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Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen pleads guilty, admits to making illegal payments at direction...
CNBC "News" ^ | 21 August 2018 | Tucker Higgins | Kevin Breuninger

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 ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cohenpleadsguilty; jamescomey; lisapage; michaelcohen; peterstrzok; robertmueller
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To: forgotten man

Me too. Sounds good so far, despite the media wetting themselves. NPR will be humorous tomorrow morning.


121 posted on 08/21/2018 3:39:02 PM PDT by Jacquerie (ArticleVBlog.com)
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To: Parley Baer

confess or compose


122 posted on 08/21/2018 3:39:07 PM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.tand http://www.house.gov)
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To: Alberta's Child
Mueller surrendered any possibility he had of getting Trump to cooperate with his investigation when Cohen's office was raided

Yes, this is (and has always been) political not legal. It's a very poor political case thanks to Mueller's stupid tactics.

123 posted on 08/21/2018 3:39:39 PM PDT by palmer (...if we do not have strong families and strong values, then we will be weak and we will not survive)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

All is good.

Session’s will come riding in on his white horse in just a little while and make all of this go away.

NOT


124 posted on 08/21/2018 3:39:58 PM PDT by LouisianaJoanof Arc
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To: Chickenhawk Warmonger

It’d be interesting if the FBI had flipped Cohen back when the two women first came forward- not to the public but to their lawyers... and left Cohen in place through the election as insurance.


125 posted on 08/21/2018 3:40:33 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

“If campaign money was not used it was not a campaign finance violation. It was a private contract between two parties”

Why would a Billionaire KNOWINGLY payoff a Golddigger with Campaign funds? It was pocket change He wouldn’t KNOWINGLY! And one of the charges is that Cohen illegally charged Trump restitution by burying it in Legal fees he didn’t perform. What am I missing here?


126 posted on 08/21/2018 3:40:56 PM PDT by DAC21
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

This is all a coordinated attack by the deep swampthe rats and mediapukes to bring Trump down before the midterm elections! The republicans must’ve been kicking ass in the polls for the evil rats to drop all these duds this early on!


127 posted on 08/21/2018 3:41:01 PM PDT by RoseofTexas
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To: Heff

“this could be the lynch pin on Trump”

Trump’s bill payers got a bill from Trump’s lawyer. One of them paid the bill. No possible crime from paying a lawyer’s bill.

Lawyers’ bills have got to get paid.

Stiff your lawyer and you’ll get sued.

The bill might have listed:
100 hours at $300/hour $30,000
payment to claimant SD settle dispute $130,000
postage and photocopying $56.20
government fees $150.00

total $160,206.20

This bill is due and payable upon receipt.


128 posted on 08/21/2018 3:43:31 PM PDT by Brian Griffin
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To: murron
The problem isn't criminal. It's political. It gives the Democrats fodder for impeachment if the Dems win in November.

Yes, they could write articles of impeachment for paying off porn stars. But it would look kind of stupid. They would much rather have a Mueller perjury trap to work with.

129 posted on 08/21/2018 3:44:14 PM PDT by palmer (...if we do not have strong families and strong values, then we will be weak and we will not survive)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

No matter how you slice it, this looks bad. Trump will have to argue that Cohen lied to the court under pressure to get a lesser penalty.


130 posted on 08/21/2018 3:44:37 PM PDT by djpg
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To: mass55th

There a whole lot of things Cohen allegedly pleaded to according to the bullet list at the top of the article.


131 posted on 08/21/2018 3:50:58 PM PDT by Brian Griffin
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To: Brian Griffin
(B) The term ‘‘expenditure’’ does not include— (i) any news story, commentary, or editorial distributed through the facilities of any broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication, unless such facilities are owned or controlled by any political party, political committee, or candidate; https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2015-title52/pdf/USCODE-2015-title52-subtitleIII.pdf

Well, at least they won't be able to pin campaign violations on the Russians' use of social media ...

