There were no campaign financing laws violated no matter what Cohen said.
Not only were campaign financing laws violated, fraud was committed. Cohen, AMI (publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker (AMI chief executive, granted by the US attorney's office in New York) and Allen Weisselberg (Trump Organization CFO, granted immunity by Mueller) have all admitted that they conspired with Trump to keep Trump's affairs secret from the American public.
The violation of campaign financing laws occurred because the payoffs were made to advance the interests of the campaign, and because the amounts exceeded legal limits.
Fraud occurred because that's what it is when you pay bribes to keep information secret that was important to the American electorate in choosing a president.
Those who could see Trump for what he was always expected that Trump would have great difficulty not committing impeachable offenses once in office. What we didn't expect was that he would find a way to commit impeachable offenses before even being elected.
With good reason. What's amazing is that you realize you have no knowledge.
I'm just trying to get across something of the Right point of view as I've been getting it, but there are plenty who do know all this and I really hope their views are going to have an impact in the end.
I hope so, too. Since being dead wrong usually does have an impact, there's a good chance this could come to pass.
This seems to be clutching at straws a little - covering up affairs is hardly 'obtaining the Presidency by fraudulent means'; unless we're taking the view that all lies told during a campaign amount to this. In which case pretty much every politician is guilty.
The payoffs were made in the last couple weeks before the election when information about the affairs would have had maximum effect. The payoffs violated campaign financing laws. Trump lied to the American people (the lies kept changing as he gradually admitted more and more, but he's still lying as he denies the affairs ever happened). Cohen lied to two Congressional committees. It was a conspiracy between at least four people (Trump, Cohen, Pecker, Weisselberg). AMI engaged in deceptive practices, buying stories not to print them but to bury them.
If you disagree that all this rises to the level of possible impeachable offenses then I won't try to persuade you otherwise. But if you disagree because you think this is a fringe opinion then know that there are senior members of Congress saying the same thing. And recent news reports tell us that Trump is privately expressing concern about possible impeachment.
And if you think it wouldn't have made a difference in the election then consider how it would have played if Daniels and McDougal had gone public about the same time Comey announced he was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails.
Trump paid to keep information about his affairs from the American people, committing fraud to steal an election. That is just the kind of thing the Constitution means by "high crimes and misdemeanors."
We need lots more evidence of more damaging willful violations of law. Keep in mind that in this case the goal should be not impeachment but conviction in the Senate. We need to throw his ass out. So we need enough such evidence of strong enough character as to be acceptable to this upcoming Senate.
That’s a tall order.
It sure is. Democrats in the House will be looking at what they think will eventually end up in the articles of impeachment. Removing Trump from office isn't a necessary or even the most desirable outcome. Just putting Trump through the process and holding Senate Republican's feet to the fire may be just what the doctor ordered to return us to single-party government, only this time flipped the other way around.
Impeachment, as it so happened the last two times we tried it, leads to further political turmoil without changing anything. I do not see impeachment as any effective remedy if it leaves this buffoon in office.
The charges against Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were contrived or had nothing to do with high crimes and misdemeanors. There has never really been an impeachment trial on truly impeachable offenses, since Nixon resigned before he could be impeached.
Someone has to inform future generations of what happens when you don’t pay attention to the politics around you. Having this be the historical precedent of actually slamming the door on a president would serve as that caution.
Trump puts Nixon's offenses to shame. Nixon was guilty of a single coverup. Trump is guilty (if all the smoke truly indicates fire) of a raft of offenses.
Ehh, anyway, there is going to be an election and, maybe, if we’re lucky, the whole thing can be taken off the national political stage and relegated to the criminal courts and the tabloids where it belongs.
If Trump's reelected and the interpretation stands that sitting presidents cannot be indicted, then the statute of limitations will run out and Trump will get off scot-free. An impeachment trial might be the only shot at holding Trump accountable.
