COMPLEXITY: We're no longer alone in our search!

WEDNESDAY, MAY 29, 2024

Drum says he's confused: All in all, we're most interested in what we saw Nicolle Wallace say—in what we saw her say about the speech by Ken Burns.

Still and all, we've never been happier! As of this morning, it isn't just us:

Kevin Drum has now said that he too is a bit confused. He says he's puzzled about the identity of "the other crime" in the ongoing criminal trial of former president Donald J. Trump. 

At long last, it isn't just us!

Over the years, we've often bounced off some of Kevin's posts because of a way the two of us tend to disagree: 

At this site, we're inclined to say that some high-profile presentation possibly isn't especially clear. Kevin is often inclined to say that it actually is. 

This type of disagreement has involved everything from attempts to explain Einstein-era physics right up to the identity of the criminal charges in the current ongoing trial. 

Sometimes, Kevin has possibly even been right. On other occasions, it has seemed to us that he possibly wasn't.

That said:

This very morning, at long last, we awoke to find that it isn't just us. Headline included, here's the start of Kevin's new post about the ongoing trial:

What is Donald Trump’s “other crime”? Take your pick.

I've just spent the past hour reading half a dozen reports about the closing arguments in Donald Trump's hush money case. And I'm confused.

As you all know, Trump is accused of ordering his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to pay off Stormy Daniels in order to keep her quiet about an affair they had. This happened during the 2016 campaign. Trump later reimbursed Cohen but recorded the repayment as a "legal expense," which is an illegal falsification of business records.

But it's just a misdemeanor. In order to become a felony, it has to be done in furtherance of another crime. So what exactly is that other crime?

Kevin continues along from there—and yes, he says that he's now confused! 

As everyone knows, for Trump to be guilty of a set of 34 felonies, there has to be some "other crime." But what exactly is that other crime?  Kevin says that, in the half dozen reports he read, he encountered a wide array of different ideas concerning the identity of that "other crime."

Kevin is referring to a very basic part of the legal theory under which Donald J. Trump stands charged. Surprisingly, we actually think that we may understand this basic point better than Kevin currently does.

Mainly, thought, we were thrilled to see that it isn't just us. We were thrilled to see Kevin say that he's a bit confused by the reporting too!

Kevin says that he encountered a wide array of ideas concerning the identity of "the other crime." To our era, it sounded a bit like the parable of the three blind men and the elephant. 

It's an ancient story about the groping of a very large creature. As you can see, the leading authority on the parable nutshells the bromide as shown:

Blind men and an elephant

The parable of the blind men and an elephant is a story of a group of blind men who have never come across an elephant before and who learn and imagine what the elephant is like by touching it. Each blind man feels a different part of the animal's body, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then describe the animal based on their limited experience and their descriptions of the elephant are different from each other. 

In some versions, they come to suspect that the other person is dishonest and they come to blows. 

The moral of the parable is that humans have a tendency to claim absolute truth based on their limited, subjective experience as they ignore other people's limited, subjective experiences which may be equally true. The parable originated in the ancient Indian subcontinent, from where it has been widely diffused.

According to the leading authority, one of the earliest versions of this story "dates to around c. 500 BCE, during the lifetime of the Buddha."

The parable is very old. At any rate, Kevin's account of the six reports brought that old story to mind.

In what way do we think we may understand the factual point in question here—a factual matter which now has Kevin uncertain? 

Thank you for asking! Here goes:

After describing the various ways various press reports have described the "other crime," Kevin ends his post with this:

This is all confusing as hell. What's not clear is whether it's confusing because prosecutors told the jury to pick any old violation and go with it, or because the press reports spend almost no time explaining the prosecution's theory of the case. Stay tuned.

Fair enough! So, what is the prosecution's "theory of the case?" Based on several press reports from earlier months, our understanding would be this:

The prosecution has accused Donald L. Trump of violating three (3) different laws when he (allegedly) falsified those business records.

As we understand it, a juror might conclude that Trump violated any one of those three (3) different laws. A juror might conclude that he violated two of the laws, or even that he violated all three. That said:

According to the prosecution, if Trump violated even one of those three laws, then his alleged crimes get elevated to the status of felonies. Also this:

According to the prosecution, the twelve jurors don't have to agree about which of the laws the defendant violated. As long as each juror finds that he violated any of the laws, the jury can reach a unanimous guilty verdict.

Full disclosure! In a report from The Hill which Kevin quotes, the possible number of "other crimes" has somehow jumped to four! But as long as the jurors all agree that Trump violated at least one of the three (or four) laws in question, the jury can be said to have reached a unanimous verdict—or at least, so the prosecution says, as we understand it.

The jurors don't have to agree on which "other crime" Trump broke? That may seem a little bit strange, based on the general notion that a jury verdict has to be unanimous. But that's our understanding of the prosecution's legal theory, based on some reports from several months back.

At any rate, Kevin encountered a string of reports which identified "the other crime" in a wide array of ways. So it hoes as our "highly educated" national press corps tries to inform the public about an extremely important ongoing news event.

As in the old parable, so too here. Such complexification can lead to confusion, then to various forms of partisan anger. It's a major problem all through our society, one which extends to the current criminal case.

In the end, the legal theory under which Trump stands charged may make perfect sense (or then again, possibly not). But when journalists have so much trouble describing the basics of the legal theory—or when they make so little effort to do so—confusion and anger may result on one side, matched by overblown certainty within the other.

For ourselves, we've found it hard to focus on the complexity of the allegations against Trump in this particular case. We'll describe our overriding view once again:

As a general matter, we think the society should be discouraging people from intruding on presidential elections with pointless but distracting claims about past (consensual) sexual conduct. 

We don't think the society should be punishing candidates who look for otherwise legal ways to keep such people from "telling their stories"—even from sharing the newly-invented creature which is now sometimes described as "their truth."

In our view, the prosecution in this case is seeking to discourage the wrong type of behavior. If the shoe were on the other foot, those of us in Blue America would probably be calling this a "political prosecution" too.

For that reason, we've found it hard to focus on the endless all-day discussions of Donald J. Trump's alleged offenses in this particular matter. At present, we're much more interested in what Ken Burns said at Brandeis on Sunday, May 19.

Yesterday, Nicolle Wallace brought Burns on her two-hour daily program as a stand-alone guest. She swooned about the various things the well-known filmmaker had said.

Burns proceeded to deliver a heartfelt monologue which we'd score as almost completely incomprehensible. Ken Burns ins a good, decent person, but we're all currently living in a type of Babel, and it's hard for us to imagine that this leads to a hood result.

In the next two days, we'll continue to try to explore the complexity of the current legal case. This afternoon, we'll give you a taste of what Wallace and Burns have now said.

Before long, we hope to get to this:

 "I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours."

It was said in the summer of '63. The person who said it had just turned 22. It seems to us, even today, that he had the right idea.

This afternoon: Wallace and Burns