Mueller finds more witches

[civvver]

I still don't understand why the payment is considered a campaign contribution. Because it was Cohen's personal money at the time? I mean he's a lawyer and should know, Trump should have known this was illegal as well, I just as a layman don't understand why it's illegal. So if trump had personally written the check to Stormy Daniels then all of this would be legal?

 

[Gori the Grey]

The key phrase is in his plea is "for purposes of influencing the campaign." You can't make undisclosed payments to benefit a campaign.

So if trump had personally written the check to Stormy Daniels then all of this would be legal?

If he'd disclosed it. That's the thing he didn't want to do, for obvious reasons, and that is illegal.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I still don't understand why the payment is considered a campaign contribution. Because it was Cohen's personal money at the time? I mean he's a lawyer and should know, Trump should have known this was illegal as well, I just as a layman don't understand why it's illegal. So if trump had personally written the check to Stormy Daniels then all of this would be legal?

Gori already hit it, but for emphasis;

Trump should be standing on the "Edwards defense," stating that the payments were made exclusively for the purpose of protecting his family from the scandal and that it had nothing whatever to do with the campaign. As seems typical of Trump's legal advisors they are either totally incompetent or being ignored. By focusing on where the money came from they are spinning their wheels since where the money came from doesn't matter as long as it was spent in pursuit of getting elected. If it was Cohen's money and to be paid back, it was an undisclosed loan and candidate's debts are required to be reported so it was a violation that even the Edwards defense can't excuse. If it was Trump's own money it was undisclosed campaign spending. If it was, as Rudy G says "funneled through the LLC" then even if it was Trump's own money to start with it was made into a 'corporate contribution' by that process.

The only path to making this all legal on all fronts would be if Trump used his own money and the Edwards defense is accepted. That said, with Cohen, who has nothing to gain at all by torpedoing the Edwards defense, saying that the purpose was to prevent the women's charges from influencing the election selling the Edwards defense would be very hard to pull off. On top of that, it seems beyond extremely likely that among the evidence gathered in the Cohen prosecution there is an ample paper trail regarding the source and path of the money, and that that trail cannot be fitted to the Edwards defense.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Trump should be standing on the "Edwards defense," stating that the payments were made exclusively for the purpose of protecting his family from the scandal and that it had nothing whatever to do with the campaign.

He'll probably find his way to that eventually. He seems to have to use defenses that further incriminate him before he settles on strong ones, e.g. I fired Comey for Russia; I can fire the FBI director for no reason at all.

One guy I read thinks Trump gives these bad defenses because his most underlying belief is that the law shouldn't apply to him. He wants to be seen to be doing things with corrupt intent and yet getting away with them.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

He'll probably find his way to that eventually. He seems to have to use defenses that further incriminate him before he settles on strong ones, e.g. I fired Comey for Russia; I can fire the FBI director for no reason at all.

One guy I read thinks Trump gives these bad defenses because his most underlying belief is that the law shouldn't apply to him. He wants to be seen to be doing things with corrupt intent and yet getting away with them.

Yeah, I think there is a certain amount of "enhanced thrill" at play there. I also think that Trump considers a favorable hack columnist like Hannity or a writer at Breitbart to be just as qualified as his own legal team. Usually they beat him to the crazier defenses that he spouts, and I think he sees them and seizes on them, and then it takes time for a qualified person to get his attention and disassemble them sufficiently for him to understand.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

In fact, the fact that Manafort was only convicted on less than half of everything he was charged with should call this whole investigation into question because it shows they are trying to nail people for things they didn't do.

No it doesn't show anything like that - it shows that the Government failed to prove those charges beyond a reasonable doubt. Note he was not acquitted and can still be retried, note also that most of these were conspiracy charges for things where he was convicted of the underlying crime.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Yeah, I think there is a certain amount of "enhanced thrill" at play there. I also think that Trump considers a favorable hack columnist like Hannity or a writer at Breitbart to be just as qualified as his own legal team. Usually they beat him to the crazier defenses that he spouts, and I think he sees them and seizes on them, and then it takes time for a qualified person to get his attention and disassemble them sufficiently for him to understand.

Yeah, that's probably in the mix, too.

But when I was paraphrasing this other guy's argument, it wasn't just a "thrill" Trump was seeking, but to establish that he's above the law by openly flouting it.

 

[rah]

and then it takes time for a qualified person to get his attention and disassemble them sufficiently for him to understand.

You mean like Giuliani.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You mean like Giuliani.

Well, no. Rudy G's days as an actual lawyer are waaaaaaay behind him. I think he is just as likely to grasp onto the straw defenses offered by Hannity, et al, as Trump himself is, and might take even longer to follow the disassembly when someone gets around to presenting it.

On a hilarious note, all of a sudden the Trump team has stumbled upon what I'm calling the "Amplified Edwards" defense. They are now spouting "Trump has paid hush money to many people on many occasions over the years, so there is no reason to think that these particular payoffs were campaign related rather than just his normal behavior."

 

[Dachs]

Despite what I think is probable in the case of Assclown specifically - this is deeply disturbing as laid out. Law enforcement securing a guilty plea that incriminates another individual is not conviction-warranting evidence. Massive hives. I mean, it's the era of anonymous reporting in higher education, maybe society has gone that way. But yipe.

"In higher education"?

Anyway, pleas are normal, the statement was made under oath, and it's not the only piece of evidence against Trump but rather the most blatantly incriminating piece.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Anyway, pleas are normal, the statement was made under oath, and it's not the only piece of evidence against Trump but rather the most blatantly incriminating piece.

