Donald Trump's allies are parroting his claims that the judge in his hush money trial has allowed jurors to choose which crime to convict of committing, but MSNBC's Lisa Rubin explained how the former president is misleading his followers.
The quadruple-indicted ex-president claimed New York justice Juan Merchan "is not requiring a unanimous decision on the fake charges," but, in fact, the judge instructed the jury that their verdict must be unanimous on each of the 34 counts Trump faces, although they do not have to agree on which particular unlawful means he may have used to violate state election law if they all agree he used some type of unlawful means.
"They have to be unanimous that the business records were falsified, that is the crime that was charged," Rubin told "Morning Joe." "With respect to what makes falsification of business records a felony, they also have to be unanimous that Trump intended to conceal a conspiracy to promote his own election in 2016, and they have to be unanimous that he did so, or the conspiracy was through unlawful means."
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"Here's the part where they can have differences of opinion: What are the unlawful means?" Rubin continued. "[Manhattan prosecutor] Josh Steinglass gave them five or six different options that kind of fall into three categories. One is violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act through unlawful campaign contributions. One is falsification of other business records, like Michael Cohen's submission of forms to the bank through which he opened the account that he used to pay Stormy Daniels. The third are the tax forms that the Trump Organization prepared when they were showing Michael Cohen's quote, unquote, 'income,' that income of $420,000 that was really the reimbursement to him."
"We can all have different opinions on what the unlawful means are, but we all have to agree that there was a conspiracy, that it was executed by unlawful means," she added. "Donald Trump is playing fast and loose here with the concept of unanimity."
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