National Enquirer publisher says they paid off Playboy model Karen McDougal in concert with Trump’s presidential campaign

[ComfortablyNumb]

@Samm

@ComfortablyNumb

@Samm

He’s not going to jail for paying Stormy and the PB model to keep their mouths shut. And in fact, former FEC Chairman Bradley Smith says that such payments do NOT constitute campaign contributions, and therefore, do NOT constitute a violation of the law. That whole situation is really nothing more than a media sensation hyped all out of proportion to sell newspapers and damage Trump.

He is correct. The framing of the argument as you have done, would not equal the criminal conspiracy that places Trump at risk. But that’s the thing about false framing of arguments. Frame them in a fashion that sets up a straw-man, and it becomes easy to knock them down.

President Trump instead engaged in a criminal conspiracy, with shell companies, falsified book-keeping, and a discussed plan to withhold information from the public, so as to steal the election. No amount of false framing changes these alleged facts as offered by the Prosecutors in the southern district of New York.

The only questions that remain, are whether you believe President Trump, the man who always lies and has lied repeatedly about this issue? Or will you believe the career Prosecutors who have been appointed by President Trump, and have spent their entire adult lives upholding the rule of law.

Where do you stand, in the face of these undeniable facts?

I understand that those things have nothing to do with the OP topic.

These are the realities of these events. Ignoring them does you no favors.

[Jezcoe]

@Samm

@Jezcoe

@Samm

@Jezcoe

@Samm

@Jezcoe

Please try to stay on topic and not flail around trying to score internet points.

What are these internet points you speak of? Is that some sort of contest you liberals have come up with?

It is shorthand for calling out sophistry.

Well… I guess it is more letters than sophistry so it can’t be shorthand… hmmmmm.

Maybe lingo. Yeah… lingo. That’s it.

Never use one word when many words will do.

Very untrue.

^^^^^ says guy with the Theater degree and studied so much Shakespeare my brain leaked out of my ears ^^^^^

Hey, I was just agreeing with you. You going to argue about that too?

I am sorry. I in my quickness I misread what you wrote.

I sincerely apologize for my unnecessary snark.

Now… back to necessary snark

[lulubee]

@Samm

It is a bad thing, but it’s still not what Cohen is going to prison for, and it still isn’t necessarily a violation of campaign law. Just because Cohen said n his admission of guilt that the payments were to influence the election, does not change the fact that the law does not consider payments that likely would have been made irrespective of an election to be campaign contributions. A guy like Cohen will say anything the Prosecutor wants him to say, to reduce his sentence. Surely you must know that

Rudy, is that you?

[Plasmaball]

Ugh get a room

[Plasmaball]

Didnt pay attention to the midterms huh?
Good for you

[ImRightYoureWrong]

@TheDoctorIsIn

So you didn’t read the memo.

Color me unsurprised.

The man on the radio said it had nothing to do with trump and Russia

Even though a lot of the memos talked about trump, and their contributions to the Russia probe…and Moscow tower

[TheDoctorIsIn]

@Samm

Desperate appeals to authority? What on earth are you talking about?

“Bradley Smith said it wasn’t a violation”

@Samm

I read it. 36 months for tax fraud and lying on a loan application and another two months n the Special Prosecutor’s complaint of lying to Congress, to be served concurrently. No time added for campaign law violations.

I posted the sentencing memo in this thread already. Perhaps you should “reexamine” it, because this statement is factually incorrect.

@Samm

I did not make it up. The law defines expenditures for personal use, namely, any expense of a person that would exist irrespective of the candidate’s election campaign. Payments by a prominent married man to shut up a woman (or two) about an affair to avoid that exposure, while not spelled out specifically, certainly fall into that category. Particularly from a scumbag like Trump who has a history of paying people to drop legal and/or embarrassing issues.

That’s not what the law says.

Trump could claim that it was a personal expenditure, unrelated to the campaign as a defense - but that would be quite a hard sell, since the payoff:

1. Was made illegally through a shell company, paid with Trump Foundation money, and written off as “legal fees”.

2. Occurred a decade after the affair, 5 years after it was first revealed, and just happened to occur in the middle of his campaign for President.

