Would this count?
Legislation | NY State Senate (nysenate.gov)
is in that Washington post.
Here's the text of the law:
>>>§ 175.10 Falsifying business records in the first degree.
A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree
when he commits the crime of falsifying business records in the second
degree, and when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit
another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.<<<
The statute of limitations on second degree falsifying (a misdemeanor) has run so the prosecutor will need to show falsifying and "his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof."
The indictment repeats the wording of the statute without specifying the second crime.
There are two prime candidates for the second crime: 1) violation of state election laws, or 2) violation of federal election laws.
Simplifying for purposes of discussion, the arguments against these two possibilities are: 1) he was running for federal office which is not governed by state election laws, and 2) a state criminal action cannot be based on a violation of federal law because a state court has no power to decide a federal legal question.
I'm not saying these arguments will necessarily be successful, but the outcome is not clear.
This NYT article has a pretty decent discussion of the legal issues:
>>>For starters, it is unclear whether [Bragg] would cite a federal or state election law violation, or even both. And with either choice, there could be pitfalls.
If his office uses a federal election violation as the second crime, Mr. Trump’s lawyers could argue that federal law has no place in state court. And if he uses a New York election law violation, the defense could claim that a violation of state law does not apply to a federal election — in this case, the 2016 presidential campaign.
“Generally, someone can’t be prosecuted for violating a contribution limit in a federal election in a state court,” said Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who specializes in election law. . . .
Against that backdrop, Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors appear to have taken a more favorable view of using a state election law violation, according to people with knowledge of their thinking. The laws governing elections in New York are unusual in that they explicitly apply to federal elections, not just state elections. And New York state prosecutors have secured at least one conviction in a case in which
they combined falsifying business records charges with state election law crimes, though that case involved a state election, not a federal one. . . .
Any state election law that the district attorney might pair with the falsifying business records charge may have to make it through a gantlet: Federal campaign finance law explicitly states that it overrides — pre-empts, in legal terminology — state election law when it comes to campaign donation limits. . . .
But there are exceptions to federal pre-emption contained in regulations from the Federal Election Commission, known as the F.E.C. And it is possible that the other law, 17-152, which makes it illegal to conspire to promote the election of any candidate “by unlawful means,” may be able to avoid triggering federal pre-emption. That law does not deal explicitly with contribution limits.
In short, it may be the strongest option for Mr. Bragg.
“It appears that this provision, which prohibits unlawfully promoting an election, could fit into one of the F.E.C. exceptions,” said Jerry H. Goldfeder, a special counsel at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP and a recognized expert in New York state election law.<<<
To try to convict the former president of a felony, prosecutors might attempt to connect state election law to a federal election.
www.nytimes.com
In other words, Bragg will probably need to show that the falsification was done with the intent to violate a specific state election law, and that this specific state election law is not preempted by federal law.
