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  • Blackmail?

    From micky@21:1/5 to All on Thu Mar 16 12:12:02 2023
    Aren't there two possibilities, trump decided to reward Stormy Daniels
    to encourage her to be silent, or Stormy blackmailed trump? She'll say
    it was the first. What stops every blackmailer from saying the first
    and if the blackmailee is someone people dislike or distrust, they can
    ignore his complaint about being blackmailed. Even if they don't
    dislike or distrust him, it's he said, she said. How does anyone get convicted?

    IF otoh, the mere payment for not saying something embarrassing or incriminating is prima facie evidence of blackmail, why hasn't she been
    charged with blackmail?

    Has anyone suggested Daniels might be guilty of blackmail?

    And how can someone guilty of or suspected of blackmail be a good
    witness?

    --
    I think you can tell, but just to be sure:
    I am not a lawyer.

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  • From Barry Gold@21:1/5 to micky on Thu Mar 16 13:46:27 2023
    On 3/16/2023 12:12 PM, micky wrote:
    Aren't there two possibilities, trump decided to reward Stormy Daniels
    to encourage her to be silent, or Stormy blackmailed trump? She'll say
    it was the first. What stops every blackmailer from saying the first
    and if the blackmailee is someone people dislike or distrust, they can
    ignore his complaint about being blackmailed. Even if they don't
    dislike or distrust him, it's he said, she said. How does anyone get convicted?

    IF otoh, the mere payment for not saying something embarrassing or incriminating is prima facie evidence of blackmail, why hasn't she been charged with blackmail?

    Has anyone suggested Daniels might be guilty of blackmail?

    And how can someone guilty of or suspected of blackmail be a good
    witness?

    As with any other witness, it is up to the jury to decide how much of
    what the witness says is believable. And, yes, it's Blackmail if you ask
    for money (or anything else of potential value, including sex) in return
    for keeping quiet, but it is (usually) legal for the person who wants to
    keep something secret to offer to pay for silence. Sometimes this is
    formulated as a contract with legally enforceable terms: the
    secret-keeper must return the money if they break silence. But being
    called as a witness in court is always an exception, assuming you didn't _volunteer_ to be a witness. It can be difficult to recover money which
    has already been spent, so such contracts often take the form of an
    ongoing fixed payment. If the secret-keeper blabs, the payments stop.
    At least this way the person who wants the secret kept gets to decide
    how much he is willing to pay and how often.

    It can go further than that. IIRC, one pop music star was accused of
    molesting a pre-teen boy. IIRC he reached an agreement with the boy: a
    prepaid one-way airplane ticket to somewhere in the South Seas, and
    regular payments conditioned on the boy not returning to the US. Which
    meant, of course, that he couldn't be subpoenaed to testify in a US
    court because he was beyond their jurisdiction.


    --
    I do so have a memory. It's backed up on DVD... somewhere...

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  • From Rick@21:1/5 to micky on Thu Mar 16 13:39:24 2023
    "micky" wrote in message news:[email protected]...

    Aren't there two possibilities, trump decided to reward Stormy Daniels
    to encourage her to be silent, or Stormy blackmailed trump? She'll say
    it was the first. What stops every blackmailer from saying the first
    and if the blackmailee is someone people dislike or distrust, they can
    ignore his complaint about being blackmailed. Even if they don't
    dislike or distrust him, it's he said, she said. How does anyone get >convicted?

    IF otoh, the mere payment for not saying something embarrassing or >incriminating is prima facie evidence of blackmail, why hasn't she been >charged with blackmail?

    Has anyone suggested Daniels might be guilty of blackmail?

    And how can someone guilty of or suspected of blackmail be a good
    witness?


    Well in order to prove blackmail, Trump would have to provide evidence that
    she demanded payment in exchange for keeping their relationship secret and
    that this demand came before the payment. That evidence could be through verifiable text messages or emails or perhaps a recorded conversations with
    a verifiable time stamp, but it would have to be unambiguous. If no one is alleging blackmail, it could be that no such evidence exists.

    But even if he can establish that she blackmailed him, that wouldn't necessarily affect the issue of whether he violated campaign finance laws by how he made the payment. I think they are separate issues.

    --

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