If you disagree that all this rises to the level of possible impeachable offenses then I won't try to persuade you otherwise.
I don't know the details of American law well enough to comment on whether or not it's legally an impeachable offense. I just think that 'lying to the American people' is de rigeur practice for a politician running for election; and am not seeing the earth-shattering importance that you're attributing to it. It looks more like seeking hard to find technical violations of the law in reaction to the fact that there's a worthless scumbag in the White House.
I said I wouldn't try to persuade you that the offenses rise to the level of impeachable offenses, and I'll try to stick to that, but I will address your impression that "it looks more like seeking hard to find technical violations of the law" just because they don't like who won, and I'll do it by just taking a brief look at the Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal cases.
Mueller was not "seeking hard" to find them. Karen McDougal's story was reported in the Wall Street Journal just days before the 2016 election, but McDougal herself couldn't talk because of the agreement with AMI, and Trump denied it. Stormy Daniels story came out after the election when she went public on her own under the advice and guidance of attorney Michael Avenatti. She noted that at the time of the deal she was represented by an attorney who was in cahoots with Michael Cohen, and that Trump hadn't signed the agreement. It later came out that money for the payoffs was routed through a network of offshore shell companies, and that the deal was money for silence in the days leading up to the election so that news of the affairs wouldn't become public. The payoffs were made to affect the election, not to protect Trump's family as he has so far lied.
Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for felonies that he said Trump directed him to commit: campaign finance violations (unreported contributions that exceeded limits), tax evasion, and making false statements to Congress and to a bank. These actions amounted to defrauding the American people. Trump, caught on tape discussing the Karen McDougal deal with Michael Cohen and attested to by Cohen and Pecker as attending the meeting where the Karen McDougal deal was discussed, is also guilty of felonies and only remains unindicted because he is president.
These are not "technical violations" like missing a filing deadline or having some numbers in the wrong columns or making minor misstatements because memory isn't perfect, which happens all the time and are usually dealt with by small fines. What Cohen, and by extension Trump, did *is* fraud. Whether Trump's actions rise to the level of an impeachable offense is up to you, but they are not "technical violations."
And if you think it wouldn't have made a difference in the election then consider how it would have played if Daniels and McDougal had gone public about the same time Comey announced he was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails.
This is all speculation of course, but I think it would have made the square root of fuck all difference. It has never been a secret that Trump is a philanderer. Those who voted for him either don't consider this important; believe that the importance of the positions they share outweigh any personal failings; or opt for denial and willful blindness to avoid any cognitive dissonance. The accusations of Trump's affair with Stormy Daniels stem from 2011; and resurfaced and were discussed at length in 2016 during the election. What difference did they make?
Trump's approval rating is not a rock solid number that never varies - it varies within a narrow margin. It was at 42.5% on November 23, relatively high for him, but it's been as low as 36.5%. Whatever the magnitude of the effect would have been of two women going public about affairs in the days before the election, it would have been negative. Trump's total margin in the critical states totaled 70,000 votes, which is only 0.05% of total votes cast for Trump and Clinton. Note that that is 0.05%, not 0.05 of the vote. It's a miniscule number dwarfed by the number of votes that would have been affected by such news.
ABE: It's instructive to note that, while Trump's overall approval rating is low, his approval rating amongst people who voted for him in 2016 is remarkably stable. What difference did it make when Stormy Daniels did go public? As noted, Trump voters either don't care or don't believe - I don't know why you think this would be different at any other time.
As described above, Trump's approval rating moves in a narrow range of about 9 percentage points. It is not immovable.
First Trump denied knowing about the payments to silence women he'd had affairs with.
As more information came to light Trump's story changed: he knew about the payments but never discussed them with Cohen. Michael Cohen, as his personal attorney, always just took care of that stuff.
Then more information came to light and Trump's story change again: he did discuss the payments with Cohen, but he left the details up to Cohen.
