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What started out looking like an almost reverential treatment at least by Saturday Night Live standards of the Easter holiday quickly gave way to a satirical monologue from former President Donald J. Trump, comparing his own recent indictment on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records to the victimization of Jesus.

This weekends S.N.L. broadcast, hosted by Molly Shannon and featuring the Jonas Brothers as musical guests, began with a recreation of the Last Supper, performed by its cast and featuring Mikey Day as Jesus.

Alas, one of you will betray me, Day told the other cast members playing the Disciples, adding: Though I have committed no crime, I will be arrested, tried and found guilty.

Enter James Austin Johnson, in his recurring role as Trump. Sound familiar? Johnson said, taking over the scene. A famous, wonderful man, arrested for no reason at all. If you havent put it together, folks, Im comparing myself to Jesus, again. And what better time than on his birthday, Easter.

Johnson continued, As we speak, I am being persecuted on a level the likes of which the world has never seen, even worse than the late, great Jesus. He pointed to other ways in which he felt he was comparable to Jesus, if not superior: He rose from the dead on the third day, Johnson said. I would have done it faster. Possibly two days. I think we could have done it a lot faster. He had a good mind for business. Water into wine pure profit. And he had big, big rallies just like me.

Similarly, Johnson said a lot of his followers got into trouble too: All because I told them exactly what Jesus would have said, Get very violent and start a war.

The holiday, Johnson said, had him excited to hide Easter eggs. I have many beautiful eggs from my time at the White House, he said. And now the Department of Justice is saying: Where are the eggs? We need the eggs back. But I hid them. Theyre my eggs. Theyre my eggs to take, OK?

As he wrapped up, Johnson struck one more comparison: Just like Jesus, all I did was be friendly to a sex worker, and now they want to put me in jail, he said.

Returning to host S.N.L. for only the second time since she left the program in 2001 (the first time was in 2007), Shannon was in no hurry to revisit the revered sketch characters she portrayed during her time on the show. If you waited until nearly the end of the night, though, you at last got this segment in which her high-kickin dancer Sally OMalley returned to become a choreographer for the Jonas Brothers. (The JoBros eventually shed their breakaway outfits to reveal they were wearing OMalley-esque red dresses, too.)

Earlier in the night, Shannons less heralded stand-up comic character Jeannie Darcy got an ad for her own, low-energy Netflix special. And a video segment from the Please Dont Destroy team paid tribute to Shannons convivial energy by imagining her as the unlikely protagonist of a video game (which Shannon herself tries to play).

Over at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che continued to riff on Trumps indictment.

Jost began:

The Wall Street Journal is calling on Russia to release one of their journalists, who was arrested on espionage charges. And I might have the perfect idea for a prisoner swap. [His screen shows a photograph of Trump in court.] Former President Trump was arraigned on Tuesday, and a photographer released this photo of Trump in the courtroom. And I dont like that hes flanked by an O.J. amount of lawyers. Because that tells me hes definitely guilty and that hes definitely getting away with it.

He continued:

Trumps lawyer Joe Tacopina, a.k.a. Phony Soprano, said he doesnt think Trump is going to get a fair trial in Manhattan, and I agree. Even the courtroom sketch artist seems to hate him. I thought Trump looked perfectly nice. He had blended his foundation. Stapled down his hair. But then he drew him like the mud monster from Scooby-Doo.

Che picked up the thread:

After his arraignment, Donald Trump spoke to supporters at Mar-a-Lago and said there was a very dark cloud over our beloved country. Which is also what he used to call Obama. Insiders are saying that since Donald Trumps indictment, his daughter Ivanka has been absent and his other daughter Tiffany is trying to take her place by his side. Just as soon as she gets through security.

Mining the latest developments in the conflict between Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and the Walt Disney Company, Bowen Yang appeared at the Weekend Update desk as Jafar, the antagonist from Disneys animated musical Aladdin.

Affecting a very respectable Jonathan Freeman impersonation, Yang said that DeSantis was an amateur when it came to villainy: He has no rizz, no spark, no drip. Still, Yang said the governor was plenty evil, adding, I mean, banning Rosa Parks in schools? Im a dark sorcerer and even I was like, Jesus, dude, its Rosa Parks.

