FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 2024
It's all about Helen of Troy: At the start of last night's show on the Fox News Channel, Laura Ingraham was puzzled.
She started with the Gotham "hush money" trial. Her puzzlement took this form:
We start in New York where David Pecker testified for the third day. And what's becoming less clear as the trial wears on is:
What is the crime?
With what crime does Donald J. Trump stand charged in the Gotham "hush money" trial? Ingraham seemed to say that she doesn't know, and that it's becoming less clear.
For ourselves, we were slightly puzzled by Ingraham's first guest. Briefly, she spoke with Todd Piro, co-host of the 5 a.m. weekday show, Fox & Friends First.
When Piro does his guest spots on the Gutfeld! program, he's fashioned as the man who suspiciously can name the name of every major male porn star. On Fox & Friend First, his dogged recitations of dogma seem to come from an earlier era.
In fairness, he's a graduate of the UCLA School of Law. His channel had chosen him to sit in the overflow room at the Gotham trial.
Unsurprisingly, it turned out that Piro was puzzled too. "I can't answer your question, Laura, as to what the crime is," he said.
After a mercifully brief exchange, Ingraham conducted a longer interview with two experienced legal practitioners "No normal judge would allow this case to go forward," one of these analysts said.
"Cable news" viewers in Red America are exposed to such claims all the time.
In fairness to Ingraham—she graduated from UVa Law School, then clerked for a well-known Supreme Court Justice—we aren't entirely sure about the answer to that question either! For today, we thought we'd show you the sorts of things "cable news" viewers in Blue America are sometimes destined to hear.
We transport you to an unusual session of Anderson Cooper 360. As part of a larger panel discussion, Cooper introduced two guests from rival MSNBC: At precisely 8:50 this past Tuesday night, Cooper surprised us with this:
COOPER (4/23/24): Joining us, the co-authors of "The Trump Indictments," Andrew Weissmann, who was a lead prosecutor in the Mueller investigation, and NYU Law Professor Melissa Murray.
So Andrew, you hear Trump's attorneys say there's nothing illegal about trying to influence an election. It's called democracy.
If a person or a company spends money to benefit a campaign, doesn't that money have to be disclosed and reported? Isn't that the core of this?
WEISSMANN: Yes, I mean, you know, literally what Todd Blanche said is true that influencing election. If that is the only thing that was proved, that's not a crime. But it sort of hides the ball, which is, "How are you doing it?"
What Weissmann said next made perfect sense. Then Cooper went where the rubber meets the road.
Cooper asked the ultimate question. Believe it or not, this was said:
COOPER: So Melissa, what is the underlying crime?
MURRAY: So it's a New York election law that basically says it is a crime, a misdemeanor crime, for an individual to prevent or promote the election of another individual.
And so here, the allegation is that by capturing these stories for Donald Trump, preventing them from being disclosed, paying off these individuals, all of this is basically favorable treatment for Donald Trump.
In addition to the fact that David Pecker also testified today that he was planting favorable stories and also running disfavorable stories, unfavorable stories for Donald Trump's opponents.
So that's a big contribution and that's the way the prosecution is framing this. This was a big up for Donald Trump's campaign and it essentially constituted election fraud.
We focus on the highlighted claim. According to Professor Murray, the state of New York has an election which says this:
It's a crime for an individual to promote the election of another individual.
Everybody makes mistakes—but literally, that's what she said! She said it's a crime, under New York state law, to promote somebody's election!
Cooper simply plowed ahead. A bit later, one of his analysts backtracked.
Jeffrey Toobin sat on the CNN panel that night. As you can see in the question he asked, he had managed to be puzzled by what Murray had said:
TOOBIN: Can I ask Melissa a question about something she said earlier? Because I was a little—I was— It jumped out at me.
I understand Melissa about how, you know, paying witnesses can be seen as part of a conspiracy.
But you seem to say, and correct me if I'm wrong, that advocacy on Trump's behalf, like the magazine supporting Trump's candidacy, that could be seen as part of a conspiracy. Isn't there a First Amendment problem with that, because magazines do support candidates all the time?
So said Toobin, at 8:55. It was the world's most obvious question.
Murray could have said that she simply misspoke, as people do all the time. Instead, she served this salad:
MURRAY (continuing directly): I think there's something—I think I've said something different, Jeffrey.
The point that David Pecker was making on the stand today, and what the prosecution elicited, was that Donald Trump was coordinating with David Pecker for this favorable treatment.
I think in most campaigns, you don't see that. It may be the case that a newspaper or a media outlet will endorse a particular candidate. But I don't think we've ever seen a situation where a particular candidate goes to the outlet and negotiates with them for favorable treatment of his campaign and unfavorable treatment of his opponent. So that's unusual.
And the way the prosecution has framed it, this is essentially a stop to the Trump campaign as though it were a contribution in kind. And I think that's a theory of the case. Whether or not the jurors buy this as a contribution, I think is a different story. But that seems to be where the prosecution is taking that.
This is a coordinated effort. It is unusual and extraordinary. And it essentially amounts to the kinds of influence peddling that we typically don't see between the media and a campaign.