Then more information came to light and Trump's story changed yet again: he did direct Cohen to make the payments, but just assumed Cohen would do it in a legal way. He never directed Cohen to break the law.
And all along Trump has claimed the payoffs were about protecting his family, not about the election, never mind that they were made just a couple weeks before the election, and that both Cohen and Pecker (chief executive of AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer) state that Trump participated in discussions about the payments and how they would be carried out in order to protect Trump during the election's final days.
And though the payments were made in the service of the campaign, no campaign donations were ever recorded, and the amounts exceeded legal limits anyway.
It is not a crime to lie to the American people. Trump cannot be prosecuted for that. As said in one of the opinion pieces in today's Washington Post, "The evolving strategy on the hush-money allegations is textbook Trump: Tell one version of events until it falls apart, then tell a new version, and so on until the danger passes."
No one is claiming that Trump's philandering was the key issue in the last few weeks before the election. It was the payoffs, and to keep things simple I stated up front that I was going to mention only one thing in my argument, the payoffs. There is certainly more than one thing, and they can be briefly summarized.
If the payoffs for silence had come out before the election it could definitely have swayed more than 0.0005 of the electorate. If his agreement with AMI to squelch stories about his sexual flings had come out it would have affected more. If it had come out that he was also violating campaign financing laws it would have affected more. If we knew that at least 16 people connected with his campaign had had contact with Russians it would have affected more. If we knew that Trump was working on a deal that required the approval of the Russian government it would have affected more. If it had gradually begun to dawn on some people how much Trump lies it would have affected more. The argument that the information Trump kept hidden wouldn't have affected the election doesn't hold water.
More importantly, the degree of success of a fraud is only a factor in sentencing and not in whether the fraud was committed.
Michael Cohen is going to jail for three years for crimes he committed at the direction of Trump that, as mentioned in the sentencing documents, affected the 2016 election and perpetrated a fraud. I assume you believe Trump equally if not more culpable, for to believe otherwise, and going with a mafia analogy, would be to believe that the guy carrying out the hit is guilty and the guy ordering the hit is not. So Trump is as culpable as Cohen if not more so.
quote:During the campaign, Cohen played a central role in two similar schemes to purchase the rights to stories — each from women who claimed to have had an affair with Individual-1 — so as to suppress the stories and thereby prevent them from influencing the election. With respect to both payments, Cohen acted with the intent to influence the 2016 presidential election. Cohen coordinated his actions with one or more members of the campaign, including through meetings and phone calls, about the fact, nature, and timing of the payments. (PSR 51). In particular, and as Cohen himself has now admitted, with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1. (PSR 41, 45). As a result of Cohen’s actions, neither woman spoke to the press prior to the election.
In addition, Mueller hasn't written his report yet, there's the ongoing emoluments case, and now Trump's inaugural finances are under investigation. It is certainly a legitimate opinion to believe the payoffs by themselves do not rise to the level of impeachability, and maybe each of the other offenses by themselves also do not rise to the level of impeachability, but at some point the mountain of offenses rises too high to ignore. Comparisons to Nixon pale, who though he had fatal flaws also had much experience in government and a number of successes on both the domestic and international fronts - for just a couple he founded the EPA and opened relations with China. Trump's is one of most tawdry and unsuccessful administrations in the country's history. Whether he's also impeachable is still a question open to opinion, but many think he is based on some pretty solid evidence that may only be the tip of the iceberg.
If Trump's reelected and the interpretation stands that sitting presidents cannot be indicted, then the statute of limitations will run out and Trump will get off scot-free. An impeachment trial might be the only shot at holding Trump accountable.
Holding Trump accountable for something they just now discovered after two years of searching and searching and searching to find something, anything, they can hold over him.
