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Notes -
A few responses:
By the way, the whole thing was made worse by the prosecution stating in closing that it was a fact that Trump committed a campaign finance violation. You put all of that together and it sure looks like reversible error to me.
Re scienter there is not a single piece of testimony that Trump even thought about FECA violations. There was testimony that he thought about the election and wanted the payment for the election (which the prosecution argued and the judge accepted—probably incorrectly—as a campaign finance violation) but literally zero that he wanted the books a certain way to cover up the campaign issue. That is fatal because the government has the burden and it proffered to my knowledge zero evidence.
The bootstrapping point is not moot. The “unlawful means” appears to be a FECA violation IN THIS CASE. That means effectively Trump was convicted because NY law prohibits false bookkeeping if it was intended to cover up federal election law rules. That is…far from obvious.
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