3. Michael Cohen has testified that he was instructed to make the payoff because of the campaign.

[NebraskaFootball]

@TheDoctorIsIn

That’s not what the law says.

Trump could claim that it was a personal expenditure, unrelated to the campaign as a defense - but that would be quite a hard sell, since the payoff:

1. Was made illegally through a shell company, paid with Trump Foundation money, and written off as “legal fees”.
2. Occurred a decade after the affair, 5 years after it was first revealed, and just happened to occur in the middle of his campaign for President.
3. Michael Cohen has testified that he was instructed to make the payoff because of the campaign.

And AMI (Pecker) swears officially that they engaged in this criminal conspiracy with Cohen and Trump, with all three having full knowledge that what they were doing was illegal, and specifically was designed to impact the election results in Trump’s favor.

[TommyLucchese]

I swear this dude pays me for NSA sex than anyone in the universe.

Is that the biggest takeaway from this? Nah, but it’s pretty hilarious. Buying furniture and condos for them on the front end, and then paying hush money on the back end, just to sleep with some hot chicks when you’re super rich and a celebrity.

[CaughtInTheMiddle]

@TommyLucchese

I swear this dude pays me for NSA sex than anyone in the universe.

Is that the biggest takeaway from this? Nah, but it’s pretty hilarious. Buying furniture and condos for them on the front end, and then paying hush money on the back end, just to sleep with some hot chicks when you’re super rich and a celebrity.

He obviously has something personally embarrassing to hide.

[WorldWatcher]

@CaughtInTheMiddle

He obviously has something personally embarrassing to hide.

.>
.
.
Nah, it’s just a little thing.
.
.
.
.>>>>

[Samm]

@ComfortablyNumb

@Samm

@ComfortablyNumb

@Samm

He’s not going to jail for paying Stormy and the PB model to keep their mouths shut. And in fact, former FEC Chairman Bradley Smith says that such payments do NOT constitute campaign contributions, and therefore, do NOT constitute a violation of the law. That whole situation is really nothing more than a media sensation hyped all out of proportion to sell newspapers and damage Trump.

He is correct. The framing of the argument as you have done, would not equal the criminal conspiracy that places Trump at risk. But that’s the thing about false framing of arguments. Frame them in a fashion that sets up a straw-man, and it becomes easy to knock them down.

President Trump instead engaged in a criminal conspiracy, with shell companies, falsified book-keeping, and a discussed plan to withhold information from the public, so as to steal the election. No amount of false framing changes these alleged facts as offered by the Prosecutors in the southern district of New York.

The only questions that remain, are whether you believe President Trump, the man who always lies and has lied repeatedly about this issue? Or will you believe the career Prosecutors who have been appointed by President Trump, and have spent their entire adult lives upholding the rule of law.

Where do you stand, in the face of these undeniable facts?

I understand that those things have nothing to do with the OP topic.

These are the realities of these events. Ignoring them does you no favors.

I’m not ignoring them. I merely said they have nothing to do with the OP topic.

[Samm]

@lulubee

@Samm

It is a bad thing, but it’s still not what Cohen is going to prison for, and it still isn’t necessarily a violation of campaign law. Just because Cohen said n his admission of guilt that the payments were to influence the election, does not change the fact that the law does not consider payments that likely would have been made irrespective of an election to be campaign contributions. A guy like Cohen will say anything the Prosecutor wants him to say, to reduce his sentence. Surely you must know that

Rudy, is that you?

Was there anything specific on my post that you wished to comment on?

[Samm]

@TheDoctorIsIn

@Samm

Desperate appeals to authority? What on earth are you talking about?

“Bradley Smith said it wasn’t a violation”

@Samm

I read it. 36 months for tax fraud and lying on a loan application and another two months n the Special Prosecutor’s complaint of lying to Congress, to be served concurrently. No time added for campaign law violations.

I posted the sentencing memo in this thread already. Perhaps you should “reexamine” it, because this statement is factually incorrect.

@Samm

I did not make it up. The law defines expenditures for personal use, namely, any expense of a person that would exist irrespective of the candidate’s election campaign. Payments by a prominent married man to shut up a woman (or two) about an affair to avoid that exposure, while not spelled out specifically, certainly fall into that category. Particularly from a scumbag like Trump who has a history of paying people to drop legal and/or embarrassing issues.

