Lisa Rubin says five or six!

THURSDAY, MAY 30, 2024

Can anyone here play explain this game? Can anyone explain the nature of the 34 felonies with which Donald J. Trump stands charged?

Let us start by saying this—we all understand the nature of the cultural and political offense with which he has repeatedly been charged.

In our view, this charge is very strange. But again and again, then again and again, Trump has been charged with this:

In creating a non-disclosure agreement with Stormy Daniels, he kept voters from getting the information they needed in the 2016 election.

That strikes us as an embarrassingly silly charge. That said, we've seen Blue America's cable news pundits state some version of the complaint again and again and again.

For the record, that isn't a legal complaint. How can we describe the 34 criminal charges with which Trump stands charged in a New York City courtroom?

As we noted this morning, different people seem to describe those charges in different ways. For the latest example, consider what legal analyst Lisa Rubin told Willie Geist on today's Morning Joe.

The exchange began with an assertion by Geist. According to Geist, Donald Trump and "some of his minions" have been saying something about the jury instructions that simply isn't true:

GEIST (5/30/24): I want to get some clarification from you about the jury instructions. Donald Trump, some of his minions, going on cable networks, suggesting that the judge told the jury that they don't have to be unanimous.

That's not true. Can you explain what this little dispute may be about?

Who needs legal analysts when they already have Willie Geist? 

In effect, Geist had already answered the question of the day—the question about whether the jury's verdicts will have to be unanimous. 

Does the jury have to be unanimous? As we noted this morning, Devlin Barrett's report in the Washington Post made that answer made the answer sound a bit less clearcut

Geist said the claim was simply untrue. Here's the way Rubin's response started:

RUBIN (continuing directly): Yeah, that's not true at all...

That particular claim isn't true "at all?" The truth about this complex matter gets fuzzier and fuzzier.

At any rate, that's the way Rubin started. Here's the text of her full response:

RUBIN (continuing directly): Yeah, that's not true at all. 

First of all, they have to be unanimous that the business records here were falsified, and that is the crime that was charged.

With respect to what makes falsification of business records a felony, they also have to be unanimous that Trump intended to commit a conspiracy to promote his own election in 2016, and they have to be unanimous that he did so, or that the conspiracy was through unlawful means. 

Here's the part where they can have differences of opinion. 

What are those unlawful means? [Prosecutor] Josh Steinglass gave them five or six different options that kind of fall into three categories.

 One is violation of the federal elections campaign 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 [sic] 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. 

You Willie; you Rev; me Lisa—we can all have different opinions on what those unlawful means are. But we all have to agree that there was a conspiracy, that it was executed by unlawful means. Donald J. Trump is playing fast and loose here with the concept of unanimity.

To watch videotape of that exchange, you can start by clicking here.

At any rate, that was Rubin's explanation. It almost sounds to us like we'd want to paraphrase her statement this way:

Yeah, that statement isn't true at all. Until such time as it is!

Trump was playing fast and loose with the concept of unanimity? So, we'd almost be inclined to say, was legal analyst Rubin, she of Blue America!

That said.

At this time, cable news mainly exists as a source of comfort food for the nation's dueling masses. 

We citizens of Blue America turn to our own "cable news" channel to hear the statements we enjoy. Citizens of Red America turn to the Fox News Channel to hear their views reinforced.

Meanwhile, note the change in the numbers—through we aren't saying that Rubin's census is "wrong:"

According to Rubin, when jurors finally get to have their "differences of opinion," they now have "five or six" different options from which they can choose! For the record, it sounds like they don't all have to agree with each other when they pick from those options.

We're not saying that's wrong—we're just saying that it keeps getting complexer and complexer as different journalists tote up the different ways jurors are free to decide that Donald J. Trump broke the law.  This is happening in the part of the decision making where, as far as we know, the jurors don't all have to agree.

Shorter Rubin:

The jurors have to be unanimous—until such time as they don't! At that point, jurors get to have "differences of opinion." But let's not think about that!

For the record, we're not saying that there's anything "wrong" with the legal theory according to which jurors have been told to proceed. (Presumably, there could be something wrong with the theory, of course.)

We are saying this:

Due to "segregation by viewpoint," we've never seen Rubin required to defend any of her assessments in a full-blown, civil discussion with any of the legal analysts who appear on Fox. Also, we've never seen those legal analysts forced to defend their claims.

In fact, no one has ever seen any such discussions. Thanks to the practice of "segregation by viewpoint," such discussions no longer exist!

Meanwhile, was Rubin possibly playing a bit fast and loose with the concept of unanimity? By our lights, to our ear, it almost sounds like she possibly was!

Of course, that's pretty much why modern-day "cable news" exists!  Each tribe gets to hear the stories it likes. Everyone goes home happy. 

That's the way our "cable news" works. "Our democracy" pays the price!