THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY

[Duchess]

   I'm not playing whataboutism with you or anyone else.

[Fry Guy]

No but I am going to dispute the narrative:

"As an aside, Rand Paul is a goddamn weirdo, who the hell lobbies for what the Russians want over what is good for America. Jesus."

I also am prepared to back my reasons in case the person reading has been exposed to ideas that deviate drastically from the ones I am considering.

[Duchess]

No but I am going to dispute the narrative:

Okie dokie. I like it when you do.  

[HairOfTheDog]

More immunity granted in Cohen investigation



Allen Weisselberg (right), longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, has been granted immunity by federal prosecutors as part of their investigation into President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, NBC News reported Friday, citing multiple people with knowledge of the matter.

Cohen admitted on Tuesday that he had facilitated unlawful payments to two women at Trump's direction in order to keep unfavorable information about the president, who at the time was still a candidate, from becoming public. In a legal document related to the case, Weisselberg, who is referred to as "Executive-1," is accused of instructing a Trump Organization employee to reimburse Cohen for one of the payments.

Weisselberg's ties to the president go back decades: He has overseen the Trump Organization's finances, been involved in the Trump Foundation, the president's charity, and has managed Trump's private trust alongside his eldest sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. He was reportedly subpoenaed by prosecutors earlier this year to testify before a grand jury as part of that inquiry.

Refs:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/24/longtime...urces.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/allen-weiss...1535121992

[Maggot]

Well at least Trump only paid 130,000 Clinton paid Paula Jones 850,000.  Who was the better deal maker?

[Duchess]

More immunity granted in Cohen investigation



Allen Weisselberg

Chief financial officer, longtime confidant, knows where the bodies are buried. Yabba dabba do!  

[Duchess]

Well at least Trump only paid 130,000 Clinton paid Paula Jones 850,000.  Who was the better deal maker?

   Are we having fun yet?

[HairOfTheDog]

Clinton paid Paula Jones in a legal settlement after he was elected, Maggot. Had he instead enlisted the help of people like David Pecker and Michael Cohen to pay hush money before the election in order to protect his chances of winning without declaring it as a campaign donation, he might have been able to pay less $$$.

However, Clinton may well have paid more dearly in the end and saw himself and/or those he enlisted to silence Jones facing criminal investigation had he gone the same route as Trump did.

So, I think Clinton made the better decision/deal and understand you see it differently, which isn't a problem. In any case, this isn't about the Clintons. It's about the Trump Presidency.

[Maggot]

Well at least Trump only paid 130,000 Clinton paid Paula Jones 850,000.  Who was the better deal maker?

   Are we having fun yet?

Hell yeah! Every week is a new adventure! 

[Fry Guy]

How on Earth is this construed as a campaign violation IF it did not come out of campaign funds?
Some girl who he was seen with once and can prove he was photographed next to once is making claims he slept with her. His lawyer breaks the news.
"Stormy Daniels says she slept with you and she wants money to keep silent about it"
"Stormy Daniels? I met her at (wherever) and she is saying she slept with me? Really? How much is her blood money? I can be bothered with fighting things on this front too"
"$130 000"
"Fine, whatever. Pay her off and get rid of it. I will send you cash. Don't need the grief"

Now I do not know if this is a realistic impression of what happened, but it is a narrative that I believe. Hell maybe he was having it off with her and Karen and half the eligible single women in Washington. MAYBE. It is not what I believe though.

However irrespective of the truth of the nuance or exact details, how is it a campaign violation?

Now you COULD try to make the case that it was a financial transaction made to benefit Trump during his campaign and thus should have been included but was not. But on its face this is dubious at best and pants on head silly at its worse. By this broad standard many non-campaign things could fall into the same standard such as cosmetic work, clothes and such and NONE of these clearly are.

So given that it has nothing to do with campaign finance breach why is this being entertained? I do not much give a damn that Cohen has both admitted it and is pretending it is a crime to which he has plead guilty. If it does on its face pass the smell test before even looking at such concepts as legal precedent, legal definition and the variations of interpretation then how the Hell would it be something that would clear the minimum legal standards in a court.

We know the reason why Cohen plead guilty to this and why Mueller accepted it don't we? Midterms. After midterms IF the Democrats don't win both houses and convincingly, its all over.

[Maggot]

It's not about the legality of it all it's about putting Trumps name out there with any kind of negative spin. That is the entire campaign. That is the end game. It will not stop.

[Duchess]

It's not about the legality of it all it's about putting Trumps name out there with any kind of negative spin. That is the entire campaign. That is the end game. It will not stop.