That is an unwarranted assumption. When taking a plea the defendant, under oath, doesn't get to just randomly spew whatever crosses their mind. The prosecution and the judge are responsible, in accepting the plea, for verifying that the defendant is being truthful. In regards to that, and given that Cohen plead out in the first place, there has got to be a good bit of evidence supporting his plea...and I'd say that it is very likely that some of it is even more blatantly incriminating.

Cohen's lawyer released a tape to the press of Trump and Cohen discussing the logistics of making the payoffs. The feds seized Cohen's papers, and since this was apparently a crime there is no client privilege applying to conversations in which Cohen and Trump conspired to commit it. The reality here is almost certainly that Cohen didn't get a cooperation agreement because the prosecution already has so much blatantly incriminating evidence against Trump that his testimony would be totally superfluous.

 

[Dachs]

That is an unwarranted assumption. When taking a plea the defendant, under oath, doesn't get to just randomly spew whatever crosses their mind. The prosecution and the judge are responsible, in accepting the plea, for verifying that the defendant is being truthful. In regards to that, and given that Cohen plead out in the first place, there has got to be a good bit of evidence supporting his plea...and I'd say that it is very likely that some of it is even more blatantly incriminating.

Cohen's lawyer released a tape to the press of Trump and Cohen discussing the logistics of making the payoffs. The feds seized Cohen's papers, and since this was apparently a crime there is no client privilege applying to conversations in which Cohen and Trump conspired to commit it. The reality here is almost certainly that Cohen didn't get a cooperation agreement because the prosecution already has so much blatantly incriminating evidence against Trump that his testimony would be totally superfluous.

So...we agree?

I'm confused, because I don't know what my "unwarranted assumption" is. Cohen's statement is the most blatantly incriminating piece of evidence that we, as the public, have. Neither the statement nor the other evidence that we have presumably compares to the mountain of evidence that Mueller presumably has, but I wasn't talking about that.

 

[civvver]

No it doesn't show anything like that - it shows that the Government failed to prove those charges beyond a reasonable doubt. Note he was not acquitted and can still be retried, note also that most of these were conspiracy charges for things where he was convicted of the underlying crime.

I don't think it has any relevance to trump since none of the charges are trump related. Clearly they want him to flip on trump but the question is flip on what? What do you think manafort's testimony can prove?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

So...we agree?

I'm confused, because I don't know what my "unwarranted assumption" is. Cohen's statement is the most blatantly incriminating piece of evidence that we, as the public, have. Neither the statement nor the other evidence that we have presumably compares to the mountain of evidence that Mueller presumably has, but I wasn't talking about that.

Sorry. That was poorly done on my part.

Yes, that is the most blatantly incriminating piece that has been made public. I just strongly doubt that it is the most blatantly incriminating overall.

 

[Synobun]

I don't think it has any relevance to trump since none of the charges are trump related. Clearly they want him to flip on trump but the question is flip on what? What do you think manafort's testimony can prove?

Amazing what people can convince themselves of.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I don't think it has any relevance to trump since none of the charges are trump related. Clearly they want him to flip on trump but the question is flip on what? What do you think manafort's testimony can prove?

That Trump knowingly accepted Manafort's help with the convention in exchange for allowing him to draft a more Russia favorable GOP platform at the behest of Manafort's actual employers.

 

[Farm Boy]

"In higher education"?

Anyway, pleas are normal, the statement was made under oath, and it's not the only piece of evidence against Trump but rather the most blatantly incriminating piece.

Well, I listen to much of my news on the radio on a station owned by a University, so I tend to get stories related that way. I'm more talking about sub-criminal findings and accusations in that context, still possibly and intentionally life derailing/ruining, now lauded as progressive if they're anonymous. It gives me hives in general even as I want to be warily optimistic, I'm just not finding it. I've read too many old travesties about that sort of thing to be much excited about it.

I agree it's probably not the only piece of evidence, but it's the one we're working off at this moment, I think? The sentence as worded just gave me the willies. I know what you mean mean.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I agree it's probably not the only piece of evidence, but it's the one we're working off at this moment, I think? The sentence as worded just gave me the willies. I know what you mean mean.

I think the piece of evidence we are working off of at the moment is that Cohen plead guilty in the first place, rather than what he specifically said while doing so. That indisputable fact puts the lie to Trump's statement today, in which he claims that since it was his money* not campaign money it wasn't a campaign finance violation. No matter what he might have said in the process or how crappy a lawyer he is, Michael Cohen did not plead guilty to a crime that really never happened. Trump's problem is that once Cohen plead guilty, even if he didn't say so, we are left with the choice to believe that Cohen stole Trump's money to make a payoff without telling him, then accepted punishment for campaign finance fraud that really never happened, or to believe that Cohen committed this campaign finance fraud for his own twisted purposes, or as seems really freakin' obvious, Cohen conspired in the campaign finance violation he has plead guilty to committing with the candidate who benefited from it.


*the 'his money' part is dubious at best, since he also claims he knew nothing about the payment until long after it was made

 

[Lexicus]

Amazing what people can convince themselves of.

Manafort's case is only tangentially related to Trump: that much is true.

 

[Synobun]

Manafort's case is only tangentially related to Trump: that much is true.

Except not really. If Manafort was just some rando there would be no hullabaloo about any of this. It is extremely relevant that everyone surrounding Trump is dropping like a row of dominoes. Especially when he hires only the best people.