Posted on 12/12/2018 2:13:43 PM PST by Kaslin
Federal lawyers prosecuting Michael Cohen in the Southern District of New York have dropped a bombshell in a memorandum they filed with the court this past Friday — accusing President Trump of campaign finance crimes.
Cohen was Donald Trump’s personal lawyer. During Trump’s campaign, Cohen paid off two women to remain quiet about disgraceful stories of Donald Trump. Cohen acted to silence the two women by buying rights to their stories on behalf of his client, Cohen explained during his guilty plea. The purpose of the hush-buys, according to prosecutors referencing Cohen’s statements, was “to prevent the story from influencing the election.” The money for these hush-buys came from Trump’s corporation. Federal prosecutors titled this activity “Illegal Campaign Contributions.”
Was this activity, in fact, illegal? Were these hush-buys a type of campaign contribution?
Expert campaign finance law attorney Dan Backer, who beat the federal government in a landmark Supreme Court case, is not impressed with the DOJ’s assertions of illegality. First of all, he explains, there is no evidence to corroborate this assertion.
Michael Cohen asserts that the purpose of the expenditure was “to prevent the story from influencing the election.” But Donald Trump has done this for years, having paid off individuals to stay quiet about potentially damaging stories throughout his career. "Trump" is a brand, after all. To protect the reputation of the brand, Trump participated in hush-buys before the election and likely will continue to do so after he completes his term. He’s not the only brand to do so.
Many companies and individuals concerned with their reputations engage in such business dealings to protect their name, their brand, their image. Small businesses across America will provide complete refunds to dissatisfied customers, for example, to prevent bad reviews, sometimes offering additional money on top of a refund in exchange for a customer agreeing to remove a bad review.
Is such activity a campaign contribution? No, Backer answers, “brand protection is not a campaign contribution.” The hush-buys were done to protect Trump as a corporate brand, not to protect him as a candidate. No evidence was presented by the federal prosecutors explaining how a lawful business deal was converted into an illegal campaign finance contribution. "The notion that every penny a candidate personally or professionally spends is somehow reportable to the FEC is utter nonsense." Backer further explains that a campaign finance crime is "not a question of speculation, it’s a matter of proof, and there isn’t any [in this case]."
Moreover, Backer is suspicious of Cohen’s intentions. Cohen is a “disgraced turncoat lawyer who violated the most sacred precept of an attorney,” Backer exclaimed. He is referencing Cohen violating the quintessential trust that an attorney promises to his client upon accepting payment for services, the attorney-client privilege, to protect his own interests while simultaneously throwing his client under the bus. “What kind of a lawyer would tape a client,” Trump famously once asked.
“Nothing new was presented in Cohen's sentencing memorandum, no new facts. Everything Cohen stated we knew months ago when Cohen plead guilty to save himself,” Backer stated. The only new assertion is a statement of intent that Cohen added after he plead guilty and was under an agreement with the prosecutor to cooperate.
Can the statement be true? Can we trust Cohen?
Well, the remainder of the sentencing memorandum accuses Cohen of lying, evasion, and fabrication. Cohen’s public treatment of Trump was a violation of his client’s confidentiality and trust. So what possible basis do we, as the public, have in trusting this man? Why would we believe him now, when his only motivation is to reduce the duration of his prison sentence?
After all, cooperation with the government and providing salient information to the government results in a recommendation for a reduced sentence, as we have seen in Michael Flynn’s case. In the sentencing memo for Flynn, Robert Mueller wrote that Flynn’s cooperation was “substantial,” and asked for “a sentence at the low end of the guideline range—including a sentence that does not impose a term of incarceration,” arguing on behalf of Flynn that such a break is “appropriate and warranted.” Certainly, Cohen was primarily motivated by hopes for the same type of leniency.
Cohen is a traitor to his client. Cohen was successfully prosecuted for tax evasion and lying to Congress. Any statements he makes on a wing and a prayer for a shorter prison stay is inherently untrustworthy. Backer agrees, “Cohen is just trying to save his own skin.”
DOJ prosecutors have wrongfully accused President Trump of campaign finance crimes.
Just because sleazy, Taxi lawyer Cohen pled [under obvious duress] to a crime, doesn’t mean it is actually a crime nor that Cohen is guilty of same.
Good thing Weasel Mueller has absolute immunity from his crimes as a political persecutor.
There is an Easy Fix!!
President Trump needs to Formally and Publicly ORDER the AG to immediately goto the Grand Jury and get FELONY Indictments for every Member of Congress that has accessed the Congressional Rape and Run Slush Fund.
The Democrat resistance gets stronger ans bolder. Keep your powder dry.
Backer’s claim and assertions certainly make sense to me.
Now I’m waiting for CNN,MSNBC,ETC to invite Mr. Backer onto their programs to explain this to the public {crickets}.
Oh, how I wish!
I am thinking Meowller needs to get arkincided.
Isn’t it unethical for prosecutors to effectively accuse an identifiable 3rd party of a crime in a pleading to which the 3rd party has not opportunity to respond or be heard?
“Congressional Rape and Run Slush Fund”
Is this a legally created fund, and is it legal for a congressman to get money from it, and does the congressman have to give in writing his reason for requesting the money?
President Trump should appoint a Special Prosecutor to explore and expose all the congress-losers who sexually assaulted people and, then, used a secret fund to pay off the victims using taxpayer money. Criminals! Frauds! Sexual criminals! Name them!!!
The Cohen guilty plea for campaign finance violations is clear evidence that the entire Mueller investigation is a political operation designed to overthrow the result of the 2016 election. This effort was conceived by the Democrat Party and their allies the Deep State federal establishment, and has been pursued as an organized criminal enterprise.
Trump used his own money and conducted a legal transaction. No crime occurred by either Trump or Cohen. Cohen pled guilty to a crime that did not exist and did so for favorable considerations by the Special Counsel. He got that from the SC, but the DOJ Southern District of NY would play ball.
The article missed one important fact. Candidate Trump contributed MILLIONS of his OWN money to the campaign. He was therefore using his OWN MONEY to may the payments.
http://fortune.com/2016/12/09/donald-trump-campaign-spending/
What Trump did as a private citizen is none of my concern. He wasn’t on my payroll then.
They're just showing us that voting in an election is a waste of time.
"Voting by other means" will have to be employed, or you're going to a Lefty gulag.
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family?
Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?...
The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...
We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation....
"We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
Yes he did, and with that he even used less money than Hillary Rotten Clinton did. Which showed that he was a lot smarter then she.
At the very least.
Am I wrong or did President Trump fund his own campaign? If I am correct, then all money spent was his, not campaign donations.
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