But if DeSantis wants to keep gay people out of Disney and its theme parks, Yang said, That carpet has flown, know what I mean? Besides, Yang added: Theres already a Disney World where nothing gay happens. Its called Six Flags.

You had to hang in there until the end of the episode to catch this, but it was worth staying up for: a fake commercial for a service called CNZen that is partly a news source and partly a meditation app but one thats intended for stressed-out people who have made hatred of Trump the basis of their entire personalities.

When needed, the app serves its users salient details about Trumps indictment and gentle voice-overs from CNN talent (and The New York Timess Maggie Haberman, played by Shannon). If you find yourself feeling lethargic at any time of day, Sarah Sherman as a whispery, wide-eyed Wolf Blitzer will either lull you to sleep or startle you back to full attention.

Continued here:
'S.N.L.' Brings Donald Trump to the Last Supper for Easter Weekend - The New York Times

On December15, 2015, Donald Trump and eight other Republicans contending for their partys Presidential nomination met for their fifth debate, in Las Vegas. Trump set the tone, both with his bullying of Jeb Bush and in the discussion of his call, a week earlier, for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States. Rather than recoiling, his opponents tended to express understanding for Trumps perspective, while claiming theyd be more effective: Ted Cruz wanted a narrower ban; Ben Carson wanted government surveillance of mosques and supermarkets; Carly Fiorina wanted private companies to help with the spying. Rand Paul managed to warn people who supported Trump, Thinkdo you believe in the Constitution? Five years later, Paul was insinuating that Democrats had stolen the 2020 election from Trump.

On December4, 2023, Trump is due to be in a courtroom in Manhattan, for a pretrial hearing in the criminal case that Alvin Bragg, the New York County District Attorney, has brought against him on thirty-four counts of falsifying business records in the first degreea felony. Trump will also likely be preparing for what will be the fifth G.O.P. debate of this Presidential cycle, at a venue to be determined. The Republican National Committee recently announced that the first debate will take place in August, in Milwaukee. The exact date has not been set, but the R.N.C. might note that Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over Trumps case, has given his lawyers until August8th to file preliminary motions, which could include such matters as a request for a change of venue or for a dismissal.

Milwaukee was chosen because the Partys Convention will be in that city. Wisconsin went narrowly for Trump in 2016, and for Biden in 2020, and both parties have invested heavily in races there, most recently for the state Supreme Court. (The Democrat, Janet Protasiewicz, won decisively; abortion and redistricting were central issues.) In picking the other debate sites, the R.N.C. may now have to consider how logistically convenient it is for Trump to travel from the courthouse to the stageand how politically convenient, or disastrous, it will be for the other candidates to be asked about the proceedings.

Trump, in other words, must operate with two calendars in mindthe courts and the campaignsand so must much of the machinery of American politics. At his arraignment, on April4th, prosecutors indicated that a trial wouldnt begin until early next year; a number of Republican primaries will be in February. Should a judge, say, reschedule jury selection to account for them? The complexity will multiply if, as expected, Fani Willis, the D.A. for Fulton County, Georgia, brings charges related to Trumps efforts to overturn the states election results, and if Jack Smith, the special counsel, does so in connection with either Trumps actions ahead of the January 6th assault on the Capitol or his handling of government documents, or both. Those investigations might have their hearing calendars crowded by the one in New York. That would be unfortunate, as Braggs case is, by many measures, the flimsiest of them.

The indictment principally addresses the payment of a hundred and thirty thousand dollars, in October of 2016, to Stormy Daniels, an adult-movie star, allegedly for her silence about a consensual sexual encounter; such a payment is, in itself, not illegal. In contrast, the Georgia case involves the alleged procurement of fraudulent ballots and a phony certificate for the states sixteen electoral votes, which is most definitely illegal. (Trump denies any wrongdoing.) Bragg has charged that Trump had his lawyer Michael Cohen front the money for Daniels and then reimbursed him, in eleven payments, in a way that created thirty-four false business records (checks, invoices, ledger entries). Each might be a misdemeanor; what would make them a felony is an intent to defraud and commit or conceal another crime. Bragg has chosen not to specify what that other crime is yet, either in the indictment or in an accompanying statement of facts, other than to suggest that it has something to do with elections, or maybe taxesmaybe federal, maybe state, maybe an untested hybrid. (The underlying records case is also less tight than expected.) Ruth Marcus, in the Washington Post, detected a certain circularity in the linkages; she called the indictment disturbingly unilluminating.

