If Kavanaugh is confirmed there may not even be an investigation. He’s on record saying that even being investigated, much less indicted, might distract the President from his duties and is probably unconstitutional. You know the other conservative Justices would follow along.
1 Like
Others have already done an admirable job of focusing on the relevant issue but if you want a bit more detail, the actual complaint to the FEC is here and sets out all the allegations as they were understood at the time the complaint was laid:
The bottom line is basically if the payment was made ‘for the purpose of influencing the election’, then one way or the other there’s been a (number of) campaign finance violation(s).
Whether the money came from Cohen or Trump or the campaign or a Trump business, it needed to be disclosed. It wasn’t.
If it didn’t come from Trump’s ‘personal funds’ (which has a fairly wide definition), it was in excess of the contribution limits as well.
The definition of personal funds in my view does not stretch so far as “payments made by a third party for the benefit of the candidate in the expectation that they would be repaid by the candidate at some unspecified point in the future”.
Especially since loans to the candidate for the purposes of influencing an election (which is essentially what this would be) are specifically required to be treated as contributions by the lender to the campaign rather than the candidate’s personal funds.
The FEC has a handy page dealing with the rules about candidate’s personal funds:
Now whether any of this makes a blind bit of difference to anyone (other than allowing for a large degree of schadenfreude) is another question.
As best I can work out the penalty for these kinds of campaign finance violations is either a fine or up to 5 years in prison. Presumably those penalties could theoretically be applied for each separate violation of the rules.
Is it realistic that this would end up with “the candidate” in prison?
I don’t think so, not in a million years. Large fines - sure. I imagine that would be enough to have Trump screaming in rage on Twitter but will it remove him from office or put him in jail - no way.
So, I think you’re right even if for the wrong reason - those droids are somewhere else.
4 Likes
In my opinion, the salient point is intentionality. Cohen and Trump both knew that keeping damaging information about Trump’s dalliances from getting out was critical to the campaign so close to the election and actively conspired to shuffle the payments around to make it appear that it wasn’t coming from Trump directly. Why else discuss the 3rd party arrangements with David Pecker at National Enquirer and whether to setup a shell corporation?
These actions show intentionality and willful disregard for the law that pushes the transgression from casual “I didn’t know” misdemeanor to “I knew what I was doing was wrong” felony. With corroborating testimony from Cohen and documentary evidence such as more audio tapes it would be an easy thing for prosecutors to prove.
Cohen admitted guilt with no cooperation agreement which means he’s not being promised any special treatment or leniency. He seems to be experiencing a true John Dean moment here and while he’s no hero in my book, I applaud his apparent sincerity to expose Trump’s criminality.
I agree with you though that Trump will not face any serious repercussions from this unless and until he is impeached and removed from office. No way the current Congress will support indicting a sitting President so we’ll have to wait to see how this plays out after the midterms.
Edit: It now comes out that Pecker was offered immunity and testified that Trump knew about the payments. There goes Trump’s plausible deniability. The noose is tightening.
3 Likes
That, and the bank fraud that Cohen committed in the process. Due to the conspiracy aspect, that felony sticks to everyone who had a part in the planning of the crime.
6 Likes
I agree entirely that it seems well established that Trump, Cohen, etc. knew perfectly well this was in breach of campaign finance rules.
I also agree that there won’t be any ‘serious repercussions’ unless Trump is impeached or otherwise comes to the end of his time in office and that the current Congress is not going to impeach him.
I suspect that as long as Trump’s people can play the line of “He was just making a pay-off to a stripper/porn actress, like we all would if only we were rich and virile enough to be able to get porn stars/strippers to sleep with us, amirite? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, etc. Hey even that #MeToo actress did it…” together with “Of course, if he had disclosed the payment it would have completely defeated the purpose of the NDA and Crooked Hilary might have got in, declared martial law and taken away all your guns!!!”, he’ll be fine.
Without the hyperbole: frame it as a technical infraction of the rules in circumstances that any redblooded American can understand the need to make a payment without your wife finding out.
I’ve already heard that line being trotted out on the radio over here in the UK and I suspect that’s the same in the US?
I doubt very much that any Congress that can reasonably be expected in the near future would impeach and if they did, there won’t be enough votes to convict.
My main cavet to that would be: As long as Trump keeps his mouth shut.
Everytime he goes to a rally, does an interview or looks at his phone, he seems to say something else that makes his position worse and flatly contradicts whatever his PR flacks and lawyers are trying to do.
So, he might yet get impeached but if he does, I think it will only be because he so actively screams about not being impeached that he effectively Br’er Rabbits people in Congress into doing it.
Are the bank fraud charges connected to the campaign finance stuff? I can’t really find much detail on those apart from stuff indicating that the bank fraud related to loans taken out by Cohen’s family taxi businesses.
3 Likes
The reporting of the Stormy Daniels hush money payment included the detail that Cohen paid the $130k using a bank loan. One of the charges that he copped to is making false statements to get a loan. So it may have nominally been related to the taxi business, but some or all of the loan was used as hush money instead. That makes it very much related to the campaign finance stuff.
6 Likes
Thank you!
I have now managed to track down the documents themselves.
They’re here
courtesy of the (#failing 
) NY Times if anyone’s interested and hasn’t already seen them:
3 Likes
Whoops…
6 Likes
Man, that’s gotta be getting sand in trump’s vagina.
1 Like
Yeah, it looks like it was the April 2016 loan of $500k that would tie into the hush payments to SD and KM.
1 Like
IANAL, but I understand that there is a tax issue in which the Trump organization reimbursed Cohen, but reported the expense as “legal fees” so as to able to write it off as business expense. The IRS really hates being lied to. As to whether this directly implicates Trump personally is debatable, but certainly brings his organization into the mix.
2 Likes
I think the facts as known so far certainly confirm that Trump is a sketchy NY real estate guy.
The FEC has a pretty strong history of fining political campaigns for unauthorized transactions. Obama’s campaign got hit pretty good, Clinton and Bush as well. None of those people are rotting in Federal Prison. They paid the fines, and moved on.
This seems like wishful thinking. Every time someone accuses Trump of something, no matter how tenuous the evidence, it becomes like the lost boys trying to resurrect Tinkerbell. “I do believe in impeachment, I do, I do!”
It may be that the repaeated calls for impeachment over every little thing might impede the ability to peruse justice when a real crime is uncovered.
Honestly, “payoffs to porn stars” does seem like an essential business expense if your business is being a mobbed-up ex-real estate mogul staying afloat by capitalizing on the value of your douchey, locker-room-bully personality.
3 Likes
Looks like a nailed on tax fraud to me. Everything else looks unlikely to stick.
1 Like
I could spin it. Doesnt seem any less silly than claiming a corporate jet or yacht as an legitimate expense, but I will admit I have unconventional views. I happen to think Tesla is a fraud too.
2 Likes
Simple typo. They meant to write “ILLEGAL fees.”
4 Likes
Does sketchy translate to felonious?
Looking forward to Trump not being able to vote for himself in the next election.
7 Likes
There’s a saying about “the straw that broke the camel’s back” that applies here, IMO. This pustulent, vomit filled, hate monger who doesn’t know how to color an American flag needs to be put in jail, along with the rest of his corrupt family and cronies.
3 Likes
Not yet, as far as I can tell.
I have to assume that there are battalions of people who work full time combing through every available piece of literature or recorded media on Trump, looking for incriminating or embarassing details.
I am personally surprised at how little has been discovered. He is not a man known for keeping his views private.
Do you advocate jailing the children?
That seems like a pretty coarse comment to make.