When first begun it wasn't thought that the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election would lead to the Trump campaign, but it did. We've now learned that at least 16 people connected to the Trump campaign had contact with Russia. There was a meeting of top Trump campaign officials with Russian representatives in Trump Tower. With Michael Cohen's help Trump paid woman for silence just before the election. Donald Jr. tried to set up backchannel communications with Russia that would be secret from the rest of government. Trump refused to divest himself of his businesses and is now being charged with violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution. And now his inaugural committee is under investigation.
By the way, about "searching and searching and searching to find something, anything, they can hold over him," this sounds more like Republican efforts to find evidence of wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton regarding Benghazi, Uranium One, the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton emails. It's been years and they've still found nothing. In a last ditch attempt to find, in your words, "something, anything," the House Oversight Committee just held a hearing Thursday in which they once again found...nothing.
They started crying "impeachment" before he was even in office, when they had nothing, zero, to impeach him for.
quote:This account of the president’s actions is one that he allegedly went to great lengths to hide in order to protect against serious, perhaps lethal, damage to his 2016 campaign. If the conduct described in the memo was carried out in violation of the campaign finance laws with the requisite state of mind, it could be criminal. But is it impeachable?
Their answer appears to be "probably." Attempts to '"disguise or conceal financial activity" regulated by campaign finance laws are not going to be viewed kindly by prosecutors or by the Democratic House. The actions took place before Trump was actually president, but he lied continually about the payoffs, and as George Mason noted during the Constitutional Convention a few years back, a president "who has practised corruption & by that means procured his appointment in the first instance" might be open to impeachment. The House has a lot to take into account including more than just matters of fact before deciding whether or not to impeach, but at this point it does seem more likely than not that Trump committed impeachable offenses. And we don't yet even know what will be in the Mueller report.
Then they trumped up the "dossier," a fake document paid for by Hillary Clinton alleging some pretty salacious disgusting things that simply were not true (but somehow she got a pass on all that and more?),...
What in the dossier has been shown untrue? Anything? What is actually true is that some things is the dossier have been substantiated and some have not. None have been shown untrue.
...yet the whole Russia collusion thing goes on and on and on merely on the strength of the determination of the Left to get the man one way or another, insinuating this or that, trying to turn the public against him any way they can.
The investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election was begun in 2016 by James Comey (a Republican). After his firing Rod Rosenstein (a Republican) appointed Robert Mueller (a Republican) to continue the investigation as Special Counsel.
There is NO evidence whatever of Russia collusion.
You're making the mistake of thinking the Russia probe is an investigation into Trump. It is not. It is an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election that should, if properly conducted, follow the evidence wherever it leads. It shouldn't matter whether the evidence leads to Republicans (5 so far) or Democrats (none so far) or Russians (about 25 so far), following the evidence is what the investigation is all about. Mueller has yet to issue his report, so you are correct that the public is not yet aware of any substantiated evidence for Trump campaign collusion with Russia, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. We just don't yet know whether there's any or not.
They've come up with things they can prosecute people related to Trump for but it's all personal stuff, nothing directly about the campaign or Presidency, until now they think they've finally got something in his paying a couple of women not to talk about their "affairs" with him, on the advice of his lawyer yet.
Cohen didn't advise Trump to pay off the women. He was directed by Trump to pay off the women. This has been publicly confirmed by the testimony of Pecker, and by the tape where Trump and Cohen discuss purchasing Karen McDougal's story rights from AMI.
What I've been hearing is that legally it isn't going to go anywhere but wait and see, the Left is nothing if not clever at misusing the law to their own political purposes.
How is the left misusing the law? Mueller is a Republican, and he leads the investigation. How is the left getting Mueller to do their bidding?
Sigh. I was going to try to answer some of that long post but it's too much.
Arguing with fact's a bitch.
I stand by everything I said and calling me a liar for something I believe to be true is underhanded of you.
I never called you a liar. I used the Washington Post rating system to classify your statements as true or untrue. Your claim is false so I'll have to give it four Pinocchios.
If you really think that "no one is out to get Trump" you are so seriously deceived there is no helping you.
