Posted on 12/13/2018 1:53:50 PM PST by libstripper
Democrats and media commentators are noting that many Republicans are "shrugging off" the fact that Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to felony campaign finance violations which prosecutors say President Trump directed him to commit. The president, they say, is "implicated in two felonies." How could GOP lawmakers shrug that off?
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In that spirit, with the Cohen case, some of the best conservative thinkers on campaign finance are arguing that Cohen's offense, to which he has pleaded guilty, wasn't really an offense at all. And it certainly wasn't an offense for which President Trump could be prosecuted.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Releasing these filings is to slander Trump and mwke his poll numbers low. I predict nothing will ever be released with Trump’s name mentioned.
We’ll never know who #1 is. There may not even be a #1. Or it is someone else and they want everyone to THINK it’s Trump. Congress should question Mueller under oath “Is #1 Trump?
As our old nemesis, Rahm Emanuel said the goal is to ‘separate Trump from his supporters.’ (That and ‘never let a crisis go to waste’)
ummmm...mebbe because he heinousness Felonious von Pantsuit has skated for 30 years or so on far worse?!!
We shrug it off because that’s what the left does.
If the law doesn’t apply to HRC, Antifa. Obama, or Mueller, then it doesn’t apply to Trump either.
Because we know this is just more lawfare.
they expected us to get bent out of shape over a lawyer going to jail?
What is the reason for campaign limits & regulations? it’s the liberal belief that money is feces or porno...something dirty....hard & soft. The belief is that campaign contributions are like a bribe, that if rich individuals are allowed to give anything they want to a candidate, then they corrupt & buy the candidate.....they buy favors, vetoes, legislation.....contracts, etc. But nobody could ever suggest that Michael Flynn paid Stormy Daniels to buy Trump or that his so-called fake news “in-kind” campaign contribution corrupted Trump or that Cohen sought favors from Trump as president. The Mueller memo said that Cohen influenced the election, which is a speculative claim & its not illegal for an individual to influence an election. We have freedom of speech, freedom of the press & freedom of contract & association. Somehow, the Mueller team has argued that American influence on the election is the same as Russian influence & that Cohen giving money to Stormy Daniels is just the same as Cohen giving money to President Trump, ie the Mueller team is lying and breaking the law. Independent expenditures are legal. There’s a billboard in Phoenix, Az for 2 years displayed prominently which shows President Trump surrounded by swastikas and mushroom clouds, but nobody calls the billboard a campaign contribution to Hillary or the DNC because it might influence voters who see it.
Politicians seek newspaper endorsements & they seek endorsements from business groups, medical associations, teachers unions, etc.....because these endorsements are valuable & influential, but just because something is valuable & infuentual does NOT make it an “in-kind” campaign contribution & National Enquirer is free to buy and sell the rights to any story they want & have a Constitutional right to print or not print any story they want, whether they believe it or not. Remember that BOTH females who the DOJ is using to accuse president Trump & his people got paid by Trump in 2006 & signed confidentiality agreements back then....& both sought to tell their stories for money or get paid more to not tell them. Freedom of the press is a fundamental right & DOJ prosecutors don’t have a legal right to question editorial decisions. A photograph of Obama with Louis Farrakhan was suppressed, while Obama made a point of charming Jews into believing he was one of them, wanting to “repair the world”. Nobody went to prison over not publishing that photo. It doesn’t matter whether one paid for the rights to it...
