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

Wow. That was a classic Trump supporter post if I ever saw one: incoherent, nonsensical, high on emotion and low on facts, and hypocritically playing " the race card" (if he were white!!). But let's take a shot at it:

Um, care to be more specific? Ya know, I hate to just take your word for it and then imagine what you meant by "crap."

Some examples? I know he didn't keep every campaign promise, no candidate does. But Trump has told more lies than Pinocchio on on anti-truth serum. Including many broken campaign "promises". (whatever happened to his big, beautiful healthcare plan that would "cover everybody", "take care of everybody", push no one off of medicare/medicaid, and do it for a lot less $ ??? Yeah, right! And how are his plans to eliminate the trillion $ budget deficits/debt we have going??? The Wall ?? I could go on, and on and on)

Yeah, we've all "hear(d) of Putin." Care to elaborate on Obama's "ties" to him? (this oughta be entertaining)

Really? Obama "rip(ped) the white man" ?? Again, care to elaborate?

A) you have not actually listed any "things" the he did (just extremely vague , unsubstantiated accusations )

B) Nice use of the race card (that righties supposedly detest) - 'if he were WHITE he'd have been hanged! White people get treated so poorly!'

Trust me, right wing media was scrutinizing Obama every second of his presidency. Unfortunately for ya'll, ya couldn't jack $Hit on Squeaky Clean Obama.

Great post though!

Hani Saleem wrote:

Amen bother - the hypocrisy is thick with the GOP and the right currently and is only going to get worst.

We live in a time and more specifically a country where the majority party (GOP) simply claims 'Fake News' or ' Conspiracy' when things don't break their way.

Roles reverse and it was Barry in the situation - impeachment proceedings would have started months ago.

ayyyyyyyy wrote:

Imagine if President Obama was going through an ounce of this? The Republicans would not be singing the same tune and making excuses for it. Where are all of the evangelicals at with their morals? Cohen was directed by Trump to pay off two pornstars before the election so that it did not hurt his chances at winning. Disgraceful. He cheated on his wife multiple times and then had his lawyer pay them off.

Couldn't agree more.

The GOP would have impeached Barrak gladly on completely fabricated grounds, if they could've gotten away with it (they practically tried to do this with the whole birth certificate mess).

Let me throw out another hypothetical now.

Suppose Barrak actually had committed some crime, and the GOP were pushing for impeachment on legitimate grounds. (I know, I know, just bear with me for a minute.) if it were to happen, wouldn't there be a significant portion of the left/Dems to cry out something like "Fake News" too? Based on the way I witness even intelligent people consume information (sadly, have to admit, myself included sometimes), I have to believe there would be.

I hope this isn't misconstrued as veiled "whataboutism", so let me state again, the actions of the GOP and most republicans over the past 3 years are repulsive.

The point I hoped to convey in this hypothetical, rather, is that there are serious issues in our government and our mode of democracy that go far far deeper than the current batch of morons in power and the people who support them.

Because of those issues, things will get far worse in this country, politically, before they get better. I'm looking well beyond the current administration. I don't think things will get better in our lifetime.

Wejo,

Here are my opinions on all of this:

1) Cohen pleading guilty like that and pointing the finger at Trump is HUGE. The campaign finance violations that Cohen pleaded guilty to are FELONIES, and he has implicated Trump as directing him to do it, so that means when parsed out, Trump committed two felonies. If Trump were not President right now, he would be indicted for that alone.

2) Manafort being found guilty is also HUGE. Shows that Mueller's work is efficient.

3) Contrary to what another poster on this thread said, Cohen's lawyer Lanny Davis is providing Cohen with excellent counsel. Whether it is just manufactured or not, Cohen has become much more sympathetic of a character than he was before. Him stating that he wants to come clean for his family and the good of the country makes him seem more likable, and him quoting his father who said (paraphrased), "I survived the Concentration Camps in world war II, and I didn't do that to hear Donald Trump sully my name" just adds to it. Davis is counseling Cohen to be 100% truthful (which basically is him cooperating), and that will likely encourage the sentencing to be less than it would have been (closer to 3 years in prison vs. 5).

4) David Pecker getting immunity is HUGE.

5) TODAY, Weisselberg was granted immunity. Also HUGE. They don't give immunity unless they have valuable information. Who does Weisselberg have valuable information on? Trump.

6) Mueller and the SDNY are in the process of making iron clad cases against Trump. The immunities are for corroboration.

7) Trump is going to have to resign. If he doesn't, he will be impeached, and the Senate will convict him. Mueller's report is going to be so scathing that they will have to do it.