Holding people accountable for their crimes, including the president, is not normally deemed being "out to get them."
If you think people can't be coerced to lie in a criminal investigation you are truly naive.
Of course people can be coerced by the legal system. In other threads I have commented about this, complaining that we are often too much a system of laws rather than of justice.
But people such as yourself can be tricked into believing things that are untrue because you don't often try to connect your beliefs to facts.
If you think all those allegations are just true about Trump rather than being invented or manipulated or misidentified, you are wrong.
I will believe the allegations against Trump that are supported by evidence.
And most of them have been far more true of Obama and the Clintons and other politicians but nobody bothers to hold them accountable for them.
Collusion with Russia is far more true of Obama and the Clintons than of Trump? Paying off women for silence? Failing to divest businesses? Failing to disclose tax returns?
Obama's campaign was fined $375,000 for campaign violations, a near record fine. Do you remember what the violations were? They missed a number of 48-hour notices on some 1300 campaign contributions, had some reports with erroneous contribution dates, and were late returning some contributions that exceeded legal limits. This isn't even close to hiding the monies used to pay off women for silence in offshore accounts while failing to report any campaign contributions.
They get a pass, Trump doesn't.
What do you see them as getting a pass on?
And you don't notice.
I admit to not noticing events that seem to exist only in your imagination.
Nobody even seems to know that the policies toward illegal immigrants that Trump is called racist and unfair for allowing were done more by Obama than by Trump.
You're referring to Obama deporting more illegal immigrants than Trump. But the actual concern is Trump's punitive treatment of immigrants, both illegal and those simply seeking asylum, such as family separation.
You don't know, you don't care, you are on the bandwagon of Trump haters and that's all this is about.
By your own admission Trump is a poor excuse of a human being, but the true facts are that we do care deeply about this country, and it distresses us a great deal to see Trump flouting the rule of law and tearing down American institutions.
Perhaps I'm misstating things to some extent because I'm not tracking down all the details and relying mostly on my memory of what I've been hearing from the very worthy Right, but I know the gist of what I'm saying is correct.
On those rare occasions when you attempt to state facts you are invariably wrong. The rest of the time you're just casting unsupported accusations against everyone you disagree with.
Somebody here said something about Trump being worried about impeachment. I can't find the post now. But anyway that's a perfect example of Fake News. They make up this stuff all the time based on nothing. Headlines galore every day on the internet insinuate something amiss in the White House. It's never true, it's just invented to create a false impression. If you listened to the Right thinkers you'd know that but instead you all fall for it just as they want you to.
If Trump is unconcerned about impeachment, how would you know? Because he denies it publicly? He rarely tells the truth publicly, so that alone makes it a safe bet that he's concerned about impeachment. Let's examine the source of this information.
quote:President Donald Trump has expressed concern that he could be impeached when Democrats take over the House, a source close to the President told CNN Monday. The source said Trump sees impeachment as a "real possibility."
But Trump isn't certain it will happen, the source added.
A separate source close to the White House told CNN that aides inside the West Wing believe "the only issue that may stick" in the impeachment process is the campaign finance violations tied to former Trump attorney Michael Cohen's payouts to Trump's alleged mistresses. ... Another separate source said Trump remains confident at this point that, while he could be impeached in the House, he doesn't believe he would be convicted in the Senate as the GOP remains in control there.
These sources are people "close to the President" and so forth. They aren't White House officials, who the article describes as believing differently:
quote:White House officials, at the moment, still don't believe special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible collusion will result in impeachment. Officials are also comforted by their belief that the campaign finance issue is not seen as enough to galvanize bipartisan support for impeachment.
quote:Despite President Donald Trump's public declaration that he isn't concerned about impeachment, he has told people close to him in recent days that he is alarmed by the prospect, according to multiple sources.