Is that a serious statement & something you truly believe or are you trolling? I ask because we post about things that trump says and does. No one has had to fabricate anything, trump creates his own negativity and people talk about it, they report on it. It's often like you're completely oblivious to the drama he creates on an almost daily basis. You don't appear to ever question anything he does and have posted many times that you think he's doing a great job. He's such a despicable individual he has had to be told he's unwanted at funerals for godssake. Funny, not funny.

I can't tell you how much I hope the housekeeper he knocked up is an undocumented immigrant. You'll hear me snort laugh all the way up there.

[BigMark]

Trump is trolling you guys, it's fucking hilarious. You follow his every move and tweet.

[Fry Guy]

Trump is trolling you guys, it's fucking hilarious. You follow his every move and tweet.

Like cats and pieces of string

[ZEROSPHERES]

Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz told Fox News Wednesday that claims by Senate Democrats and liberal pundits that President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen’s guilty plea makes the president an “unindicted co-conspirator” are “just wrong as a matter of basic criminal law.”


“The law is clear that a president may contribute to his own campaign so if the President had paid $280,000 to these two women even if he had done so in order to help his campaign,” Dershowitz explained to Fox’s Bret Baier, “that would be no problem, that’s legal, and if Cohen himself made the contribution that would be unlawful because he has a limit of $5,200 so the complicated issue is what if Trump told him to do it as Cohen says?”
Dershowitz explained that, in that case, it would still not be a crime as Cohen would be acting as the president’s representative.




https://townhall.com/tipsheet/laurettabr...g-n2512223

[Fry Guy]

Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz told Fox News Wednesday that claims by Senate Democrats and liberal pundits that President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen’s guilty plea makes the president an “unindicted co-conspirator” are “just wrong as a matter of basic criminal law.”


“The law is clear that a president may contribute to his own campaign so if the President had paid $280,000 to these two women even if he had done so in order to help his campaign,” Dershowitz explained to Fox’s Bret Baier, “that would be no problem, that’s legal, and if Cohen himself made the contribution that would be unlawful because he has a limit of $5,200 so the complicated issue is what if Trump told him to do it as Cohen says?”
Dershowitz explained that, in that case, it would still not be a crime as Cohen would be acting as the president’s representative.




https://townhall.com/tipsheet/laurettabr...g-n2512223

So the real; question is, why is the press and the Democrats treating this as a crime? There must be a reason for it?

[HairOfTheDog]

Hey Biggie and FryGuy. Look up.

There's a great big sign over the door to this thread that reads, "THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY".

Coming in here and attempting to mock members for posting about the official public statements of President Trump........... is about as clever as visiting the pet store to bitch about the fact that dog owners are shopping there.

Derp.

[HairOfTheDog]

Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz told Fox News Wednesday that claims by Senate Democrats and liberal pundits that President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen’s guilty plea makes the president an “unindicted co-conspirator” are “just wrong as a matter of basic criminal law.”


“The law is clear that a president may contribute to his own campaign so if the President had paid $280,000 to these two women even if he had done so in order to help his campaign,” Dershowitz explained to Fox’s Bret Baier, “that would be no problem, that’s legal, and if Cohen himself made the contribution that would be unlawful because he has a limit of $5,200 so the complicated issue is what if Trump told him to do it as Cohen says?”
Dershowitz explained that, in that case, it would still not be a crime as Cohen would be acting as the president’s representative.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/laurettabr...g-n2512223

We know Cohen committed crimes because he pleaded guilty to making illegal campaign contributions to the Trump campaign.

Cohen said he made those contributions, payoffs to silence women, on the direction of candidate Trump.

The potential campaign finance crime for Trump is if he paid the hush money back to Cohen (which he now admits to doing) AND he didn't file it as a campaign contribution.  

According to the Cohen indictment, Trump directed Weisselberg to pay Cohen back for the hush money, plus a bonus, and to write it off as "legal expense", which is a false (and typically tax-deductible) classification of the expenditure.  

That's my understanding.

Alan Dershowitz has some unique interpretations of the law these days and often finds himself in disagreement with other legal experts when it comes to Trump.  Maybe he's right on some or all of them.  I don't know.  But, Weisselberg was granted immunity in the Cohen case for some reason.

[Fry Guy]

Hey Hair of the Dog, look a little further up and you will see "Mock forums". Now only an idiot would pretend that there was anything wrong with mocking on Mock Forums and this would go triple if a Moderator of such a forum was to criticise members for having the temerity to mock.

Right?

Yeah, you are welcome to your opinions but unless you can show me rules, regulations or stipulations that control what I ought to mock or not, you know where you can stick those opinions, don't you?

[HairOfTheDog]

I didn't say there was anything wrong with mocking at Mock. I implied that those weren't clever mocks given the context and made an analogy to demonstrate that point, which I stand by. ')