Donald Trump’s first trial may well be the 34-count felony case brought by the New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg, in an indictment voted by a New York State grand jury on March 20, 2023. This case has been widely disparaged, even by some liberals, as only about “money to hide an affair” and a weak case involving an alleged federal crime with weak facts tried in a state court.

On the other hand, most observers seem to regard the pending case brought by Special Prosecutor Jack Smith as more important since it accuses the former president of conspiring to obstruct a constitutionally elected new president – and depriving Americans of votes counting in the 2020 election.

What is being overlooked is what Justice Department prosecutors – when Trump was president – publicly documented as the seriousness of the case. It can be found in the December 7, 2018, “Sentencing Memorandum” publicly filed by DOJ’s prosecutors in the prestigious Southern District of New York (called the “SDNY”). I was one of the attorneys advising the defendant at the time, Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s longtime attorney and fixer. (I am no longer representing Cohen for the trial – he has experienced New York counsel.)

Here are the four public assertions made by these prosecutors in this public document that undermine the conventional wisdom that this case is only about sex and that the factual basis to convict Donald Trump is weak:

(1) The case involves issues that undermine “core” values of our democracy.

The SDNY prosecutors wrote that Trump’s complicity in paying money to block disclosure of his extra-marital affairs on the eve of the 2016 presidential election struck “a blow at a core value essential to democracy: transparency.” Allowing such crimes would show that “the political process belongs to the rich and powerful.” (Sentencing Memo, p. 23).

(2) DOJ prosecutors in effect state that Mr. Trump was criminally responsible.

The federal prosecutors wrote that Trump “directed” Michael Cohen to make the hush money payments a few days before the election for political reasons, which, these prosecutors found, made Cohen complicit in a crime – knowingly violating federal campaign finance laws.

(Sentencing Memo, p. 11.) They noted that Cohen “admitted” to their factual finding. (Many reporters mis-state that Cohen “said” this. No, the prosecutors said it – and they state that Cohen “admitted” it.) Thus, it should be beyond dispute that if Cohen was guilty of a crime in this scheme to conceal relevant information from American voters before a crucial presidential election, then certainly Trump is just as guilty since he “directed” him to do it according to Trump’s own prosecutors – if not more because the payoff was committed for his benefit and not Cohen’s.

There is no doubt these Trump DOJ prosecutors found there was a political motivation to making these hush money payments – making it an illegal campaign donation. The prosecutors wrote that the money was paid on the “eve” of the 2016 election and several times described the payments as politically motivated to prevent voters from learning about the alleged affairs.

(3) Bragg’s case does not depend solely on Michael Cohen’s testimony.

First, Cohen has been found to be a credible witness – most recently, explicitly by New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engeron in his February 15, 2024, written decision, finding Mr. Trump guilty of financial fraud. Second, the Trump DOJ prosecutors pointed out that Trump was complicit in a scheme to pay hush money to two women. In other words, we know from these federal prosecutors that there were at least two witnesses other than Michael Cohen who could have testified in the federal case as to Trump’s knowledge and involvement in the illegal hush money scheme to prevent voters knowing about the two alleged affairs just before the 2016 election. One was the chairman and CEO of a national tabloid magazine, whom the federal prosecutors stated Trump himself met with to discuss the scheme to kill negative stories about Trump to avoid disclosure before the election, including the threat of a former Playboy Playmate of the Month to go public just before the election about her alleged affair. The second witness is said by the prosecutors to be the magazine’s editor-in-chief, whom these prosecutors aver was aware of and involved in the scheme. (Sentencing Memo, p.12.)

(4) Trump’s checks of $35,000 per month written from his personal checking account were not “legal fees” as he claimed. They were “reimbursements” for hush money.

The prosecutors found that the Trump Organization “falsely” booked these Trump payments. During Michael Cohen’s February 27, 2019, public testimony before the House Oversight Committee, two of these Trump personal checks from his personal checking account written and signed by Trump while a sitting president were put on live television in the United States and around the world. (See photos of them here.) It was Justice Department lawyers working under Trump-appointed Attorney General William Barr, not locally elected Democratic prosecutors, who characterized them as illegal “reimbursements.” Republicans barely mentioned them, and these hush money checks by a sitting president concerning an illegal scheme before he was president flew under the radar of most of the national media. But there it is, on page 14 of the December 7, 2019, sentencing memo – hidden in plain sight – that these checks were “falsely” recorded as business expenses on the books of the Trump Organization.