Will be discovered that Trump committed these crimes:

Obstruction of Justice

Money Laundering

Conspiracy with Russia to Defraud the United States of America

Bank fraud and/or wire fraud or conspiracy to commit both or either

FELONY Campaign Finance violation

Emoluments Clause violation

Computer hacking of some sort

Likely other things

Trump is SO criminal that he is pushing the DOJ to consider indicting him while still in office. I don't think it will, but it's not off the table. Of course he could still be indicted after he is out of office.

My best guess is that he resigns and as part of a plea bargain and eventual pardon, he will escape prison. That's a shame because he's a traitor to our country and a serial liar and a criminal of mob proportions.

In any event, he will NOT be able to finish this term.

Mueller is coming for him.

The Orange One is done.

What happened to Mollie Tibbetts and what’s happening in the NFL has nothing to do with the crimes committed by Manafort, Cohen and potentially the President. Referencing those things as part of a defense of Trump’s actions related to the Manafort and Cohen cases—-which are mostly unrelated to another as well (except in the possibility that both situations my implicate the president) is nonsensical.

What it does show is the fascist thinking of a portion of our citizenry that any misdeed of the president is a lesser offense than the things that may or may not be taking place in the country that threaten the white-patriarchy that has been a traditional underpinning of our country since it’s inception.

And to piggy back on this post...

Wejo, I think your understanding of the Steele Dossier is a bit cloudy due to poor reporting and partisianship. The dossier was an 'intelligence' report and Steele, himself, claimed that it was probably 70-80% accurate. He was gathering intelligence knowing some of the information would likely prove to be untrue. By the way, which parts of his report have been proven to be false? And the Cohen/Prague meeting could have very likely taken place somewhere else in Europe. Time will tell.

Also, there is nothing illegal about a campaign paying for opposition research. Both sides do it all the time. However, it is illegal to work with a foreign country to influence an election, as Trump is accused of doing. Arguably, treasonous.

Steele went to the press because he was so alarmed by his findings. Officials in the US took it serious, but were hesitant to act until more could be verified so as to not be accused of negatively influencing the election. And they didn't want to compromise an ongoing investigation. Speaking of which, the investigation into Trump/Russia started long before the release of the Steele Dossier.

To those that keep complaining about how long the investigation is taking, it is actually moving quite quickly. Complicated criminal cases are never short and tidy. And if you think this isn't leading to many more indictments, you're incredibly naive.

As someone else posted, Trump will go down in infamy as one of the worst Americans ever. Those continuing to defend him will find themselves on the wrong side of history.

I disagree. Liberals are smarter than conservatives, having learned to apply critical thinking skills, as a rule and have a much stronger sense of morality. For example, if Mueller finds dirty Democrats in his dragnet, liberals want them all taken out too. Why is wejo listening to Rush Limbaugh? I would expect that from rojo, but I thought he was better than that.

Ragu wrote:

Let me throw out another hypothetical now.

Suppose Barrak actually had committed some crime, and the GOP were pushing for impeachment on legitimate grounds. (I know, I know, just bear with me for a minute.) if it were to happen, wouldn't there be a significant portion of the left/Dems to cry out something like "Fake News" too? Based on the way I witness even intelligent people consume information (sadly, have to admit, myself included sometimes), I have to believe there would be.

Goucher Needles wrote:

What happened to Mollie Tibbetts and what’s happening in the NFL has nothing to do with the crimes committed by Manafort, Cohen and potentially the President. Referencing those things as part of a defense of Trump’s actions related to the Manafort and Cohen cases—-which are mostly unrelated to another as well (except in the possibility that both situations my implicate the president) is nonsensical.

What it does show is the fascist thinking of a portion of our citizenry that any misdeed of the president is a lesser offense than the things that may or may not be taking place in the country that threaten the white-patriarchy that has been a traditional underpinning of our country since it’s inception.

+2!

Let's talk about "Lyin' Comey" for a moment. Here is what he is known for:

-Not going after HRC after determining what she did with private servers was negligent, but not criminal. Recall that people like Colin Powell had kept private servers in the past, too.

-In the days immediately before the election said that there were additional emails between HRC and Weiner that needed to be reviewed.

-Was fired by Trump on the face of it for being disliked by both Democrats and Republicans alike.

Basically Trump in his own words said that Comey was apolitical like his job description asked him to be and then fired him for this. Makes no sense, right? Of course none of us latch onto that because we all know it's not the real reason Trump fired him. Liberal or conservative we all know Trump fired Comey because he wouldn't swear loyalty to Trump.

