At least they got that part right.
Bagster
Posted on 08/24/2018 3:05:17 PM PDT by Ennis85
F YOUR job requires you to spin, some days are harder than others. And if you’re one of Donald Trump’s defenders, some very hard days are on the way. We may be at the beginning of a long and tortuous period for the president, with his former campaign chairman convicted of multiple crimes, his former personal lawyer not only pleading guilty to crimes but also directly implicating Trump, and who knows what else to come in the next few days, weeks and months. So rhetorical defences are already being erected.
Unfortunately for the US president, these arguments range from irrelevant to laughable, which is less because of the skill of those crafting them than because they just don’t have a lot to work with. Let’s run them down:
None of this is about Russia, so who cares?
This argument has at least a grain of truth to it. As Trump said in response to the Manafort verdict, “Doesn’t involve me, but I still feel, you know, it’s a very sad thing that happened. This has nothing to do with Russian collusion.” It’s true that the first of Manafort’s trials focused on tax fraud and bank fraud; his second trial, which begins next month, will begin to get closer to his work on the Trump campaign. But the essence of this argument is that because Manafort committed some crimes not related to Trump, that means Trump is innocent. Which makes no sense whatsoever.
The same thing is being said even about Michael Cohen’s guilty plea, in which the former Trump employee said Trump (inset) directed him to commit crimes. “So all this legal activity strange I see no ‘Russian collusion’ in any breaking news. Odd,” tweeted Trump ally Matt Schlapp of the American Conservative Union. “In the great scheme of things, most people recognise this had nothing to do with Russia, which was the whole point of the Mueller investigation,” said Mike Huckabee.
This crime isn’t even a crime!
Trump put it succinctly on Twitter: “Michael Cohen plead guilty to two counts of campaign finance violations that are not a crime. President Obama had a big campaign finance violation and it was easily settled!”
Actually, you can’t plead guilty to crimes that are not crimes. That’s not how it works. But it sounds good enough, so Fox News’s Gregg Jarrett, author of ‘The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump’, claimed that the payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, which occurred in the run-up to the election, were “not an illegal campaign contribution” because “he’s done it [paid off mistresses] in the past” and Trump didn’t realise he was violating campaign finance laws anyway.
What about all the crimes we didn’t commit?
The fact that the Manafort jury deadlocked on 10 of the 18 counts while convicting him on the eight others is being spun as some kind of victory for Trump. Here’s what the president had to say about it on Wednesday on Twitter: “A large number of counts, ten, could not even be decided in the Paul Manafort case. Witch Hunt!”
Trump’s campaign chairman was just convicted of eight felonies, and that’s supposed to be evidence that the whole thing is a witch hunt.
Everybody does it!
This may be the most creative defence of Trump. “Violation of election laws are regarded as kind of jaywalking,” said Alan Dershowitz on Tucker Carlson’s show Tuesday night. “Every administration violates the election laws. Every candidate violates the election laws.” This would be a curious argument to make in any context, but what’s important to understand is that we’re not talking about some paperwork error that results in a fine paid to the Federal Election Commission.
Cohen says he and Trump conspired to buy the silence of women who had information that could damage Trump’s campaign, spending hundreds of thousands of unreported dollars. The fact that there are other campaign-finance violations that are trivial doesn’t mean that this campaign-finance violation isn’t serious.
This argument is a relative of one Trump has offered to justify the fact that his son, his son-in-law and his campaign chairman attempted to get dirt on Hillary Clinton from people who they had been told were representing the Russian government. “This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics,” Trump said – which is false, as anyone who has been involved in political campaigns will tell you. But it’s a bit rich from someone who said Washington was corrupt and he would drain the swamp: Hey, don’t blame me, we all commit crimes around here.
YOU may look at the arguments Trump and his supporters are making and say, “Do they really think anyone is going to buy that?” But that misses the point. These arguments are not about convincing anyone that Trump is innocent when they might be inclined to think otherwise. In a world where confirmation bias (our tendency to seek out and accept information that reinforces what we already believe) rules everything, your claims don’t really need to be compelling. All that’s really required is that you provide your people with something to say when the subject comes up, a counter they can make to the president’s critics. It doesn’t have to be persuasive or even coherent. It just needs to be something to cling to.
That will be vitally important as the Trump omniscandal continues. The president believes that if he can hold on to his base, he’ll be safe. He just has to keep feeding them.
Defense against what?
The selective outrage is not working. Duh!
Actually, it’s the attacks on Trump that are weak. I just see a bunch of spoiled brats, sore losers, and American radfems wailing like a spoiled three-year-old in the supermarket. F them.
At least they got that part right.
Bagster
Talk about weak arguments. This article fits the description.
So what’s the “ high crime and misdemeanor”.?
Waldman, you dumbass
Well?
Making a declaration in a plea bargain is not how we determine if a crime has been committed.
In your dreams, pauley.
In your dreams.
Legal arguments are frequently constructed EXACTLY that way — they are stacked so you have to successfully go through the entire stack before legal proceedings can commence.
I never believe liars. Period.
I refuse to listen once someone lies to me especially when they will not admit they lied.
The left lies. Period.
Actually, all the charges against him are weak but his accusers don’t care.
20 years ago, Waldman would have been catching spears meant for Rapin Bill Clinton, perjurer and unprosecuted felon.
Watch out for that tree, Waldman...
Washington Post? Are they still in business?
All the attacks of Trump have been weak but liberals don’t care. They had TDS.
To discredit it, WaPo cites the dreaded FoxNews.
Neglecting to mention that liberal Alan Dershowitz from their own Harvard says the same thing.
Typical fake news MO.
I don’t care if Trump was trying to bed Session’s girl friend Lucy the goat, I would vote for him again
There's a rope with this soyboy's name on it somewhere...
Maybe the Washington Post could hire some Russians to start tweeting nonstop that Americans want to see Trump impeached. They seem to believe that Russian tweets are the most important way to mold public opinion in this country.
The idiots at the Compost made all the right points.
They are just to stupid to realize it.
Bottom Line: Donald Trump has committed no crimes. No scandal. There is nothing here.
I am glad you included the barf alert. It was needed. The truth of the matter is, Bill, the Hildebeast John F’ing Kerry, and the Obungler are the evil ones, whose base could less about truth, integrity and character. Screw them.
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