Posted on 08/21/2018 8:24:53 PM PDT by Mariner
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trumps former personal lawyer Michael Cohen testified on Tuesday that Trump had directed him to commit a crime by arranging payments ahead of the 2016 presidential election to silence two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump.
Cohen, 51, made the statements as he pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges in federal court in Manhattan, including tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations.
Cohen did not name Trump in court, but his lawyer, Lanny Davis, said afterward that he was referring to the president.
Today he (Cohen) stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election, Davis said in a statement.
If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldnt they be a crime for Donald Trump? Davis said.
The two payments were intended to silence two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump and were made prior to the 2016 presidential election. One was for $130,000 given to adult-film star Stormy Daniels. The other for $150,000 related to former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Decades-old stories were being hawked on the open market in violation of pre-existing contracts. Purchasing the product from solicited publishers who didn't want to be part of an NDA violation could be normal course of business to protect an NDA prior to suing for violation, with the product as evidence.
In spite of the wording of the released statement, the Mueller team has provided no proof that the contract-violating publication of any he-said, she-said stories in real time would have influenced the election any more than Hillary's Russian puppet screeds or the 'scorned women' parade. The Deplorables were already immune to bunnyboilers. We accepted Trump, playboy past and all. And the Never Trumpers were already cast in concrete. Who did Mueller think was supposed to be influenced?
Cohen threw this in with the more serious charges he was facing, to make the prosecutors happy. Cohen’s confession does not determine Trump’s guilt or innocence. It’s obviously not so clear the payments were campaign contributions.
Trump told him to evade taxes and commit bank fraud?
The allegation is that Trump reimbursed Cohen from corporate funds (not personal funds) that were then reimbursed with funds from Trump’s campaign money.
Why would a billionaire need to reimburse him from money embezzled from his own company?
It wasn’t a crime. Lanny Davis is a crap lawyer
Cohen is a fool
What next, Lanny Davis hire Sid Blumenthal ?
“If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldnt they be a crime for Donald Trump?” Davis said.
What is the crime? Name it.
“tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations”
Davis is claiming because Trump’s former attorney admitted to these things (under duress) that Trump is guilty of them. That’s nuts.
That’s like saying your boss told you to go make a bank withdrawal and you decided to rob the bank, and therefore your boss actually robbed a bank. Insanity.
They’re attempting to obfuscate and create a crime out of thin air using smoke and mirrors. Not gonna fly.
It is becoming very clear that the aspiring tyrants running most of the major institutions of our nation will not relent and will only be stopped with thousands of heads on pikes.
More and more people are becoming aware that the cabal has engaged in the most horrific forms of human behavior which are unthinkable to the average, everyday citizen. They’ve engaged in things even worse than the child abuse being uncovered now among a group of Catholic clergy. The the Deep State cabal is running an ongoing criminal enterprise of every form of vice imaginable. And this includes trafficking in children for rape, torture, and murder.
It is time for all honest and honorable people to band together, expose this corruption, and wipe these demons from the face of the earth.
.
>> “Cohen is a fool” <<
Removed all doubt!
.
“Its obviously not so clear the payments were campaign contributions.”
And Cohen is not authoritative as to whether the payments were in any way related to the run for POTUS.
Trump would likely have made them regardless.
They are putting words in Cohen’s and Trump’s mouths.
” that were then reimbursed with funds from Trumps campaign money”
I’ve not heard that allegation anywhere else.
“If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldnt they be a crime for Donald Trump? Davis said.”
I thought Lanny Davis was an attorney. He should know the answer. Trump’s defense is “good faith reliance on councel.”
“Cohen threw this in with the more serious charges he was facing, to make the prosecutors happy.”
Bingo.
Nothing to see here. Lanny Davis wants to grab 5 minutes of media attention with that BS statement.
Paying women not to influence the election is a crime? LMAO
I can see that. All of these NY prosecutors are libs/deep state lackeys that would nothing than to stick it to Trump and with a Clinton lawyer (Lanny Davis) in on it (thats the disheartening thing, wherever you go in this world, the Clintons have tentacles somewhere somehow) its a plus-plus for all parties. They want to influence the mid terms; they want to influence the special counsel report in hopes that Dems take the House; they want to influence the news cycle where itll be day and night more bashing and hope this drives down Trumps poll numbers....etc
Except for the actual criminals who are getting fatter, dumber, and richer.
They are assuming/hoping/manufacturing the fact that the money came from a campaign account, and not a personal account, and THAT would make it improper... but in an actual legal system, there would need to be proof that it came from a campaign account, AND that the President specified to Cohen that the money come from the campaign account (usually requiring something more than he-said-she-said), in order to meet the requirements for the illegal use of campaign funds.
The Left is getting waaaaay ahead of itself, as usual... and hoping that nobody notices that the details matter. The drones of course, do not care one bit... they have something else to scream at the clouds about, so they're happy.
Where is the Russian collusion?
I wouldnt say Lanny is an associate of the Clintons. More like ass kissing toady.
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