Posted on 08/22/2018 9:48:25 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Let’s stipulate that there are competing choruses taking to the risers. One will sing loudly that every rotten thing critics have been spouting about President Trump must be true now that Paul Manafort is a convicted felon and Michael Cohen has struck a plea deal.
On the other stage, Trump supporters will spin that the fall of two shady characters is no great stain on the president, and that in fact this is another occasion containing no evidence of Russian election collusion.
So, on the first full day of digesting an explosive day of court action, what are the ramifications for Trump, legally and politically?
The simple answer first: the Manafort verdict is meaningless on both fronts. His crimes had nothing to do with Trump or the 2016 campaign.
The Cohen plea deal is a starkly different matter. As Trump’s attorney, he engineered the payment of funds to two accusers to keep their stories of salacious affairs out of the news as the 2016 election approached.
But the question will be: Does that make them campaign contributions? If so, they far exceed the limits permitted by law. The plea deal contains Cohen’s own assertion that those funds were intended to affect the election result. Case closed, right?
Not so fast. Who knows what kind of stretch Cohen was willing to undertake in order to cut a deal mitigating his punishment? Plea deals, by their nature, are negotiations that afford prosecutors and defendants a portion of what they want. Michael Cohen wants to avoid dying of old age in prison. It would be a fairly tiny price to color the Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal payoffs as intentional campaign spending, even if they were not.
This will be the battleground as Trump’s tormentors seek to ramp this up to an impeachable offense, while his defenders circle the wagons of damage control. So if objectivity is possible, a question: Can the argument be made that those payoffs were a protective strategy that would have been made even if there were no election?
Of course it can; it already has, by Rudy Giuliani three months ago when he described those financial arrangements as separate from the campaign operation. Does any expenditure in an election season automatically count as a campaign cost?
The answer may lie with the famous private citizens who have opened big checkbooks to dissuade publicity or lawsuits. Michael Jackson heaped $20 million onto an accuser and his family in 1994 to extinguish a civil suit stemming from molestation claims. This week’s headlines contain the stories of nearly $400,000 paid to a teenage actor to restrain sexual assault allegations against actress Asia Argento. Neither effort was connected to a quest for political office. It is very nearly a law of physics: famous people will often face damaging accusations, and when they do, they may pay large settlements to make those stories go away, whether true or not.
Trump, his attorneys and his defenders are free to paint the payoffs as an understandable path any famous private citizen might pursue. What they will face now is an army of opponents clamoring for Trump to be subpoenaed if not indicted.
It is arguable whether either of those can happen. It is a chaotic prospect to imagine presidents subject to local district attorneys wielding court orders that can bring the nation’s business to a halt. As a necessary exercise in consistency, I would assert that even if we were enduring a Hillary Clinton presidency, she would be similarly immune from the Manhattan phone book of charges that would hang over her head as a result of her email scandals and the blatant mishandling of classified documents.
So here we are. The usual voices calling for Trump to be drawn and quartered will claim sweet vindication of some sort. Trump will probably not plumb the depths of detail about the payoffs, leaving Giuliani and others to assert that they were not campaign contributions, even if Cohen said they were under pressure from ambitious prosecutors.
Look for Cohen to be characterized as a sleazy opportunist, fabricating the campaign law angle to save some portion of his hide. If that effort begins to stick, it will come in handy in a defense against the other bear trap that lies ahead for Trump— the Cohen claim that however they are defined, the payments were pre-approved by the candidate, despite his famous Air Force One video clip saying he was unaware.
The complete absence of Russia collusion evidence creates a burning hunger among Trump-haters for some storyline to stoke in pursuit of impeachment. The spring in their step will last for a while, but their ultimate goal requires a transfer of the stench of guilt from Michael Cohen to his client. That path seems blocked by procedural and possibly factual obstacles.
The greatest likelihood is that the people who despise Trump will add this to their reasons why, while the millions who voted for him will absorb and process this latest drama, and then get on with their lives.
It will be a big fat nothing burger which will hurt those who perpetrated these schemes.
seeing Lanny Davis as Cohen’s lawyer freaks me out. Lanny is one of Hillary’s lapdogs. This is wrong on so many levels.
In the eyes of the dummycrats, almost the final nail. To those with a brain. Meh! No worse that Obxxx or slick willie. Of course there were no cries of “OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!” then
Means NOTHING to me....Lock HER up.
After the way this trial went down Manafort is going to have about 1000 avenues for appeal.
I always thought that campaign contributions were funds given by donors to the campaign. Regardless of how much money was paid to the two floozies, unless they were running for office, it was not campaign contributions. Furthermore, since Trump pretty much funded his own campaign (at least in the primary phase), there were no donors who supplied the money to pay to the tarts. So, it is a real stretch to claim that the hush money is a campaign contribution.