Trump's fear about the possibility has escalated as the consequences of federal investigations involving his associates and Democratic control of the House sink in, the sources said, and his allies believe maintaining the support of establishment Republicans he bucked to win election is now critical to saving his presidency. ... The entire question about whether the president committed an impeachable offense now hinges on the testimony of two men: David Pecker and Allen Weisselberg, both cooperating witnesses in the SDNY investigation," a close Trump ally told NBC News.
Weisselberg is the chief financial officer for Trump organization who was allegedly in the center of the hush money operation. He was reportedly granted immunity for his testimony. Pecker is the chief executive at AMI.
The developments leave Trump as the lone party who argues the payments were not intended to influence the election.
NBC News is reporting the same thing as CNN, that Trump is confiding to friends that he's concerned about impeachment. Both stories also report that Trump is maintaining a confident public face.
You claim to believe that NBC News and CNN are making up sources. Based upon what? You don't believe Trump talks to friends and that reporters know who they are? Even worse, Trump uses his unsecured personal cell phone to talk these friends, and as has been reported, likely the Russians and Chinese are listening in.
Whether he's also impeachable is still a question open to opinion ...
Let's assume these are impeachable offenses. To what end?
Impeach Trump and have a heavily Republican Senate exonerate him.
I covered this recently in another post. If Trump is guilty of impeachable offenses a decision must still be made about whether it's worth going ahead with impeachment, especially if the Senate would likely acquit. It depends on the specifics of the Articles of Impeachment, the strength of the evidence behind them, and Democratic estimates of the political cost to politicians on both sides in both houses.
I was no fan of Bill Clinton (I wasn't exactly opposed to him either, but I definitely wasn't a fan) but was opposed to his impeachment because his offenses, though reprehensible, did not rise to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors." The nature of Trump's alleged offenses are of a different nature - if the evidence behind them exists then they are definitely impeachable. Then the House would have a difficult decision before it, whether to bring Articles of Impeachment forward for offenses that are definitely impeachable.
When first begun it wasn't thought that the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election would lead to the Trump campaign, but it did. We've now learned that at least 16 people connected to the Trump campaign had contact with Russia.
None of it has ever connected Trump with Russia, ever, and that was supposedly the whole point of the investigation. After two years of this there is still no connection with Russia. Mueller should long ago have said he was unable to fulfill the original aim of showing Russian collusion and shut down the investigation.
What part of "the investigation is still ongoing and Mueller hasn't issued his report yet" don't you understand?
As for people having contacts with Russia why is it never mentioned that this is standard for any political campaign to make contact with foreign nations that would be affected by new policies, or just for whatever reason.
Is that why they lied about the contacts, because it was all aboveboard?
Clinton had deals with Russia and that is completely ignored.
Hillary Clinton had no deals with Russia. No Clinton campaign officials met with Russians like Trump campaign officials did. The Trump Tower meeting and all the other meetings between Trump campaign officials and Russians are potentially problematic. It's against the law for foreign nationals to provide anything of value to a US election campaign. The common expectation is that this would be something of monetary value or the means to obtain something of monetary value, but if information is judged valuable to a campaign then that might satisfy the legal requirement. If any of these meetings were about something like the DNC or Podesta emails then they were of great value to the Trump campaign and would likely qualify.
The Steele dossier doesn't qualify because it was never used by the Clinton campaign and so could not be deemed to have provided any value. Besides, the process that produced the Steele dossier was indirect. The Clinton campaign contracted with Fusion GPS who in turn contracted with numerous sources, including Daniel Steele who used his Russian contacts to obtain alleged information about Trump.
There is nothing suspicious about such contacts except when they want to find something to pin on Trump.
If you don't find it suspicious then you have turned your mind off. Our intelligent agencies found that the Russians interfered with the 2016 election, and the Trump campaign had all these contacts with Russians that they lied about. That's very suspicious.
Which they haven't found either.