Lest there be any doubt that Trump himself recognized the potential legal danger of this SDNY sentencing memo as reflecting on his potential criminal guilt: We learned in 2020 from a New York Times exclusive, and in 2022 from the book published by then-U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, that Trump tried to expunge or “scrub” these incriminating words written by his own DOJ prosecutors. Attorney General Barr and others at DOJ reportedly pressured the SDNY prosecutors to delete these words and to “reverse” Michael Cohen’s guilty plea – this after Cohen served his time. Obviously, these efforts were not because Trump or Barr sympathized with Cohen’s plight.

The bottom line here is that that New York-based federal prosecutors made a determination that Trump and Cohen had violated federal campaign law. Trump was not charged federally with that crime, however, meaning that Alvin Bragg’s challenge is two-fold. First, he must establish that New York state laws regulating financial fraud were violated when Trump was involved in illegal federal campaign donations. And second, Bragg must show that when Trump falsely booked those hush money payments as “legal expenses” – which would normally be a misdemeanor in New York state law – he did so with the motive of concealing the other campaign finance crime under NY state law. If Bragg can do so, then the 34 entries that were “falsely” listed as “legal expenses,” instead of being 34 misdemeanors, become 34 felonies. That could be a lot of jail time if that is the jury’s verdict. And lest we forget: Trump cannot pardon himself for state crimes if he wins the presidency.

The ultimate irony is that if Trump is found guilty of the New York state crimes, it will be his own Justice Department prosecutors who provided clear factual findings establishing his guilt.

#  #  #  #  #

Lanny Davis is the founder of the Washington, D.C., law firm, Lanny J. Davis & Associates. He is one of the first to use the concept of legal crisis management to solve client problems – operating at the intersection of law, media, and politics. He is a former special counsel to President Bill Clinton in 1996-98 and served on a privacy and civil liberties panel appointed by President George W. Bush. He has been writing his “Purple Nation” column for more than 13 years.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor Yemi Cardoso says over $26 billion has passed through the crypto app Binance Nigeria in the last one year.

Cardoso said this on Tuesday after the MPC meeting in Abuja.

“In the case of Binance, in the last one year, 26 billion dollars has passed through Binance Nigeria from sources and users who we cannot adequately identify,” he told reporters in his first MPC meeting since assuming office as the CBN governor.

The CBN also raised the country’s Monetary Policy Rate(MPR) by four hundred basis points to 22.75 percent from 18.75 percent.

The MPR has been 18.75 percent since the last MPC meeting between 24th and 25th July 2023.

With inflation at 29.90 percent, he said the new MPR is part of moves to tackle the country’s inflation.

Cardoso who chairs the MPC also said the Cash Reserve Ratio(CRR) has been raised to forty-five percent while the liquidity ratio was left unchanged at thirty percent.

CBN Governor Yemi Cardoso briefs the press after the MPC meeting in Abuja on Tuesday, February 27, 2024.

Nigeria has been battling economic woes in recent months, but Cardoso said his team is not responsible for that.

“I laugh at that question but it’s not a laughing matter and I think it is very important for Nigerians to understand that the Central Bank Governor — I and my team — are not responsible for the woes that we have today; we are part of the solution,” the former Lagos State Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget said.

“We are determined to ensure that we work hard to get out of the mess that Nigeria is in. We assumed responsibility in a time of crisis of confidence; there was a crisis of confidence and you may all want to go to bed and wish that crisis of confidence was not there but it was, and we can’t turn back the clock.

“All we can do is do the difficult things to make a bad situation better and I do believe that the efforts that we are making are beginning to bring back confidence because to be frank, without confidence in your business, you are not going to get far.”

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Dr Olayemi Cardoso, has said that the apex bank was not responsible for the current economic hardship that Nigerians are facing, even as he said that the country does not have the opportunity of making a wrong turn.

Cardoso, while answering a question posed to him by LEADERSHIP at the end of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in Abuja on Tuesday, absolved the CBN of any culpability in the current economic woes of the country.

Currently, inflation figures are on the brink of 30 per cent with food inflation nearing 40 per cent. This is coupled with a highly volatile exchange rate that had seen the value of the Naira plummeted to N2,000 to a dollar in recent times.

The CBN governor expressly stated that, “We at the CBN are not responsible for the woes of today. We are part of the solution and are determined to work to get out of the mess that the country is in.

“We assumed responsibility at a time that there was crisis of confidence. We cannot turn back the clock. All we can do is to do the difficult things to make a bad situation better.”

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has said that the ongoing protest aims to compel the Federal Government to halt obnoxious policies that have led to the economic crisis in the country.

The Congress lamented that the government’s draconian policies are killing workers and Nigerians in general.

The Kogi State Chairman of the NLC, Gabriel Amari said this on Tuesday at the national protest rally against economic hardship, hunger, poverty and insecurity in the country held in Lokoja.

