Official Cohen/Manafort Guilty Thread (+I've been driving across the country listening to Limbaugh and MSNBC AMA)

NewtotheSouthSide wrote:

. . .

#3 The difference between Trump and Bill Clinton is that Clinton was already in office and did not lie when his affair was discovered. . . .

"NewtotheSouthSide"-- How old are you? Do you really not know that Clinton's lie about Lewinsky is one of the most famous quotes of the nineties? Here it is since you missed it.

Also, isn't it worse that a sitting President had a relatively long relationship with a goofy intern than a goofy Billionaire playboy had trysts years before he became President?

Since when has driving from TX to NY been defined as ‘across the country’?

I agree. They are unrelated. But it makes it apparent politics shows how tribal we are. On MSNBC someone called Trump a "Russian agent" yesterday. No one just wanted to discuss where we are right now.

Having said they are unrelated there are serious issues on the Clinton side that need to be investigated as people want a fair system. Everyone is talking Russian collusion on the Trump campaign, yet there is no disputing the Clinton campaign paid an ex-foreign spy to get Russian dirt on the Trump campaign some of which was demonstrably false and then the dossier was used to monitor members of the Trump campaign, start this investigation, etc. Trump's Russian activities are still being determined by Mueller and if Cohen knows something it now will come out.

If there was Russian collusion I think we'll find out now as Cohen as every incentive to flip. But Mueller isn't the one who prosecuted Cohen. He was prosecuted in NY so presumable Mueller didn't think he was of interest. I was trying to figure out how Cohen's taxes got investigated and Rachel Maddow made it sound like it started in NY with an unrelated case on Cohen's taxi cab medallion partner who wasn't paying taxes and flipped.

1) If Trump used personal or even his company money (wouldn't that be a tax issue as he can't deduct that?) to pay off Stormy Daniels at this point I don't think it moves the needle. As the Penn article makes clear the argument that using personal money isn't a campaign contribution is plausible. If it is a campaign contribution then the campaign should pay it and if Trump's campaign had paid off Stormy Daniels then people would be trying to prosecute Trump for using campaign funds for personal reasons. But you can't have it both ways. Of course he did it to protect the campaign but there are personal reasons he did it as well.

2) Cohen may know some shady s*** Trump did with his foundation, etc. Not sure that moves the needle now either unless it's really bad.

Of course the Republicans are hypocrites. The Democrats as well. They've reversed their positions from Bill Clinton.

Good question. I'm wondering if it's because Trump used his business money to pay her off? That would be a tax violation. Or did Cohen pay her off with his own money (I thought I heard someone say yesterday he took out a refinance to pay her off) (which presumably would be a campaign violation as it was his money and not Trumps, but I think Jon Edwards wasn't convicted in similar circumstances) and then only later did Trump decide to reimburse? I'd like to see a timeline on what Trump initially said about the payments. No one seems to care if he lies anymore.

The whole Clinton tangent is just misdirection. Basically says we don't want to talk about what happened, what-about-this instead. It is like if you commit murder and then say well what about Ted Bundy. If in an alternate world Ted got away with murder, does that mean we shouldn't care that anyone else commits murder?

Cohen and Manafort clearly broke the law. Hopefully they will get what they get. If Trump is not involved then he has nothing to fear. His only problem is if he broke the law, which he either did or didn't. Talking about Clinton all day because his base hates her and she broke the law too is just middle school misdirection. It is amazing the people fall for it so easily.

Someone else also breaking the law is not a defense.

wejo wrote:

Plus, as my experiment listening to the news today shows, a lot of people just hear news from their echo chamber. There aren't a lot of places where people of different viewpoints discuss the latest developments.

In all honesty this is what I love about your website.

Anyone reading my posts know that I obviously have a point of view that comes from the left, but I love to come here to get different viewpoints.

I feel that I really get to see what is in the minds of conservative people and Trump supporters, who overlap but are not one in the same.

