invoiced for a “retainer” that didn’t exist for “services” not performed.
The crime that Trump committed was specified and involved laundering money through his business for Cohen’s ficticious “invoices”. The specificed crimes were Felonious Business Fraud.
If you mean what crime was Trump trying to hide? It was Cohen’s Federal Campaign Fraud for which he was charged and convicted.