Amari particularly mentioned that the protest is not a coup or threat to the Kogi State Government but a way of telling the world that Nigerians are dying.

He lamented that Nigerians have now turned to beggars because they can no longer take care of the basic needs of their families.

“We are here to tell the whole world that Nigerians are dying because of the draconian policies of the Federal Government. The adoption of IMF and World Bank policies that led to the devaluation of Nigeria’s currency has put the entire Nigeria in crisis.

“You can see that there is no food. There is hunger everywhere. People can no longer attend to their health needs or sponsor their Children to School. Nigerians have now turned to beggars because they can’t provide for their immediate family. People are losing their jobs on a daily basis.

“We can’t fold our hands in the same country we call ours for a selected few people to come up with policies that are dangerous and detrimental to the lives of Nigerians.

“That is why the leadership has come up with this protest to tell the whole world that we are hungry and the Federal Government should reverse their policies. The policies are against us” he stated.

The NLC Chairman, however, commended Kogi workers for coming out in large numbers to protest, insisting that the protest will continue tomorrow Wednesday in line with the national directive of the union.

Adding his voice, the immediate past Chairman of the NLC in Kogi State, Onuh Edoka while aligning himself with the positions of his successor, called on the Federal Government to fix the nation’s refinery, invest more in agriculture and fight corruption to the barest minimum.

According to him, “The Federal Government should know that people are dying because of the hardship in our country. We can’t pretend as if all is well with us. All is not well. Some policies of the government are anti-people, which must stop now. It is high time the Government holds the bull by the horns to fix our refineries, invest massively in agriculture and ensure that they kill corruption from our system”.

[NaijaNews]

Seasoned actor Charles Inojie has announced the end of the hit family show, The Johnsons.

Sharing the news via his Instagram page on Tuesday morning, he penned a heartfelt message to the cast and crew of the show.

Inojie also noted how it has been 13 years of absolute magic and awesomeness, being Africa’s most-watched show on television and being everyone’s family favourite.

He expressed gratitude to the organisers of the show for the privilege to play the role of Lucky Johnson, the patriarch of the show.

He also appreciated the fans for their love and support as well as the crew and cast.

His post reads: “THANK YOU, AFRICA. After 13 years of absolute magic, 13 years of awesomeness, 13 years of being Africa’s most-watched show on television, and 13 years of being every family’s favourite, THE JOHNSONS is finally taking a bow.

“I want to use this medium to say a big thank you to @rogers.ofime @officialthejohnsonsfamily @nativemediatv__ @africamagic for the privilege of being #luckyjohnson

“I thank my co-travellers, the wonderful team of cast and crew, without whom these past 13 years could not have been spectacularly outstanding as THE JOHNSONS made it.

“I am immensely grateful to our fans across the African continent for the love and support we got unconditionally.

“Indeed, while it is the beginning of greater exploits from every individual member of the team, like every good thing that must have a terminal point, it is the end of the road for THE JOHNSONS. THANK YOU”.

[NaijaTimes]

Barrister Chris Agidy, the Senior Legislative Aide, SLA, to the lawmaker representing Delta North, Senator Ned Nwoko, who was kidnapped by bandits in 2023, has been killed.

The Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Police Public Relations Officer, SP Josephine Adeh, confirmed this to DAILY POST on Tuesday.

Recall that at least 19 persons were in November 2023 kidnapped from their homes in the Galadimawa area of nation’s capital by gunmen.

However, the identities of the deceased was not clear as the lawmaker and the security operatives continued efforts to rescue the lawyer.

Confirming the killing on Tuesday, the FCT PPRO said the lawmaker’s aide was killed by one of the wanted notorious kidnappers terrorizing the country’s capital city, Samaila Wakili.

Wakili was arrested on February 24 at the Sardauna Forest, in the Toto area of Nasarawa State, by police operatives.

The FCT PPRO said the suspect, upon his arrest, “led police operatives to where the remains of Barr. Chris Agidy is”.

She noted that “the remains was recovered and deposited in Gwagwalada General Hospital”.

[DailyPost]

The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, has said that the salary of the National Assembly members is not as much as Nigerians think and 50 per cent of it cannot be sacrificed to mitigate the suffering of the masses.

Amidst the ongoing economic crisis, some Nigerians have urged members of the National Assembly to take a significant step in alleviating the suffering.

One of the calls demanded the lawmakers to cut their salaries by half to demonstrate solidarity with the masses grappling with rising inflation, unemployment, and a general decline in living standards.

Responding to the call during an interview on Channels Television, the Deputy Speaker acknowledged the severity of the crisis and emphasized the need for intervention.

He also underscored the importance of sound policies that extend beyond mere pronouncements.

Kalu said that delayed gratification is essential for long-term gains, even as Nigerians endure the current hardships.

