Posted on 08/21/2018 2:06:48 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
FULL TITLE: Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen pleads guilty, admits to making illegal payments at direction of candidate to influence election
Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer and fixer for President Donald Trump, has struck a plea deal with federal prosecutors, NBC News reported on Tuesday.
Cohen came under investigation by federal prosecutors in New York City earlier this year. They had received a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Prosecutors had been eyeing Cohen's business dealings. The New York Times reported that federal authorities were looking into $20 million in loans for taxi businesses linked to Cohen.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Stormy Daniels sues Trump, says 'hush agreement' invalid because he never signed
There's no way Trump signed anything related to any money paid.
Apparently nondisclosure agreements are no longer binding based on what we have seen in the past two years in the Witchhunt against Trump.
So are yard signs, political ads, campaign rallies, buttons, hats, etc.
All the facts were known to Mueller months ago.
Why all the delay?
Cohen could have been arrested if there was a valid legal case months ago.
How did Cohen get his hands on Trump campaign funds anyway ?
“If they somehow succeed in removing President Trump because a woman extorted money from him then it’s scorched earth time for Washington DC.”
Tell us how. Vote for our one little congressional office and senate office and governor office and state senator office? One at a time? One state at a time? That will show them.
The ballot box will no longer be a viable option.
The bullet box will be the next option, whether you choose to participate or not.
Apparently this throws Attorney Client privilege out the window.
Hopefully, the Supreme Court throws out federal campaign finance law in its entirety as being in violation of Amendment I.
Trump is MAGA. I would complain about the wall, but Trump is up against Congress on that. Hillary is not in the top ten for importance.
I am listening to Levin now. Private money was used, not campaign money. No crime.
This is the delay: The Cohen stuff (taxi and tax fraud) was being investigated by SDNY, not dredged up by Muleass. Muleass was given the Stormy et al stuff but had really no place to put it under the “russian dome”. So, he “referred” the Stormy matter to SDNY knowing it would come back when they got Cohen to break. So, forced into a corner, he cuts a deal to probably stay out of a huge prison sentence and pleas to a made up campaign violation involving Trump as the director. Trump is not going to be prosecuted, no, this will be one of the impeachment matters he eventually sends on to the house. All nice a legal. I hope he rots in hell.
BTW, lets not over looks Cohen putting the strong arm on a few companies like ATT. IMO his conduct there was virtually extortion. So, you have a slimy extortionist probably lying to stay out of the joint. Correction to my earlier statement, I hope they both rot in hell.
One of the impeachable offenses is bribery. If the Democrats regain the House in the 2018 election, maybe they will make bribery (hush money paid to Stormy Daniels or the other woman) one of the articles of impeachment.
First that would have triggered impeachment the next day. That would chew up the House and Senate for months when we need other things done.
Second, there's a persistent myth that someone else besides Sessions would have stopped the coup. That's ridiculous, no such person exists. The coup will simply have to run out of gas, sputter and die politically. That's been baked into the cake from day one: political with no criminal action to justify it. So it will have to die from lack of political support (other than the minority of Trump haters who will always support any fantasy).
Note that the FEC has been 100% mum.
They don’t want to see their six-months work every two years with 24 months of pay jobs disappear.
“Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), is a landmark U.S. constitutional law, campaign finance, and corporate law case dealing with regulation of political campaign spending by organizations. The United States Supreme Court held (5–4) on January 21, 2010, that the free speech clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for communications by nonprofit corporations, for-profit corporations, labor unions, and other associations.”
“The majority ruled that the Freedom of the Press clause of the First Amendment protects associations of individuals in addition to individual speakers, and further that the First Amendment does not allow prohibitions of speech based on the identity of the speaker.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC
What about when the Democrats connected a wacko in Waco to CBS to air some forged National Guard documents to influence an election? Who went to prison?
What about when a Democrat connected the uncle of one of the perps from Abu ghraib to the media to leak photos of the perp’s crimes because he was unable to extort or blackmail a plea bargain deal? The goal was to take down bush in the 2004 election but all it did was get Nick’s Berg’s head cut off and wrapped up the terrorists believe that they were in the right
Paying someone to not “sell” their story to a media outlet is not illegal. But how you secure the funds, etc... lying on loan application, then lying on setting up an LLC to pass the money, then using campaign funds to reimburse, then conspiring to cover up the money trail is “conspiracy” and a federal crime..... this could be the lynch pin on Trump. Mueller is no dummy. He’s a scumbag, but no dummy.
“If campaign money was not used it was not a campaign finance violation. It was a private contract between two parties.”
They are going to have a hard time proving that campaign money was used.
Convicted by the House, the Senate just refused to apply the remedy.
Not necessary. The classified redactions are slowly leaking out and those are Mifsud, Halper, etc. Trump can much more effectively tweet about those FBI / foreign "ally" informants that were sent into his campaign to perform sting oeprations.
It is complex enough in the beginning that a big dump of revelations will be confusing. Best to go slow, and thre's still plenty of time before November and beyond that since there's a good chance the House flips and will need a little prodding.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.