Which is ironic really because when Comey came to Trump about all the accusations and the dossier it was to set straight what the facts were and what the CIA/FBI needed to know about their president. The DOJ was concerned about Russia trying to blackmail the president, which meant they would need to ensure that did not happen. Trump, being the genius he is, immediately became defensive against the accusations, which leads us to the awkward moment when he can neither admit nor refute to Comey that he hired people to do a golden shower in a Russian hotel room formerly used by Obama. Perhaps the best part of this is Comey recalling that with his wife there wouldn't be any debate when this news surfaced; his own wife would know it was bullsh--. But here's Trump telling Comey that Melania might find the story totally believable either way, so it needs to not be talked about. And really that's every person who voted for Trump -- they knew precisely who this guy is that they might be voting for, but they did it anyway.

Probably because they didn't like HRC. Why? Let's throw out that she's unlikable just because she's a woman or old or boring. Let's try to tackle her issues and I will be completely fair as a person who has looked into her very thoroughly.

-Whitewater and early years as a lawyer: HRC was involved in a fraction of the kinds of real estate or business deals that Trump has been involved in and she comes out of them squeaky clean except for maybe one borderline conflict of interest. And the only truly alarming thing to come out of this whole investigation is that her law firm "lost" the records of how she billed her hours as a lawyer. Anyone who works for a firm or bills hours knows that accounting for billable hours is like the #1 most important thing to your business, so I don't buy that they magically "lost" her billed hours. Somebody hid or destroyed that. Likely it would have shown that she could have had a conflict of interest on one business deal.

-Benghazi: Conservatives are mad that she didn't take the threat more seriously and fortify the place and that in the aftermath there were mixed signals about who was responsible for the attack. This isn't fair against HRC. Every high ranking Secretary of State or commander could be held responsible for failing to prevent an attack or not immediately understand the nature of the attack. It's impossible to perfectly fortify every place against all hypothetical threats and it's not realistic to understand every attack in the days following one. Every president and general loses people. Picking out HRC for an attack on diplomats is a stretch.

-Uranium One: This is one of the best ways to tell if you are drinking the Kool-Aid. The claim here is that HRC approved a sale of U.S. uranium to the Russians. Except if you look at all the data objectively you can't come to any conclusions other than: 1) that HRC wasn't even the person who approved it even though it fell under her purview, 2) the U.S. assets had already been sold away to an intermediary previously, 3) none of this assets were uranium, and 4) the DOJ did an internal investigation to check it all out prior to the sale going through. Buying into this requires you to believe HRC was personally involved in the deal, that it was approved by a Deep State, that there was usable uranium, that the U.S. facilitated a merger first to make it possible, and that Obama administration was okay with giving uranium to the Russians. None of this describes the Obama administration, yet Breitbart and Fox News wants to tell you the story arc (with none of the details) enough to make you think it could have been the Obama administration. Nope. This is the administration Putin loathed because they did nothing for the Russians. But I'm a fair guy and I will point out to you that the former owners of the uranium companies long after selling their assets prior to the Uranium One deal did in fact make a campaign contribution to HRC. If you think CEOs making contributions to politicians is unusual, surely you have never heard of the Koch brothers or Elon Musk.

-Private server: I already brought this up, but it's worth making a bullet point. Colin Powell and other cabinet members had previously done this. It's entirely possible the staff she inherited set it up for her instantly, that it was already the way of business, or that previous cabinet members specifically recommended she have a private server. It was a way of doing business that violated policy, but now law, and it happened regularly until for political reasons the right wingers made it a political agenda. Those on the left did not make this a talking point during the Bush years or prior to that. The tiniest bit of research shows that this was common, but if you eat conservative cable news from a spoon it's easy to see how you might think HRC is the only person who did it or that maybe it was illegal (was not).

What are the other things being propagated by Limbaugh and repeated by Wejo? We could go through them one at a time.

The reason hypocrisy comes up is because much worse than this has been claimed against Trump for years, yet so many voters didn't seem to care. His unfair business practices were a way of life and he was the target of numerous lawsuits, many of which were successful against him. The great hilarity of it is that there are so many that it all becomes white noise if you try to use just one of them against him.

Man, you need to quit listening to Right Wing radio.

This is probably the only time I've seen the Trump administration summed up in a way that doesn't sound like it was written by an illiterate raving lunatic. I totally disagree with everything he's done and I disagree with half the things you've written and you've obviously left out all of the counter-arguments, but I think for the first time I begin to understand how he could possibly have a 90% approval rating among conservatives.