When news of things like Manfort and Cohen being guilty come out, you see the deflections to change the subject.

Or they ask how it pertains to Trump and Russia.

What we have are two men with deep ties to Trump who have done straight up illegal activities over and over.

If crimes of one kind are found while investigating another, I would assume they would be pursued and prosecuted.

We elected a president who refused to disclose his tax returns to the public. Most living Americans have never encountered a candidate like that before.

Now a close associate of his has been convicted on multiple accounts of tax evasion and bank fraud. And that only happened because of this special investigation. That begs the question - does the IRS even have the ability to catch big tax cheats? Is Trump a tax cheat? His personal attorney, who now has plead guilty to fraud, was funneling Trump's money through an LLC used for payoffs for scandalous behavior.

I understand the logic when people say Trump may get impeached but not convicted.

You need 67 Senators and the way they vote party line, they won't have 67 Democrats or enough crossover Republicans.

But that assumption is based on what the public knows today.

We have no idea what evidence has been concealed or what else may turn out during a trial. And Trump would have to testify in an impeachment trial. Not legally maybe, but politically he must. He could perjure himself on a major legal issue.

(Personally, I think maybe Clinton should have resigned for his embarrassing actions, but that has nothing to do with this)

Back to Cohen and Manfort, people who break the law should get caught and punished.

Interesting how they took two different paths, one cooperated and one took the fifth.

We will have to see the country's reaction to a possible Manafort pardon.

This is not directed at Wejo, but rather to the analysis of Limbaugh’s coverage:

Are there really people out there who still believe that the Steele Dossier started this investigation? This has been proven to be false. A simple google search yields thousands of results from reputable sources demonstrating that this is false. How do you engage in debate with people who refuse to accept reality? Yikes. I usually only read The Washington Post, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, USA Today, Newsweek, Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Newsday, The Denver Post, and a few others so I guess I am just getting liberal spin. I didn’t know that anyone other than Trump was still making such demonstratively false claims.

Wejo,

I'm surprised you heard anything from Hannity/Limbaugh about this. Every time I flip over to Fox News they are talking about the Mollie Tibbetts murder.

No need for anyone to "lash out bitterly about this." I will simply point out that your interpretation of the law is completely wrong, and has been repeatedly rejected by federal appellate courts. As one appellate panel wearily put it, "We have said it before and we say it again: the FECA does not require the Attorney General to receive permission from the FEC before investigating or prosecuting an FECA criminal violation."

Claiming that federal campaign finance law violations are "no big deal" conflates run-of-the-mill civil matters within the jurisdiction of the FEC with criminal matters within the jurisdiction of the DOJ. In the Cohen case, there is no mystery about the origins of the criminal charges: the special counsel became aware of possible criminal acts by Cohen, determined that those particular matters were not within his mandate from the deputy AG, and referred them to the Office of the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York (another Trump appointee, by the way), which conducted its own extensive investigation before filing charges. It would have been silly to split off the campaign matters from the rest of the case, send them over to the dysfunctional FEC, and wait to see if the FEC would eventually refer to those matters back for consideration of criminal charges.

wejo wrote:

Having said they are unrelated there are serious issues on the Clinton side that need to be investigated as people want a fair system. Everyone is talking Russian collusion on the Trump campaign, yet there is no disputing the Clinton campaign paid an ex-foreign spy to get Russian dirt on the Trump campaign some of which was demonstrably false and then the dossier was used to monitor members of the Trump campaign, start this investigation, etc. Trump's Russian activities are still being determined by Mueller and if Cohen knows something it now will come out.

Let's address some facts here.

It was Fusion GPS that initially helped this Steele Dossier. They were funded by conservatives to get dirt on Trump.

Hillary 's campaign worked with Fusion GPS, an American company, after Trump seemed to have locked up the nomination and opposing Republicans gave up.

The Clinton campaign did not pay an ex-foreign spy.

