The Hush Money Prosecution Matters

It’s true that the New York City case against Trump pales in comparison to the gravity of the one over the theft of classified documents and even more to those over his attempted 2020/21 coup. What gets forgotten is that this “paper crime” was directly tied to gaming the 2016 election. While Trump had his assignation with Stormy Daniels in 2006, the hush money pay off happened weeks before the 2016 election, specifically in order to prevent the story from becoming public. He committed financial and tax fraud to win the 2016 election. He tried an inverted version of that gambit with the threat of withholding weaponry from Ukraine in 2019 once the power of the presidency gave him the power to do so. Both of Trump’s two impeachments were over criminal attempts to subvert the 2020 election.

The NYC case is important.  It is Georgia on a small scale.  

While Trump was in office, people like Rick Hasen granted the events appear to be criminal.  Hasen wanted -- like Trump's lawyer was (Michael Cohen) -- federal law to be applied.  Now, he and various others think it is a dubious novel application of the law.  The net result, though they will surely insist in an aggrieved fashion how much they want justice and find Trump horrible and dangerous, is enabling Trump. He gets away with it.  

At the time, the policy of not prosecuting sitting presidents kicked in.  Later, it probably was seen as too "small potatoes" to use it as a precedent to prosecute a former president, especially for events years before.  And, then a lot more water went under the bridge, and it became a sideshow.  But, his lawyer went to prison.  The acts are crimes (for some too petty to care about).  They are an abuse of both the corporate and political system.  

Trump's m.o.  It also was important in the moment.  There was a concern that one more sex scandal (along with the "grab them in the pussy" video) would really burn him.  He broke the law to help stop this, running into campaign finance and corporate laws in place to protect the integrity of the system. They matter.  The seediness of the whole thing also is fitting.  

The feds can focus on the documents and the 2020/1 crimes.  New York has its own concerns here, including both the integrity of the elections and the corporate system.  Why should Trump get a pass here?  Let's underline that 2020 is not new.  

There is always a supposed reason to kick the can or get Trump off the hook.  People still want this to be settled at the polls. So he can corrupt the process for a third time?  So various people (the NYC indictment includes various details of "little people" involved) can take part in the conspiracy and be harmed?  So various state electoral processes (along with the federal process) can be corrupted a third time?  More violence? 

That will surely go down well.