For sure
Remember when they used to call Reagan the ‘Teflon President’?
Well, that goes double for Trump :)
The more s*&t they throw on him the more like a President he looks and the more everyone respects him
If “O”, with as much and worse ACTUALLY wrong with HIS persona and his administration, got a perpetual pass for his REAL and continuous crimes... certainly, Trump can expect a ton of tolerance from supporters with a better grasp and reasoned understanding of the US Constitution.
Without facts or logic... Liberal assaults are NOWHERE and the only people who ignore that are the media...the very group which OUGHT to positively WORSHIP facts. Go figure!!
There’s no legal impact on either of these. Politically is another thing. However I think the Cohen thing happened too soon to have a lasting effect during the upcoming election cycle and will be dealt with in plenty of time.
If, as someone else posted on another thread, Don Jr. is the next target then that will cause a much larger outcry. It could result in unintended consequences with DJT declassifying all the material that the DOJ & FBI are withholding sooner than was planned and then everyone will see what was really happening.
How Bad for Trump?
None it made his base larger.
[[I always thought that campaign contributions were funds given by donors to the campaign.]]
They aqren’t claimin it’s campaign contributions really, but rather that campaign funds went to pay off the women . Another thread made the statement that cohen might be claiming he was ordered to use campaign funds to pay the women off and apparently to falsify reports to the campaign fund managers- IF he is indeed claiming this though- He’ll need to prove it- Which is highly doubtful he can
It will cost Trump no more than presenting a fake BC cost Obama or paying Paula Jones $800K cost Bubba.
Deep State shot its wad.
POTUS has plenty of time for counterattacks.
Leftists will soon be soiling their pants, when more FISA shenanigans get unredacted and declassified.
Didn’t the FEC already say that the money doesn’t count as campaign contributions?
Manfort’s troubles are irrelevant. Cohen is all that matters.
First and foremost Cohen’s claim that he was directed by Trump has no corroboration.
Davis claims that there is a wire transfer doc from Trump to Cohen, OK whoopdedoo.
Let’s not get lost here, paying off lovers is not at all illegal.
Hushing up those lovers benefits a candidate.
Real simple, any monies that benefit a candidate have to be disclosed.
That’s what potentially incriminates Trump if he can be shown to have directed the payoff......and.....directed the non-disclosure. Both issues have to be proven by the FEC to stick.
This is the meme where the best opportunity to fight back lies.
First, let's stipulate that EVERYTHING a campaign does is "intended to influence the election" by convincing citizens to vote for them and not the other guy. Funds spent on ads are intended to influence the election, funds spent on busing people to the polls is intended to influence the election, funds spent on organizing rallies is intended to influence the election, funds spent preparing for debates is intended to influence the election.
Campaigns exist solely to influence the results of an election favorably for their candidate.
Cohen says that he paid off women at Trump's instruction solely for the purpose of influencing the outcome of the election. First is the question of whether it was solely to influence the election, second is whether Cohen had access to campaign accounts or only Trump's personal accounts; I think it's the latter, meaning that it's not possible for Cohen to have used campaign funds to pay off the women.
By contrast, we have the reports from 2008 that Obama had turned off credit card country validation so that foreign donations into his campaign wouldn't be blocked. Obviously, this money would also be used to influence the outcome of an election in Obama's favor. However, Obama would be using illegal campaign donations that had NO other use because it came in directly into his fundraising accounts that couldn't be used for any other use.
So, intent to influence an election is a non-starter, but the illegality of the money is the issue. Trump's money was not illegal, nor was its use. The same cannot be said for Democrats.
-PJ
Trump will turn it all to higher approval ratings.
“Lanny is one of Hillary’s lapdogs.”
I look at it this way ... if Davis is involved, then *something* is pressuring Hillary to get Davis involved. That’s speculation, nothing more :-). But *something* has to be going on where Hillary is starting to feel some kind of heat if they’re starting to drag out the greatest hits list of scumbags of the 90s.
If anyone thought something like this wasn’t going to happen to Trump, they’re politically naive ... he *had* to have been expecting this the moment they “got” Cohen and *must* be anticipating them to do more.
We have to pray the good guys’ strategy is in action and will work, and we have to get out the vote this fall to insure the President has some political capital to bring down some justice.
We still have the upper hand folks ... don’t let all of this doom and gloom get you down. This “charge” is a sick joke. It can certainly morph into something more, but it’s up to us to do our part to prevent that by praying and getting out the vote.
Holding the House doesn’t end this since we certainly have RINOs to deal with, but keeping the House will be a crushing blow to the Dems and will give the President more leverage to put an end to these people’s sick fascination with their Deep State.
What if they weren’t lovers and her accusations are false?
Pretty sure that was what he was told to assert in order to get leniency for being a outlaw dirtbag.
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