When Trump lawyer/crony/fixer/slimeball Michael Cohen was first arrested, multiple lawyers, legal experts and commentators who principles and integrity had not been melted by “the resistance” pointed out that paying hush money to a an old sexual partner threatening disclosure couldn’t possibly be an election law violation. Oh, details, schmetails: the point is to get Trump; what does the law have to do with it? After all, Representative Al Green, who has entered an impeachment resolution twice already, now says his next try will be based on “bigotry.” Hey, most Democrats in the new House would probably vote for impeachment based on “covfefe.”
Sure enough, when Cohen, trying to save his own neck, was bullied into pleading guilty to a non-crime, the media and social media hills were alive with the sounds of impeachment. The celebrants, however, are just wrong. Cohen’s plea shows a cowardly, disgraceful unethical lawyer; it shows that his lawyer, Lanny Davis, may be more interested in getting Trump than representing Cohen; it shows that the prosecutors in the case are unethical, and that the judge should not have accepted a plea to something that was not and cannot be a crime. It does not show that the President violated the federal election laws.
Attorney Bradley Smith, a former head of the FEC, explains why clearly, concisely, and decisively, here.
Of course, all the logic, facts and law in the world won’t put a dent in Stage 4 Trump hate. (To be fair, the news media and pundits aren’t helping them any by refusing to cover the issues and law straight.) But at least you will have given them a chance. It is Christmas time, after all.
Ethics Alarms 
How can he plead guilty to a non-crime? Isn’t that impossible? And if the candidate used campaign funds to pay hush money, isn’t that a campaign finance law violation? Isn’t that a crime? Real questions. I don’t know the details of these laws and it’s not being covered/I’m not watching in a way that gets me these answers…
Trump used his own money to reimburse Cohen.
No one, not even the prosecutors, claimed campaign funds were used….
1) Prosecutors sometimes (often) overcharge to get leverage in plea-bargaining. The prosecutors may have a sincere belief that this was a crime, or they may not: you’d have to prove it to discipline them, and prosecutors are almost never disciplined. If you can charge someone who’s not guilty (see: Sonny Gray case) you can charge someone with a non-crime. Obviously Cohen doesn’t know: he’s an idiot. So they say, “Plead to this crime we want to nail Trump on, and we’ll go easy on you.”
2) Read the linked article. Short version: an expenditure you would have made anyway for personal reasons does not become an election expenditure just because it might help in the election. The example, and it’s perfect, would be if Trump settled a bunch of law suits before running, knowing that they would just be a burden in the campaign. Those are still personal expenditures, meaning also that he couldn’t use campaign funds to settle them.
Did you read the linked article? Not a crime, unless you’re pursuing Donald Trump. Civil fines could happen. Obama was fined for campaign finance irregularities in far higher amounts. Bill Clinton illegally raised funds from foreign sources. He was not legally imperiled by them.
Settling with people out of court is not illegal. Therefore Cohen did not commit a crime.
Since the goal is create the optics of a Trumpian crime, Cohen was bullied into pleading “guilty” on his actions for Trump in order to diminish punishments for his own real crimes.
Are we a nation of equally applied laws or a banana republic?
Bananas, all I see are bananas. Democrats commit felonies while their enemies have made up crimes foisted upon them.
Cohen’s problem is the time and expense of fighting the charges. I know first hand if you’re accused of something you’re not guilty of, it costs (it costs a lot) to defend yourself. Plus he has the added terror of Mueller and his gang going after his family and/or friends. In California there’s a 92% conviction rate if you’re charged with a felony. If you plead guilty to a lesser charge it’s still a conviction. In my case they offered me a reduction of 8 Felony charges to one misdemeanor if I’d plead guilty. I did not because I wasn’t, and won my case in a 5 day jury trial. It cost me over $138,000 to defend myself. The system is really, really corrupt. Also, the local newspapers who blew the initial story wide open, refused to print one word of the “innocent” verdict, at the District Attorney’s recommendation I’m sure. This was a “white collar crime” just after the Bernie Madoff fiasco. I guess they were trying to set an example.
Rumor has it they threatened Cohen’s son.
Makes me sick.
So, what we have is a vendetta against a lawyer who is ignorant of the law in order to ‘get’ Trump. Smells a lot like blackmail, to me.
Were you sued?
No. I had no warning. They never talked to me, just issued a warrant for my arrest. I had to post $50,000 Bail. It’s my understanding a suit is a civil thing that costs the plaintiffs money because they generally have to hire an attorney. All they had to do was go to the District Attorney with a complaint and it cost them nothing. This involved sale of a security, which it was not. It was easily proven. Innocent until proven guilty is a crock. Sour grapes? You bet.
Here is the kind of post where I miss our self-exiled knee-jerk “resistance” types.
I want to read how they try to insist that this is a high crime, even though they have no idea what the law is, how it has worked, how prosecutors work or anything else. They wanted to impeach Trump before he took office, so this is confirmation bias on steroids. It’s not that I enjoy having dumb arguments with self-righteous doctrinaire people who were once as rational as you or I. It’s that without their delusions passionate argued, the discussion doesn’t reflect the real world.
It seems to me that paying someone to remain quiet is preventing people from being influenced one way or another. To influence a third party you must communicate some form of information to that that party. Do the existing members of the House and Senate want every utterance they make public. Redactions are prima facie evidence that they do not want everything said or done known because that information may influence one or more persons electability.
Theoretically, the continual barrage of anti-Trump media pundits leading up to the election seems to be more influential than hush money. What value did his oppostion recieve in the form of uncritical reporting? If keeping things out of the news is influencing public opinion them it stands to reason the MSM committed felony campaign violations as well.
1) Mueller was supposed to be investigating “Russian collusion”.
2) That he’s finding all manner of other suspicious behavior is moral luck.
3) Those justifying the vicarious discovery of these behaviors are simultaneously justifying never-ending investigations into the lives of citizens.
4) Our byzantine law code guarantees that ALL of us are lawbreakers in some aspect at some point in our lives, often times 100% inadvertently.
5) Similarly, much our behavior could easily be construed as law breaking by creative prosecutors.
6) Do we WANT a society in which every aspect of an individual’s life is pried into under the cover of an open ended investigation?
Good God could you imagine…
Even the self-exiled Chris wouldn’t want an investigator with a vendetta and mission to FIND SOMETHING let loose on his own life with a blank check.
Well put. I would like to add that some of the charges, specifically lying to the FBI for which Flynn was bankrupted, would never had occured but for the investigation of Russian collusion for which no one has been indicted.
I believe Flynn’s sentencing recommendation of no time or consequence was to keep the investigators from exposing themselves as bad actors in court. Flynn was given a choice between freedom or total bankruptcy so they could claim a conviction. I believe we should demand a financial accounting of what was spent on prosecuting Flynn.
Flynn should be able to sue… somebody… in order to be made whole.
What was done to him is the worst of banana republic behavior.
I believe until the full force of Government is unleashed upon progressives, with examples placed in prison ala’ Scooter Libby, that this will continue.
I hate tit-for-tat, but nothing else will work. The progressives have weaponized our justice system for political gain, effectively criminalizing association and political opinion.
What else will make this stop?
Let us read this post from Maraxus.
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?p=3857818#p3857818
We have people like “Maraxus” extolling criminal prosecution as an acceptable political tactic.
There is no room to complain about Russian “interference” or paying off mistresses, not after we have people like “Maraxus” who say that ‘whether or not justice is served against him” is not so important in regards to a criminal prosecution, but the fact that [Tom DeLay] no longer holds office.