My understanding is that there was a time window in 2017 after he was in office that he could have paid Cohen back, declared it as a contribution to his own campaign, and it all would have been legal. And it would have cost him 180k rather than the 420 he paid.
Once the jurisdiction is set (where the crime was largely committed) it’s a random selection, in this case between 3 judges.
What I find ironic is that while this goes on, civil suits (such as the Mifepristone one) use extreme judge shopping to get what they want, and they get it while the appeals drag on. We need a more balanced set of rules around jurisdiction and stays during appeals.
It just came out today that RFK Jr had a couple of previously unknown medical problems about 10 years ago, including memory loss due to mercury poisoning, and a brain “tumor” that turned out to be a dead parasitic worm. I’ll avoid hyperbolic comment on that last one.
I did read up on the charges against this accounting firm. It turns out that the charges are not related to Truth Social, which only hired them less than a month ago.
Hey, a new use for his sharpie!