Republicans and Hillary's campaign paid an American company who subcontracted a foreigner.

If the justice department wants to investigate both parties for looking to Fusion GPS, fine but that opens up all kinds of opposition research investigations. That is not the same as having a direct meeting with Russian officials in your building.

As far as some of the dirt being demonstrably false:

It was a collection of information given from various sources. Maybe a date was wrong here or there. Or maybe Cohen wasn't physically in one place but on the phone instead.

But a number of the items have been proven true. And this wasn't released until after the election anyway.

So there is no concern that the dossier affected the election. But the details listed there have been pursued and many proved true.

The main theme of the dossier was that Russia wanted to do whatever it could to make Hillary lose and the US Justice department has come to that same conclusion. Russia interfered with the 2016 election.

wejo wrote:

So far wrote:

So far Manafort is an old fashion tough guy. Maybe Manafort believes if he were to talk he then would have to worry about Russians and Ukraines. It is so rare in modern culture to see white collar defendants holding strong as is Manafort.

I just don't get it if you're getting paid $20 million a year, why you don't report it?

Even if he was doing shady s*** in the Ukraine why not just report the income?

Because he wanted to keep it all and not give more than 30% to the government? Seems like the simplest explanation.

No need to apologize wrote:

Cohen, a terrible lawyer, has gone and hired a lawyer even worse than him to represent his interests.

Davis is only representing Cohen publicly. There are other lawyers handling the actual details. Davis is basically a PR guy.

Question for Wejo wrote:

Since when has driving from TX to NY been defined as ‘across the country’?

Yes, that is the main point that should be considered.

Trump keeps bringing up Hillary and her emails. Yet he does nothing about it.

As President, could he not direct Jeff Sessions to re-open the investigation?

My guess is that Sessions has told him there is no chance of getting a conviction and that re-opening might inflame the Democrats even more and cause electoral problems.

Frank Marshall Davis wrote:

This is an article by Mark Penn -- a Clintonista.

Nope . . . he is a centrist who has been discredited for his right-wing take on many subjects.

Reject socialist ideas—but protect workers! Protect workers—but stop regulating companies to death! Expand broadband and solve the opioid crisis—but never, never forget fiscal responsibility!

As usual back to 'but the Clintons,,,' But to answer the question men and women having relations with people they are not married too is not the issue - lying about it is - paying to cover it up is also an issue - continuing to lie about is an issue as well. So I will start your next response ' But Hillary approved the Uran.......'

Frank Marshall Davis wrote:

NewtotheSouthSide wrote:

. . .

#3 The difference between Trump and Bill Clinton is that Clinton was already in office and did not lie when his affair was discovered. . . .

"NewtotheSouthSide"-- How old are you? Do you really not know that Clinton's lie about Lewinsky is one of the most famous quotes of the nineties? Here it is since you missed it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBe_guezGGc

Also, isn't it worse that a sitting President had a relatively long relationship with a goofy intern than a goofy Billionaire playboy had trysts years before he became President?

Mark Penn . . . LOL wrote:

Frank Marshall Davis wrote:

This is an article by Mark Penn -- a Clintonista.

Nope . . . he is a centrist who has been discredited for his right-wing take on many subjects.

Reject socialist ideas—but protect workers! Protect workers—but stop regulating companies to death! Expand broadband and solve the opioid crisis—but never, never forget fiscal responsibility!

Stagwell Media LLC, the private-equity fund formed by Mark Penn, today will announce a minority stake in Targeted Victory, the Alexandria-based GOP digital agency headed by CEO Zac Moffatt. Targeted Victory leads digital marketing and fundraising programs for Speaker Ryan and the NRSC, and served the presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker and Rick Perry.

Luv2Run wrote:

Trump keeps bringing up Hillary and her emails.

So does Weldon.

Mueller is still digging.

We should all stick to running talk, because what we say isn't going to change what he does.