It may seem unfair that voters didnt get to know about Daniels before the election, but withholding a candidates marital infidelities is not criminal election fraud. Braggs job as a prosecutor is to pull a legally recognizable charge from a haze of crookedness, and so far he has not done so. This omission is distinctly damaging when a good part of the country thinks that the case is a setup. Even if Bragg wins a convictionhis case could get strongeror another prosecutor does, there will likely be years of appeals ahead, with more hearings to schedule and conflicting dates to consider. One could be Inauguration Day. A felony convictioneven thirty-four of themdoes not disqualify Trump or anyone else from running for President. In 1920, EugeneV. Debs, the Socialist candidate, heard the election results while in federal prison; he had been convicted under the Espionage Act for speaking against the First World War. (His supporters printed badges with a picture of Debs in prison clothing; Trump, in a farcical echo, is selling T-shirts with a fake mug shot.)

Judge Merchan and his colleagues in other jurisdictions will have to make calls, too, about how to reasonably accommodate the electoral process. Profound constitutional issues come into play, as Merchan recognized in the arraignment hearing. After prosecutors raised the issue of derogatory and possibly threatening statements that Trump had made about Bragg and about the judge, Merchan said that he would not impose a gag orderat least, not yet. Such restraints are the most serious and least tolerable on First Amendment rights, he said, using the language of a 1976 Supreme Court decision. That does apply doubly to Mr. Trump, because he is a candidate for the Presidency of the United States.

Merchans observation is, in a way, as much about the voters rights as it is about Trumps. Candidacy does not confer impunity. But Trump will not be the last politician to be indicted by a prosecutor from an opposing political party, and this case may well set standards with which the country as a whole will have to live.

Read more:
How Will Donald Trump's Trial Play on the Campaign Trail? - The New Yorker

Several hot-button legal inquiries loom over former President Donald Trump -- everything from election interference and misuse of classified documents to defamation of a writer after an alleged rape.

He has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

However, the indictment and arraignment of Trump earlier this week, the first for an ex-president in U.S. history, has drawn the nation's attention to a rarely discussed white-collar financial crime: falsifying business records.

As part of a scheme to reimburse former Trump attorney Michael Cohen for hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels, Trump fraudulently recorded $130,000 in expenses as the cost of legal services for Cohen, the indictment alleges.

In Manhattan criminal court, Trump pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to all 34 counts of falsifying business records. He has denied having sex with Daniels.

In a press conference on Tuesday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg characterized the validity of business records as fundamental to a well-functioning economy.

"This is the business capital of the world," he said. "The bedrock, in fact the basis, for business integrity and a well-functioning business marketplace is true and accurate record keeping."

Here's what to know about the crime of falsifying business records and the typical penalties, according to interviews with New York City-based criminal defense attorneys.

Falsifying business records, a violation of New York state law, constitutes the entry of inaccurate information on a business document to benefit oneself.

In other words, a description of the crime is "sort of in the name," Adam Konta, a senior partner at Manhattan-based law firm Konta, Georges & Buza, told ABC News.

However, the crime of falsifying business records not only requires an incorrect entry on a company form but also an intent to mislead in an effort to reap reward.

"Every crime requires both an act and a criminal intent behind the act," Matthew Galluzo, a criminal defense attorney in New York City and a former prosecutor in the New York County District Attorney's Office, told ABC News.

If a boss asks a secretary to mark a form incorrectly and he or she does so without awareness of an attempt to mislead, the secretary is innocent of a crime, Galluzo said.

Similarly, an accidental or harmless recording error falls short of a crime, he added.

The most common example of the crime involves fibbing about a company's financial information for the sake of evading or minimizing tax payments, or in an effort to hoodwink potential investors, Galluzo said.

The crime of falsifying business records constitutes either a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the circumstances of a given violation, the attorneys said.

The act rises to a felony when the inaccurate record is entered as part of an effort to commit a different, underlying crime, the attorneys said.