That’s not what the law says.

Trump could claim that it was a personal expenditure, unrelated to the campaign as a defense - but that would be quite a hard sell, since the payoff:

1. Was made illegally through a shell company, paid with Trump Foundation money, and written off as “legal fees”.

2. Occurred a decade after the affair, 5 years after it was first revealed, and just happened to occur in the middle of his campaign for President.

3. Michael Cohen has testified that he was instructed to make the payoff because of the campaign.

Citing a credible source is not an appeal to authority.

—————

The sentence he received was as I stated.

—————

Yes the law does state that. It also defines personal use as I said. It does not matter whether that might be a hard sell in court or not, it is still a legitimate point of defense.

[TheDoctorIsIn]

@Samm

Citing a credible source is not an appeal to authority.

—————

The sentence he received was as I stated.

—————

Yes the law does state that. It also defines personal use as I said. It does not matter whether that might be a hard sell in court or not, it is still a legitimate point of defense.

I would not consider a famous anti-campaign finance law activist and spokesperson a “credible source” for criminal charges. That’s not the FEC’s job.

The sentencing memo spends 4 or 5 pages explaining exactly how the campaign finance violations are included in the sentencing formula.

The law does not define “personal use”. Feel free to provide a statute to prove me wrong.

[adroit]

@Samm

I read it. 36 months for tax fraud and lying on a loan application and another two months n the Special Prosecutor’s complaint of lying to Congress, to be served concurrently. No time added for campaign law violations.

You misread it.

Further, Mr. Cohen committed two campaign finance crimes on the eve of the 2016 presidential election with the intent to influence the outcome of that election. He made or facilitated payments to silence two women who threatened to go public with details of purported extramarital affairs, and Mr. Cohen admitted that he did so in coordination with and at the direction of Individual One.

…

There is an acute need for the sentence here to reflect the seriousness of the offenses and to promote respect for the law…Campaign finance violations threaten the fairness of the elections.

…

In fact, this Court firmly believes that a signifcant term of imprisonment is fully justified in this highly publicized case to send a message to those who contemplate avoiding their taxes, evading campaign finance laws or lying to financial institutions or Congress.

He got sentenced for 36 months for 18 CR 602, which includes the campaign finance violations.

[kingarthur65]

@Samm

I did not make it up. The law defines expenditures for personal use, namely, any expense of a person that would exist irrespective of the candidate’s election campaign. Payments by a prominent married man to shut up a woman (or two) about an affair to avoid that exposure, while not spelled out specifically, certainly fall into that category. Particularly from a scumbag like Trump who has a history of paying people to drop legal and/or embarrassing issues.

The problem with this statement is that there was a meeting that took place that defined how these women would be handled. This was a plan developed in a meeting with Cohen and Pecker to help define how Pecker could help the campaign. This was a meeting about Trump’s campaign specifically. Not his family.

“Pecker offered to help deal with negative stories about that presidential candidate’s relationships with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-12/american-media-in-non-prosecution-agreement-with-prosecutors

[DougBH]

They had him on tax fraud and bank fraud. If they wanted to get Trump, all they had to do was throw the finance campaign thing in there and tell Cohen to plead guilty to it if he didn’t want to do decades for his other frauds. He would have plead guilty to J walking if they had thrown that in there.

In any case, his guilty plea is not going to prove anything except in relation to himself. In crimes involving more than one party, you have all the time one party pleading guilty and another party contesting the charge in court.

The real question is if Congress decides that, even if this is illegal, it is worth a conviction and removing the President based on this FEC violation. That may wind up a political question.

[Guntsu]

This wont be enough for Senate Republicans to convict…it has exposed the president however and I personally feel this is just the start of the campaign finance fiasco.

But still not enough…no what’s going to push this over the edge is what’s to come…

[DougBH]

@Guntsu

This wont be enough for Senate Republicans to convict…it has exposed the president however and I personally feel this is just the start of the campaign finance fiasco.

But still not enough…no what’s going to push this over the edge is what’s to come…

If he is a proven or admitted tax cheat like Manafort and Cohen, that should do it.,