My understanding is that in order for falsified business records to be a felony (and thus within the statute of limitations), it had to be done to conceal another crime. The crime that prosecutors argued it concealed was an election law violation that makes it a crime to conspire to influence an election by "unlawful means". As for what those unlawful means are, prosecutors gave three options: campaign finance violations, tax violations, or other falsified business records.

My question is, why was the election law violation necessary? Couldn't they have simplified the case by arguing the crime being concealed was one of those three options directly, and left out the whole argument about influencing the election? After all, if Trump was concealing a conspiracy to influence the election through those crimes, wasn't he also concealing those crimes themselves?