Butler is a husband, father, grandfather, business executive, entrepreneur, and political observer.
We have all been exposed to the nationally embarrassing circus often labeled the “hush money” trial of former President Donald Trump. But I suspect most of us have not read the actual charges on which he has now been convicted. I am not going to address the claims that the whole trial was rigged or that the verdict was in the bag in some way. But I will simplify these charges and point out some interesting aspects of this travesty.
But first let me state that I am not a Trump supporter (nor am I a Joe Biden supporter). I have voted in every presidential election since turning 18. I did not vote for Trump in 2016, nor in 2020, nor will I vote for him in 2024. I also did not vote for Hillary Clinton or Biden. I think our presidential choices in recent years have gone from bad to worse, and we deserve better.
With that in mind, consider the following distillation of the 34 counts against Trump.
“THE GRAND JURY OF THE COUNTY OF NEW YORK, by this indictment, accuses the defendant of the crime of FALSIFYING BUSINESS RECORDS IN THE FIRST DEGREE, in violation of Penal Law §175.10, committed as follows: The defendant, in the County of New York and elsewhere, on or about [various dates ranging from February 14, 2017 through December 5, 2017], with intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof, made and caused a false entry in the business records of an enterprise, to wit, [transaction details and “enterprise” details], and kept and maintained by the Trump Organization.”
All 34 charges are essentially for the same activity spread out over a period of time and involving different types of records and two different organizations. Each count has identical language except for the various dates, the transaction details and the “enterprise” details.
For example, the transaction details and enterprise details of the first four counts are as follows:
- Count one: “… an invoice from Michael Cohen dated February 14, 2017, marked as a record of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust …”
- Count two: “… an entry in the Detail General Ledger for the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, bearing voucher number 842457 …”
- Count three: “… an entry in the Detail General Ledger for the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, bearing voucher number 842460 …”
- Count four: “… a Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust Account check and check stub dated February 14, 2017, bearing check number 000138 …”
Counts five through seven are of the identical format except that there is one Detail General Ledger entry for the invoice instead of two.
Beginning with counts eight through 10 there is a slight difference in who the records belonged to:
- Count eight: “… an invoice from Michael Cohen dated April 13, 2017, marked as a record of Donald J. Trump …”
- Count nine: “… an entry in the Detail General Ledger for Donald J. Trump, bearing voucher number 858770 …”
- Count 10: “… a Donald J. Trump account check and check stub dated June 19, 2017 …”
Counts 11 through 34 are again identical in nature. For each of nine months from April through December 2017, there is one count for an invoice from Michael Cohen marked as a record of Donald J. Trump, one count for a Detail General Ledger Entry in the records of Donald J. Trump, and one count for a check issued to pay the invoice by Donald J. Trump.
One interesting note on these charges is that they appear to correspond to 11 monthly invoices from Cohen for legal services. The groups of charges start with an invoice (11 of them, issued monthly between February 2017 and December 2017). Each of those invoices has a voucher for a Detail General Ledger entry (two vouchers for the February invoice) and then each of the invoices has a check that was issued to pay the invoices. Media explanations of the transactions say they were presented as monthly retainer invoices for services but embedded in the amounts was a reimbursement for Cohen’s payment to Stormy Daniels.
Evidently the falsification involved classifying these payments as “legal services” instead of marking a portion of the payments as election-related “hush money.”
But more interesting is who these “falsified” records belonged to: the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust and Donald J. Trump the person, neither of which is a “business.” A revocable trust is simply a legal tool for organizing your personal assets and ensuring they are distributed per your instructions when you die. They are used to ensure a deceased person’s estate is not subject to the time and expense of a lengthy probate process whereby a court determines how your assets are distributed. They are a common legal tool not just for wealthy people but for anyone who has a sizable estate. Probate requirements vary from state to state but are typically required when the estate exceeds $100,000 (or much less in some states). Placing your assets in a trust can avoid the probate process. The trust will hold investments including even privately held businesses of which Trump no doubt has many. But the trust itself is not a business. Nor is Trump himself personally a business.
Each of the charges states that the records were “kept and maintained by the Trump Organization” but this is merely an administrative service provided for his benefit and which he presumably pays for. The records themselves are the records of Donald Trump and not the Trump Organization or any other business.
Perhaps the invoices themselves were issued to a Trump business. But paying such an invoice personally would suggest Trump understood they were not business expenses, and he therefore chose to pay them from personal funds.
I am no fan of Donald Trump’s morals or ethics, whether personal or business-related, but I do wonder how he can be convicted of falsifying business records based on records that are strictly personal.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.