Again, what part of "Mueller hasn't released his report yet" don't you understand? This isn't rocket science. It could be that Trump and his campaign are completely innocent, it could be that they're guilty as sin, or it could be somewhere in between.
And there is nothing wrong with business deals either. Especially when Trump didn't even expect to win the election and naturally wanted to keep his businesses alive. Business as usual, nothing about the campaign at all.
There's nothing wrong with business deals that don't involve things like trading penthouses for government permission to build.
And I'll wait and see what happens with this campaign payoff idea. Most of what I've been hearing is that it won't fly. It had nothing to do with the campaign,...
Then you haven't been listening. We already know that Cohen and Pecker say it was done to help the campaign, and likely Weisselberg said the same thing, since Mueller seems to have additional confirming evidence.
...and even if it did there is no limit on how much the nominee himself is allowed to contribute to his own campaign.
Trump didn't record any campaign contribution for these payoffs. Trump is still claiming they were personal to prevent hurt to his family.
Disagreeing Analysis Pieces in the Mainstream Press
Trump supporters obviously do not like the opinion/analysis pieces that appear in the mainstream media, but I thought I would call attention to a couple recent analysis articles that disagreed with each other about the possibility of charges of collusion with Russia.
NPR reports that The Russia Collusion Case Looks Weaker Amid Focus On Cohen. Noting that a little information always leaks about what Mueller knows every time he goes to court, even though much of it is redacted, they say that no information has leaked about collusion, making the possibility of collusion charges less likely.
quote:But a less-noticed scene in court that day points to much bigger trouble ahead for Trump. Also present for the Cohen hearing was a member of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, the prosecutor Jeannie Rhee, who described how much help Cohen had been to the investigation into alleged collusion between the campaign and Moscow.
So one media outlet reports that the lack of bits and pieces of information about collusion indicates that charges are becoming less and less likely, while another reports on hints that Mueller has information about collusion that is not yet public. My own opinion is that there's no way to know for sure right now which way the collusion investigation will go.
Re: Just a couple of problems with the Left's witch hunt
Faith writes:
1. Payoffs, or Nondisclosure Agreements. Rush Limbaugh, yesterday I think, maybe Thursday, said over and over again that the deal Pecker of the Enquirer made to buy off Karen McDougal and kill the story was not in 2015 but August of 2014.
...that means there is no connection between the payoffs and the campaign at all since they occurred before Trump was campaigning for the election, possibly even before he was thinking of running.
Not only did AMI purchase the rights to McDougal's story August of 2016, later that year close to the election Trump decided that it would be more secure if the Trump organization held the rights to the story, and so he had a conversation with Michael Cohen about purchasing the rights from AMI. Cohen recorded the conversation, and I assume we've all heard it. I can dig it out if you haven't.
And all the Right are pointing out that Congress has a special fund for paying off women who accuse Congressmen of sexual misconduct or harassment or whatever. The hypocrisy is damning.
I agree, but who are you trying to criticize? Half of Congress is Republicans.
As for walls working he pointed out that the Berlin Wall certainly worked,...
You mean this wall:
That's a cemetary on the left. Is a wide no-man's land overseen by armed towers with guards who have orders to shoot to kill really what you imagine? You want to do this across our entire southern border? It would certainly be very effective, but the expense over a 2000 mile border would be prohibitive. Fortress America - has a great ring to it, Trump should make it his 2020 reelection slogan.
...and the wall Israel built in 2004 has also worked, cutting down on the terrorist problem by 95%.
Israel has much shorter borders, and the countries that border it are their sworn enemies providing aid and succor to terrorist organizations like Hezbollah. We have peaceful neighbors.
It's also been pointed out by many that in 2006 THE DEMOCRATS VOTED FOR A WALL, including Pelosi, Obama and Hillary!!! But if Trump wants a wall, nope.
quote:The Secure Fence Act of 2006, which was passed by a Republican Congress and signed by President George W. Bush, authorized about 700 miles of fencing along certain stretches of land between the border of the United States and Mexico.