132 posted on 08/21/2018 3:51:30 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Cohen was not part of the campaign and how would he know where money came from


133 posted on 08/21/2018 3:52:50 PM PDT by butlerweave
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To: Parley Baer

Mark Levin along with a former FEC Chairman make a convincing case that there was no campaign law violations. Levin will be on Hannity tonight making the case. Levin criticized Turley’s analysis calling him uninformed about campaign finance laws.


134 posted on 08/21/2018 3:54:31 PM PDT by kabar
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To: Heff

Quite a trail there to get to a conspiracy to defeat a campaign law. All it requires is the testimony of the convicted felon and scum bag lawyer to make it so. BTW, I thought Trump paid his own money to reimburse the shylock.


135 posted on 08/21/2018 3:54:45 PM PDT by Mouton (The media is the enemy of the people.)
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To: djpg

As bad as destroying 30000 subpoenaed emails and bleachbitting the srever?


136 posted on 08/21/2018 3:55:39 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (<img src="http://i.imgur.com/WukZwJP.gif" width=400><p> zXSEP5Z, xnKL3lW, XywCCJd, hGhstl4.)
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To: gibsonguy

Well, the problem is, the “fact” in that statement is that the payments were made. Nobody seems to dispute that payments were made.

And it also seems clear that the reason for making payments before the election was to “influence” the election. (As other people have said, if Trump bought a new suit to wear to a rally, it could be said that the payment to the tailor was to “influence the election”).

Both women were paid for a service, specifically their silence.

We also know, as a fact, that Cohen received money back from Trump for these payments.

What is not actually a FACT, but rather an OPINION, is that a lawyer paying off someone not to speak is a “campaign contribution”. Cohen SAYS it was as part of a plea deal, but that is not something that the judicial system has determined yet. And a lot of good legal scholars have argued that you’d never get a conviction on that.

But he pled guilty to that because then he didn’t get charged with something a lot worse that he actually DID.

The court accepts the plea, which means the court doesn’t think it is an outrageous claim, but that doesn’t mean the court has determined that paying people is illegal.

Further, it is not a FACT that Cohen was “on the hook” for the payments, as he was a lawyer and doing a client’s bidding, and got reimbursed.

And it is NOT a crime, so far as I can tell, for a lawyer and a client to accept a bill as a way to reimburse, a bill that might indicate work that was not in fact done, unless that is done to HIDE some criminal enterprise. IN this case, the charge is that BECAUSE they did it the other thing became a crime.

And last, as a lawyer, Cohen would bear responsibility if he did something the wrong way and because of that HE violated the law. Trump telling him to pay off the women, and Cohen doing it in an illegal way, rather than getting the money from Trump first, would be his problem, not Trumps.

It is a very clever thing the democrat handling the Cohen case did, getting Cohen to plead guilty to things that were probably NOT criminal, in order to have a story that Trump ordered him to do something criminal.


137 posted on 08/21/2018 3:56:04 PM PDT by CharlesWayneCT
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Cohen was talked into pleading guilty to a non-existent crime. It is not a crime to pay off a person on behalf of a client, and get reimbursed later, and it’s not anything to do with campaign laws.


138 posted on 08/21/2018 3:57:25 PM PDT by Defiant (I may be deplorable, but I'm not getting in that basket.)
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To: Alberta's Child
Mueller surrendered any possibility he had of getting Trump to cooperate with his investigation when Cohen's office was raided

Exactly.

Mule-her went far beyond anything he could actually justify.

If he wants to lie to himself about what his Authoritah actually will do then by all means, make the move.

The President can put them ALL in the dirt.

DECLASSIFY

.

139 posted on 08/21/2018 3:59:05 PM PDT by TLI ( ITINERIS IMPENDEO VALHALLA)
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To: dware

What exactly needs to be done? Please explain.


140 posted on 08/21/2018 4:02:05 PM PDT by slimer (“I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people.)
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