The misdemeanor version of the crime usually means "destruction or falsification of business records," Konta said. "When you're doing that in hopes of committing a separate crime, then it's what's called a 'bump up.'"

The standard is akin to the legal treatment of trespassing, Konta added, noting that the mere act of trespassing is a relatively minor crime but the charge becomes far more serious if a trespasser attempts to steal.

In the Trump indictment, Bragg didn't specify the underlying law Trump attempted to break when he allegedly falsified business records.

"The indictment doesn't specify it because the law does not so require," Bragg said at a press conference on Tuesday, later mentioning possible secondary crimes that include illegal promotion of a political campaign and an attempt to make false claims on tax forms.

The defense will likely attempt to force Bragg to specify which underlying crime Trump attempted to commit, while Bragg will try to keep the interpretation open-ended, so the jury merely has to find Trump attempted to commit a crime rather than any specific one, Galluzo said.

"The statute itself seems to suggest you just have to prove he was trying to break a law," Gallluzo said. "Defense attorneys will say, 'Well, you have to tell us what law and prove that law specifically.'"

"Prosecutors will try to keep it vague and flexible so the jury can say maybe it was this or maybe it was that, but it's got to be one of them," he added.

The maximum penalty for a felony count of falsifying business records is four years in state prison.

"However, there's no mandatory minimum sentence," Galluzo said.

Due to Trump's age and lack of a criminal history, a jail sentence of any length is unlikely if he is convicted, Galluzo added, noting however that the 13-month jail sentence served by Cohen in a related case potentially raises the possibility of incarceration for Trump.

In federal court, Cohen pleaded guilty to two violations of campaign finance law resulting from hush money payments made to Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Trump also denies having sex with McDougal.

In addition, Cohen pleaded guilty to five counts of tax fraud and one count of false statements made to a bank.

Penalties in falsification of business records cases are often driven by the amount of money at stake in the potential fraud, Daniel Hochheiser, a criminal defense attorney in New York, told ABC News.

Trump is alleged to have reimbursed Cohen for $130,000 in hush money payments, though the statement of facts accompanying the indictment claims that then-Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg agreed to a total repayment of $420,000, including other expenses and a year-end bonus.

"Somebody who makes a false business record in a $100,000 fraud is generally punished less severely than somebody who makes a false entry in a record involved in a scheme to commit a $10 million fraud," Hochheiser said.

"I don't see any scenario in which Trump goes to jail," Hochheiser added. "Even if he's convicted of everything."

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Donald Trump indictment: What to know about falsifying business records - ABC News

FormerDonald Trump-picked Attorney GeneralBill Barrspoke candidly on Sunday about Trumps 2024 run, his verbal attacks on the Manhattan judge, and his legal cases, saying the former president should be most concerned about the documents case at Mar-a-Lago.

He had no claim to those documentsespecially the classified documents. They belong to the government. I think he was jerking the government around, Barr said on ABCs This Week about the federal case into the classified documents found at Trumps Florida estate.

Trump unfortunately has a penchant for engaging in reckless and self-destructive behavior that brings these kinds of things on him. In many respects, he's his own worst enemy, Barr added. Hes dug himself a hole on the documents [case]...It doesnt surprise me that he has all these legal problems. He was warned about them before he left office.

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Barr also criticized how Trump attacked JudgeJuan Merchan. After the former president was charged with 34 felonies in the hush-money case, he called Merchan a Trump-hating judge, with a Trump-hating wife and family, whose daughter worked forKamala Harris and now receives money from the Biden-Harris campaignand a lot of it.

I dont think it is appropriate or wise.The president notoriously lacks self-control and he frequently gets himself into trouble, Barr said about Trump name-calling Judge Merchan. Barr was, however, critical of the Manhattan case, saying that he thought it lacked merit. I think it is transparently an abuse of prosecutorial power to accomplish a political end. I think it is an unjust case. Thats not to say that every legal challenge that the president faces is unjustified. But this one especially is, Barr said.

The former AG was equally critical of Trumps 2024 presidential run. Barr said that while his base will likely rally around Trump as the criminal investigations are ongoing because they view this as persecution, Barr thinks that Trumps legal woes will hinder him in the actual election:As far as the general election is concerned, it will gravely weaken Trump. He's already, I think, a weak candidate that would lose, but I think this sort of assures it.