He assured the public that the 10th National Assembly was not indifferent to their plight, adding that they were prepared to make adjustments where necessary.

He explained that while salaries are fixed and form part of legislators’ compensation, allowances serve specific purposes related to their duties.

He added that spending allowances is strictly regulated, and any misuse can result in sanctions upon retirement.

He also said that contrary to popular belief, the salary of the National Assembly members fell short of public perception, noting that reducing it by 50 per cent would not significantly impact the public.

He said, “If we found out (just like we did during the COVID 19) that people are suffering and we need to intervene, we will make certain sacrifices to be able to identify with the people.

“I can assure you as well that we are not hoping that this crisis we are going through will linger for a very long time because when you have sound policies, it doesn’t end with just policy pronouncement; we need to give a timeline for the maturation of that policy and Nigerians are passing through a phase now in which delayed gratification for a better gain tomorrow is necessary.

“We don’t intend to make it last for too long. But if there’s the need to make some adjustments, I can assure you that the members of the 10th National Assembly are willing to make adjustments.

“But at the moment, talking about the salary of the members of the National Assembly, it’s not as much as people think. Salary is different from allowances, which are meant to do the jobs that the constituencies have sent us to do.

“Nobody is allowed to touch allowances, it’s your salary that belongs to you. Allowances have subheadings for things which they are meant for. If you use it wrongly, when you are retiring, you would be sanctioned for that.

“So talking about the salary of the members of the National Assembly, it’s far from what it’s supposed to be. And I can assure you that if you reduce it by 50%, it would not really impact the public.

“Based on current economic indices and the inflationary rate at the moment, what the members of the National Assembly are receiving cannot actively take them home to do their jobs in their various constituencies. So how could they cut their salaries by half?”

[DailyTrust]

The apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo has vowed to reject any coup d’etat against President Bola Tinubu.

The group stated this on Tuesday via a statement by its factional Secretary-General, Okechukwu Isiguzoro.

The secretary assured Tinubu of Ohanaeze’s allegiance.

He noted that the body has unwavering faith in the president’s administration and democracy.

Ohanaeze’s statement is coming against the backdrop of reported attempted coup on Tinubu’s administration due to the current economic hardship.

The statement read, “We pledge steadfast allegiance to the democratically elected Federal government under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s leadership. Ndigbo has shown unwavering faith in his administration despite attempts to instigate Igbo protests against Tinubu.

“This message serves as a firm condemnation of coup rumours and a stark warning to those spreading disunity, discord, and disruption – elements who fuel hardship and economic sabotage.

“Supporting Tinubu’s success stands as a crucial interest for Ndigbo, known for their self-reliance and resilience. Past periods of political instability saw Ndigbo unfairly targeted, leading to dire consequences.

overlay-clevercloseLogo
“Any disruption in governance is likely to usher in an era of anarchy and chaos, exacerbating the already dire situation faced by the Nigerian populace.”

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has said the sale of Direct Entry (DE) registration nationwide and in selected foreign centres would commence on Wednesday.

The public communications advisor at JAMB, Fabian Benjamin, in a statement on Tuesday, February 27, said the registration process would start on Wednesday, February 28, and close on Thursday, March 28.

Benjamin noted that the sale of DE was open to foreign candidates desirous of tertiary education in Nigeria through the Direct Entry mode.

The JAMB spokesperson assured the public that the board will continue to ensure a level playing field for all candidates irrespective of status.

He, however, warned that the board would not process candidates’ applications from all awarding institutions that have refused to honour several requests for the verification of their A’level certificates presented by some candidates for the 2023 admission.

The statement said: “Candidates who are not awaiting results, must have uploaded their A’ level qualifications, O’level results and DE registration template at the point of registration as no DE candidates would be processed for admission until such claimed results are uploaded and verified by the awarding institutions on the Board’s Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS) mail platform.

“DE candidates, who at the point of registration are awaiting A’level results of IJMB/JUPEB/NABTEB, must have uploaded their Admission Letter and Registration Template at the point of registration. Applicants with Cambridge certificates for the pre-2018 examination year should visit Cambridge directly for verification.

“This verification exercise may take up to 28 days (as specified by the awarding body) after which the verification result would be forwarded to the Board. The verification would be reflected on the e-Facility profile of the DE candidate. Statement of results (in lieu of certificate) is accepted for registration only within three years of the date of award.

“The Board has also given a window of opportunity for upgrading from UTME to DE with a proviso for only candidates whose DE results have not been released at the point of UTME registration and who must have indicated at the point of registration that he/she is awaiting A’level results. The particulars of which he/she must have supplied and contained in the uploaded registration template.”

[TheNation]