The act also authorized the use of more vehicle barriers, checkpoints and lighting to curb illegal immigration, and the use of advanced technology such as satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles.
At the time the act was being considered, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer were all members of the Senate. (Schumer of New York is now the Senate minority leader.)
Obama, Clinton, Schumer and 23 other Democratic senators voted in favor of the act when it passed in the Senate by a vote of 80 to 19.
Guess we have to rate another of your comments false:
Moving on:
3. Oh a new one. The little Guatemalan girl who died after getting across the border, which is being blamed on the Border Patrol, who in fact did their best to save her. She had been deprived of food and water by her parents for days before they reached the US border, and a few hours after their arrival she started having seizures and the Border Patrol helicoptered her to a hospital where she died of dehydration and sepsis. The girl was part of a group of over 150 looking to get into the US illegally, who gave themselves up to the Border Patrol. Possibly her condition was overlooked during the processing of so many people, I don't really know what happened, haven't seen the details described, but it is clear she died because of having been deprived of food and water for days before she arrived in their custody. But they did their best to save her and all you lying Leftists should be sent to Mexico yourselves, such America-haters might as well go live where they won't hate the country they are living in.
The story is confusing enough to tell us that we don't really know what happened yet, but neglect by border patrol agents seems unlikely. Boiling the story down to bear bones, the father arrived in the US with a healthy child seeking asylum, after eight hours they were picked up by a border patrol bus at which point the child was still healthy and had something to eat and drink, but then she became ill on the bus ride. The bus took them to the nearest medical facility, but by the time of arrival 90 minutes later she had stopped breathing and had a temperature of 105°. She died in the hospital about 15 hours later. I don't see that the border patrol did anything wrong. More information should become available in the weeks ahead.
Another story from the Los Angeles Times has slightly different details but also does not blame the border patrol: The 7-year-old girl who died in Border Patrol custody showed symptoms of dehydration. Experts say they were warning signs. In this story the father and his daughter turned themselves in to border patrol agencies who took them to a bus depot where they waited for a number of hours before his daughter became ill. A bus was sent for but took to long to arrive, so she was flown to a hospital in El Paso where she later died.
Note that these news report comes from the mainstream media and do not blame the border patrol.
Re: NRe: The Gullibility of the Right's Echo Chamber
Faith writes:
NONE of the connections with Russia by ANYBODY amounted to "wrongdoing." That's all lying Leftistspeak.
Some of the charges Michael Cohen pled guilty to were related to lying to Congress about his business negotiations with Russia to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, some of them occurring during the campaign.
If the payoffs occurred in 2014 rather than 2015 there is no connection with the campaign whatever.
Rush Limbaugh has his dates wrong concerning Karen McDougal. AMI purchased the rights to her story on August 5, 2016. Michael Cohen purchased Stormy Daniels silence a couple weeks before the 2016 election.
But if Trump ever paid off anyone before the campaign anyway there is no connection, it's clearly a personal thing.
Michael Cohen and David Pecker have both stated that Trump ordered the payoffs out of concern for the election. Alan Weisselberg (CFO of the Trump Organization) has likely said the same thing to the Mueller investigation.
You want to believe he committed crimes and the media feed you that line every day and you swallow it happily but there is no actual evidence for criminal activity whatever.
We haven't seen affidavits or testimony yet concerning the payoffs, but we do have clear statements from Cohen and Pecker, then there's that tape, plus Mueller hasn't completed his investigation or submitted his report yet.
There is nothing frantic about the Right wing answers to these lies. It's reasonable thoughtful commentary. Unlike the endless stream of slimy innuendo from the Left.
This "reasonable thoughtful commentary" sure does seem to get you worked up about things that aren't true. Maybe this video of Jeanine Pirro will calm you down, I've cued it up where she really gets going about immigrants. Enjoy:
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