Perhaps demonstrating the self-destructive behavior that Barr was describing, Trump wrote a rambly, all-caps holiday message on Truth Social: HAPPY EASTER TO ALL, INCLUDING THOSE THAT DREAM ENDLESSLY OF DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY BECAUSE THEY ARE INCAPABLE OF DREAMING ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE, THOSE THAT ARE SO INCOMPETENT THEY DON'T REALIZE THAT HAVING A BORDER AND POWERFUL WALL IS A GOOD THING, & HAVING VOTER I.D., ALL PAPER BALLOTS, & SAME DAY VOTING WILL QUICKLY END MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD, & TO ALL OF THOSE WEAK & PATHETIC RINOS [Republicans in Name Only], RADICAL LEFT DEMOCRATS, SOCIALISTS MARXISTS, & COMMUNISTS WHO ARE KILLING OUR NATION, REMEMBER, WE WILL BE BACK!"

This years Easter message from Trump seems like the perfect follow-up to last years, in which he lambasted New York Attorney GeneralLetitia James, who wasinvestigating the Trump Organizations finances: Happy Easter tofailed gubernatorial candidate and racistAttorney General Letitia James. May she remain healthy despite the fact that she will continue to drive business out of New York while at the same time keeping crime, death, and destruction in New York.

The rest is here:
Bill Barr Warns Donald Trump Should Be Most Concerned About The Classified Documents Case - Vanity Fair

Stormy Daniels talks with a journalist in Berlin shortly after her lawyer filed a defamation case against Donald Trump on her behalf in October 2018. Ralf Hirschberger/DPA/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Stormy Daniels talks with a journalist in Berlin shortly after her lawyer filed a defamation case against Donald Trump on her behalf in October 2018.

As Donald Trump was in New York for a date with legal jeopardy, a judge in Los Angeles quietly granted him a substantial legal victory.

The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the former president on Tuesday, ordering adult film star Stormy Daniels to pay $121,972 in legal fees for a failed defamation suit.

The ruling is not legally connected with the Manhattan district attorney's investigation that led Trump to be charged with 34 felony counts on Tuesday. But it does stem from the same event: Daniels claims she had an affair with Trump in 2006, then was paid by Trump's legal team to avoid going public with the story ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Trump denies the affair but has since admitted he reimbursed his then-attorney Michael Cohen for the hush money payments.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, tried to sue Trump for defamation in 2018, specifically taking aim at a tweet attacking her account of being threatened by a stranger in 2011 to stay quiet on her Trump story. Trump attacked the account as a "con job, playing the Fake News Media."

Federal Judge S. James Otero dismissed the lawsuit, saying Trump's tweet constitutes " 'rhetorical hyperbole' normally associated with politics and public discourse" and is protected by the First Amendment.

Daniels tried to appeal the decision in 2022, saying her then-attorney Michael Avenatti filed the defamation suit "without my permission and against my wishes." But a judge ruled against her, leaving her on the hook for nearly $300,000 in Trump's legal fees.

Daniels subsequently filed a motion to knock down the fee payment. On Tuesday, the court dismissed in part her latest request, which only increased the bill she has to pay.

Daniels argued that the fee request was "unreasonable and excessive," saying the law group had overstaffed the appeal and performed duplicative tasks, and asked for fees to be reduced, court documents show.

She specifically asked the judge to cap the law firm's rates at $500/hourly for partners and $350/hourly for associates a request the appeals commissioner denied on account of "inflation and increase in the attorneys' experience."

The court denied a secondary request for Daniels to reimburse Trump $5,150 for time responding to the most recent appeal, saying the request lacked itemized detail about the law firm's billing.

"Collectively, our firm obtained over $600,000 in attorney fee awards in his favor in the meritless litigation initiated by Stormy Daniels," said Trump attorney Harmeet Dhillion in a tweet celebrating the legal victory.

After the appeals court ruled against her last year, Daniels tweeted: "I will go to jail before I pay a penny."

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Donald Trump wins $120,000 from Stormy Daniels in failed ... - NPR