What was the “thing of value” that made items an in kind campaign contribution? The thing of value was Stormy Daniels SILENCE. SILENCE is being called a thing, a commodity, even though Cohen gave money to Daniels, not to Trump. Something is “In-KIND” because it is the same as giving money....but Cohen didn’t give money or something like money ( a car or a plane or a new wardrobe to campaign with, for example) to Trump....he gave money to Stormy Daniels......who sold her silence because she wanted money more.....but then she broke her silence after the election, so Cohen did NOT really pay for her silence and how did he take ownership/possession of Daniels’ silence & transfer it to Trump as an in-kind contribution? It could be argued that Daniels never lost possession of her voice or silence, but conned Cohen into paying for a bluff. Who knows for sure if she would have talked or not? and if Cohen bought Daniels silence & Daniels offered her silence up for sale, that does not make it a campaign contribution, even if prosecutors want it to be.....because Cohen owned what he bought......so did he really give Daniels silence to Trump or did he buy it to hold onto for himself? Suppose Cohen bought the last bottle of booze so Trump couldn’t get it & be drunk on the campaign trail? Would that be an in-kind campaign contribution to Trump? Guilliani made the mistake of having Trump pay back Cohen the amount that Cohen gave Daniels as if Cohen had given that money to Trump and Trump gave it back. One can understand Gulliani’s reasoning, but still it was a mistake> He figured that since Trump was being accused of taking an illegal campaign contribution, then he’d pay it back. But Trump never received any money or in-kind from Cohen.....and Trump couldn’t give back Stormy Daniels’ silence after she spoke.....so doesn’t that say something about whether or not he really received amything of value that could be called an in-kind campaign contribution? Listening to Eddie Munster Napolitano on Fox who claims to be Libertarian but always sides with prosecutors and never sides with liberty and real freedom is distressing. (It reminds one about how another federal prosecutor under Bill Clinton was able to take down Arizona governor Fife Symington,.....whose name was Janet Napolitano....who used her found fame to become Arizona state AG, then get elected governor.....who believed in law and order.....but really was just a partisan who conned her way to governorship, then bailed out just as her economy was collapsing to sail with the Obama administration.same name, no relation)
Fact is, it was Stormy Daniels who gave her silence to President Trump......and was that silence bought in 2006 or in 2016. and if silence was the “thing of value” then it still does not make it an in-kind campaign contribution. Cohen gave money to Daniels, then Daniels was silent about her affair with Trump....but Trump received NOTHING tangible that he could have accepted or rejected. It cannot be ANY kind of campaign contribution if you can’t consent either to take it or not take it and do not use it for your campaign, even if it has influence or not influence on voters (silence). How could Trump give back money to Cohen that he never received from Cohen, nor did he receive anything else tangible that he could take or return? This is all lawyer BS. If Mueller was honest, then he would have to accuse Stormy Daniels of taking Cohen’s money then LAUNDERING Cohen’s campaign contribution to Trump by converting it to silence....which doesn’t draw attention to itself & is intangible and invisible. Because there was a price tag, prosecutors think they can claim Trump received a certain amount of money from Cohen, but how did he receive the money and how could he reject or accept the contribution when he received it? Is Trump supposed to run to Stormy Daniels and tell her to speak out and break her 2006 confidentiality agreement, because apparently that is the only way Trump could get out of this accusation according to the fake news and Mueller! But that fact is that it was Daniels who gave the thing of value to Trump if in fact you can claim that her silence was an in kind campaign contribution to Trump, so you have to arrest Stormy Daniels for making an in-kind campaign contribution to Trump.......laundered to Trump through Daniels from money given to her by Cohen.....but the fact is.....Trump did not really receive anything he could have said “no” to. He did receive anything he could have returned, which is why it was silly for Rudy G to try to return it and fall into the rabbit hole.
Huh?
I’m supposed to get excited over a lying little crybaby lawyer b*tch who will say anything Mueller tells him he wants to hear? I don’t think so. I can’t believe that with all the money Mueller spent trying to get Cohen’s ass, he only got three years. The taxpayers got ripped off.
McCain-Feingold passed muster with SCOTUS by a 5-4 vote. Most of the justices of SCOTUS have turned over since then, and we have travesties like the present case on the record to illustrate just how bad CFR is. CFR violations by Democrats are no big deal, CFR “violations” by a Republican are "an impeachable offense.”CFR was favored by journalism, for the sake of journalism - intended to cement “the media” as the Establishment in America.
Cohen was found to be lying - so, are you lying now or then?
In fact, Cohen lied under oath. As far as I know Trump hasn’t. What politician wouldn’t try to hide something that might hurt the campaign?
Cohen gave an interview to ABC if you can believe it. What the hell is he doing immediately doing giving an interview? Because his master Lurch Mueller ordered him to solely to make Trump look criminal. The guy is a total wet noodle
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