Is that "the underlying crime?" It seems to us that a giant amount of explanation was included in that disquisition.
Everything Professor Murray said in that statement may indeed be true. But here's the question with which we started:
What is the underlying crime—the crime with which Donald Trump is charged? Based upon that lengthy ramble, could you answer that question?
For ourselves, we ourselves could not. Beyond that, we note the fact that, in her initial statement, Professor Murray had explicitly spoken about "a misdemeanor crime."
Under terms of New York State law, "it's a misdemeanor crime," she implausibly said, "for an individual to prevent or promote the election of another individual."
On the one hand, there's no way that there could be any such law. On the other hand, and as everyone has surely heard, Donald J. Trump stands accused of a felony crime. So how did we get to that?
Toobin attempted a brief follow-up to what Murray had said. As you can see in the transcript or in the Internet Archive tape, Murray proceeded to issue a new torrent of words.
At that point, Cooper thanked his surprising pair of guests. This is the sort of imitation of life to which "cable news" viewers in Blue America are routinely given access.
This problem has a long history. It winds back through Albert Einstein's inability to "make Einstein easy."
Later, it involves the later Wittgenstein's claim, according to Professor Horwich, that large elements of classic high-end academic philosophy is really the product of "linguistic illusion."
It takes us back to the argle-bargle found all through the defining works of Plato. But once in a while some light breaks through. Consider what happened on MSNBC itself, during Tuesday evening's 9 o'clock hour.
Cooper thanked Weissmann and Murray and the 8 o'clock hour was done. On MSNBC, Alex Wagner Tonight started at 9.
Wagner didn't go to law school. To her vast credit, she was instantly able to offer this:
WAGNER (4/23/24): The prosecution's central argument in this case, the reason they were able to charge Donald Trump with a felony, is because they say Trump's hush money scheme was all about trying to cover up his criminal activity related to the 2016 election.
Prosecutors today revealed that they are planning to rely on section 17-152, the New York Criminal Code, which prohibits any two or more persons from conspiring to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.
She even gave the section number! And sure enough, here is the word-for-word text of the state law Murray had bungled:
New York Consolidated Laws, Election Law—ELN § 17-152. Conspiracy to promote or prevent election
Any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
The professor had omitted three key words. Under terms of that law, you can't promote the election of someone to public office "by unlawful means."
That still doesn't explain the nature of the felony with which Defendant Trump stands charged. But we were no longer in the land of Blinken and Nod, with tons of tossed word salad thrown in, as we'd been on CNN during the 8 o'clock hour.
At this point, Wagner introduced a different pair of law professors to serve as guests during her initial segment. Referring to that same New York State law, one of her guests said this:
PROFESSOR LEVIN (4/23/24): This is a case about the cover-up of uncharged criminal activity. And today we learned what the uncharged criminal activity is that the DA's office is relying on.
And really, at the core of it is that New York State election law statute.
But it's a conspiracy between Donald Trump the defendant, David Pecker of the National Enquirer and Michael Cohen to make illegal payments and suppress stories with the purpose of that being to suppress the stories so that he could win the election.
And that's what's at the core of it, and now we know what the felony is, why it is that it has been bumped up to a felony, because it was a falsification of business records for the purpose of committing this New York State election [UNINTELLIGIBLE].
That final word got swallowed! Still and all—even now, can you explain what you just read?
"This is a case about the cover-up of uncharged criminal activity?" The criminal activity is uncharged? Can you explain the way in which that arrangement is kosher?
This is a very important case. One way or another, the outcome of this year's election is hanging in the balance.
One candidate stands accused of a felony under a pastiche of state and federal laws which everyone and his law school drop-out uncle has described as highly complex.
By now, shouldn't we see our "cable news" stars carefully explaining the nature of the criminal charge? Carefully explaining away the many claims, made by many observers in various camps, that D.A. Bragg has assembled a type of case which has never been assembled before and which may not even be legal?
On CNN, viewers were told that it's "a crime for an individual or promote the election of another individual." Only Toobin was able to hear that the statement didn't make sense.
An imitation of discourse followed.
In our view, the problem here goes much deeper. Eventually, we'll pose this question:
As a society, as a culture, why are we angry with Cohen and Trump? Why aren't we American citizens angry with Stormy Daniels and with Karen McDougal?
"They wanted to tell their stories," we viewers in Blue America are told. We're told that by the corporate flyweights and simps who serve as our Blue village elders.
Stating the obvious:
Daniels and McDougal could have "told their stories" any time they chose. They simply had to call a press conference and let the glory out.
The problem is, they wanted to tell their stories for money. More specifically, they wanted to tell their stories for money during election time.
Their stories were stories of consensual sex. They wanted to tell those stories, for big sacks of cash, as an election unfolded.
And as it turns out, we the people care about one thing and we care about one thing only:
Who gets to sleep with Helen of Troy? In the case of Daniels, who allegedly got to do that on one occasion, for two to three minutes, some ten years before?
As Jon Meacham explained this very morning, there's nothing else that we the people actually care much about. That isn't because we're bad people. It's because we're people people.
As in the late Bronze Age, so too today. In time, we'll discuss this rather obvious fact at length.
