Tax Fraud doesn't have anything to do with Federal Election Law. It is as irrelevant as a porn star expanding on Trumps sexual technique, allowed in to prejudice the jury.

The key element being asserted is Trump committed an unspecified violation of Federal Election Law, and the faulty business record were done to cover up that unspecified violation of Federal Election Law. As far as I know that violation was treated as a given but not proven with evidence subject to cross examination. That is what is unfair about it.

Lots of discussion last night....teach me to go to bed! Lapsody did a solid job of explaining a lot of this.

But needless to say, all of the above is incorrect.

Tax fraud isn't irrelevant to the case, because either election law violations or a tax fraud can serve as a predicate crime for falsifying business records. It doesn't have to be election fraud, and I imagine that tax fraud is involved in quite a lot of false business records cases, for obvious reasons.

Also, the election fraud violations were fully specified in the judge's order on the motion to dismiss (campaign contributions in violation of the cap, campaign contributions from a corporate entity), and Trump's team was well aware of what those were. That's why they tried to bring in Smith - because they were fully informed what the alleged violations were. And of course, all of the violations were proven - there was both testimony and documentary evidence that showed that the payments were made, that they were above the contribution limit, that some of them came from corporate entities, and that steps were taken to conceal that the payments were made by Trump to Daniels. All of those witnesses were subject to cross, and all of the documents were made available to defense.