With regards to the football stuff -- the whole point is that these players disagree with what the anthem stands for, the moment of silence doesn't address that. I don't like hearing the anthem, I don't like standing for it, I don't like putting my hand over my heart and never do and never sing it. And I'm a white dude. I actually personally don't mind it when it's played for the winner at the Olympics because in that case it represents the team that won.

Can you address how conservatives justify all the lying? Do they just believe the lies, do they figure it's just politics as usual, or do they figure it's ok that he lies as long as he's lying for them?

There is some good commentary on this thread.

My take:

"Witch hunt" - Crime is crime. Imagine a police officer chases a robber. When he catches the thief and takes him to jail, they find a bank statement in his wallet with frequent unusually large sums of money flowing through. Further investigation reveals he is part of a child pornography ring. According the "witch hunt, overstepping their bounds" argument applied to Mueller by Trump supporters, they should not be allowed to prosecute him for child pornography.

In an investigation like this the first thing is to follow the money. The money has uncovered crimes of financial fraud and illegal activity with foreign governments. WE have not seen the direct link to Trump yet, but Mueller is a professional and is only releasing information when crimes are clear (there may or may not be any more).

"Fake News" - This is the war cry of people who don't want to hear all sides. People who use this phrase do not believe in freedom of speech.

But.... Clinton!?!?! She was cleared by investigations (Republicans involved). Time to move on to making sure that those who are in power are not abusing it.

But ask yourself this and answer honestly: If H. Clinton had won and her Campain manager was convicted of fraud and being an unregistered agent of a foreign government, Lawyer of 10 years implicates her in a crime and pleads guilty himself, multiple advisors including her National Security Advisor plead guilty for lying to the FBI to shield her from scrutiny about meetings to get dirt on Trump from Russia... Deep breath. Would you want her convicted of a crime even if so far nothing was directly linked to her?

The real Deep State - Oligarchy ruling Washington with money from Corporations, by the rich for the rich. They don't believe the law applies to them and they are actually making that true in Washington. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue.

Actually, I take it back. Most of these arguments are premised on the idea that these people are short sighted myopic idiots. I just find that difficult to believe. Most people are pretty smart. I can't believe that 50% of the country has been duped into thinking that the MSM is more biased than Fox News, or that it doesn't matter if we give massive tax cuts to the wealthy as long as we give tiny tax cuts to the little guy, or that they all think illegal immigration is some moral wrong. Hell, in 1980 Reagan and Bush (from TEXAS) both argued for kinder immigration policies.

Sorry, I think the arguments you gave are solidly within the realm of broadcast propaganda, but I find it very hard to believe it's actually what people think.

I'm kind of curious what percent of the population would switch parties on the basis of abortion alone.

Not agreeing with you wrote:...Why is wejo listening to Rush Limbaugh? I would expect that from rojo, but I thought he was better than that. .....

[/quote]

Because he has the abuity to listen to both sides, to empathize, and to not be told what to think by either political party.

This Trump-Russian thing has turned into gigantic conspiracy theory.

Can someone please give the end goal of such a conspiracy?

Bad Wigins wrote:

Avocado's Number wrote:

I will simply point out that your interpretation of the law is completely wrong, and has been repeatedly rejected by federal appellate courts ...

where the burden of proof is on the appellant. All you're "pointing out" is the appellate courts have declined to stop the DOJ from circumventing the process. They let prosecutors get away with malpractice all the time.

There is no "burden of proof" in an appellate court. Rather, there is an appellate standard of review, which, in all of the cases that have ruled on this issue, was "de novo." It's Latin. Look it up.

I've enjoyed the opportunity to teach you a bit about the law, and I hope you've learned a few things. I'm heading out for a run.

The truth is Merrick Garland would not have gotten anywhere near enough votes to be confirmed onto the Supreme Court.

FFF wrote:

Man, you need to quit listening to Right Wing radio.

Man you need to quit listening to MSNBC.

Can you smell the fear sprouting from your not so fearless leader, right wingers? If Cohen, Manafort both fully cooperate, your guy will most likely resign. Mueller only needs to threaten the 290 lbs. fella with the arrest of Donald J Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner. The 70 plus fat man will then resign, guaranteed.

Mueller is winning the battle of PsychOps wrote:

Can you smell the fear sprouting from your not so fearless leader, right wingers? If Cohen, Manafort both fully cooperate, your guy will most likely resign. Mueller only needs to threaten the 290 lbs. fella with the arrest of Donald J Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner. The 70 plus fat man will then resign, guaranteed.

Disagree. Trump would let his son and certainly his son-in-law take the fall. It a heartbeat. On the other hand, Ivanka might be a different story.