The Trump Card...
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It is not illegal to pay money to someone to keep something secret or to direct one's attorney to do so. In the Daniels case, Trump directed his attorney Cohen to pay money to Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about the affair she had with Trump. There is nothing illegal about that nondisclosure agreement in and of itself. It became a felony crime because it was done for the purpose of influencing an election. That purpose brought campaign finance laws into play and under those laws crimes were committed.
A parallel situation is the crime "possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony." Say a man has a permit to conceal and carry. It is legal for him to posses a pistol. If he went into a bank to cash a check or make a deposit or withdrawal from his account, it remains legal for him to posses the pistol.
But if he goes into a bank and passes a note to the teller saying this is a robbery and orders the teller to give him the money, possessing the gun becomes an illegal act because he possessed it during the commission of a felony. In that case, possessing the gun would be illegal even if he did not reference it in the note or display it to the teller. Simply having it on him while committing a bank robbery is a gun crime additional to the robbery.
Carrying a gun is OK in some contexts but illegal in others. Paying hush money is OK in some contexts but illegal in others.
In the Daniels case, the crime was not paying the hush money. The crime was violating campaign finance laws.
The affair happened in 2006.
The first reports of the affair between Trump and Daniels were published in October 2011 by the blog The Dirty and the magazine “Life & Style”.
Trump ran for President YEARS Later.
This is why Trump won the court case, and Stormy Daniels has to pay for his lawyers.
You can't even get two government entities to agree on what constitutes a campaign finance law violation. So this attempt at making a non disclosure agreement to a mistress a crime is laughable. For one, Trump is allowed to use whatever amount of money of his to himself pay or direct his lawyer to pay the mistress for silence. It happens all the time and is not a crime. It is used to save a person from public embarrassment or embarrassment/ wrath from a family member.
But let's just play along for a second and say that what Trump did was crime. They would have to show that he willfully and knowingly intended to break this campaign finance law that is filled with ambuguities. The prosecutors would also have to get into Trump's head and know that his reason for breaking the law wasn't to save himself or his family from public humiliation. I mean, good luck with that.
Trump, Cohen & Hush Money: President Had Lack of Criminal Intent | National Review
Let’s not forget, Michael Cohen set up the deal, paid with a check from “Michael Cohen”. In the FBI raid they found the check from “Michael Cohen”. Michael Cohen has admitted to giving the money to Stormy Daniels, and Stormy Daniels admitted to taking the money from Michael Cohen.
So, what’s the problem?
Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen make their employees sign a NDA.
If you believe Stormy Daniels was paid by Trump Campaign Contributions, let me go over the previous statements:
Michael Cohen set up the deal, paid with a check from “Michael Cohen”. In the FBI raid they found the check from “Michael Cohen”. Michael Cohen has admitted to giving the money to Stormy Daniels, and Stormy Daniels admitted to taking the money from Michael Cohen.
So, what’s the problem?
Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen make their employees sign a NDA.
If you believe Stormy Daniels was paid by Trump Campaign Contributions, let me go over the previous statements:
Michael Cohen set up the deal, paid with a check from “Michael Cohen”. In the FBI raid they found the check from “Michael Cohen”. Michael Cohen has admitted to giving the money to Stormy Daniels, and Stormy Daniels admitted to taking the money from Michael Cohen.
This is how insane this is. An affair that supposedly happened around 10 years ago comes to light by whom? Stormy Daniels.
Possibly extortion? So they pay the extortionist and the people that are in supposed legal jeopardy happen to be the ones being extorted and not the extortionist.
That's some straight up trippin backwards legal gymnastics.
Possibly extortion? So they pay the extortionist and the people that are in supposed legal jeopardy happen to be the ones being extorted and not the extortionist.
That's some straight up trippin backwards legal gymnastics.
I'm not interested in litigating the case in this forum. I prefer to watch the case itself proceed through the justice system and note the points made by the attorneys for each side and the rulings of the court when it gets that far. At present, regarding Trump himself, it is an item of profound significance that, having considered the evidence and the law, the SDNY prosecutors determined that Trump directed Cohen to commit campaign finance crimes. That implicates Trump.
Current Justice Department rules prevent the Justice Department from indicting Trump for these crimes because Trump is a sitting president. But the evidence has been gathered and the case has been developed. When impeachment proceedings begin, the matter will likely be picked up there. If not and if Trump loses the 2020 election, he will likely be indicted after he leaves office. If not, and if he wins reelection, the case will go away as the statute of limitations will run out while Trump is serving his second term.
No, that's merely the accusation. An accusation born of hopes and wishes while ignoring reality. Your concealed carry bank robbery analogy also ignores reality, since it is explicitly illegal to possess a firearm during the commission of a felony.
Campaign finance laws likewise explicitly state that in order to qualify as a campaign expenditure, the expenditure must be one that would have not been made if the candidate was not running for office.
If before Trump became a candidate and paid someone to keep quiet for reasons other than to influence an election, then the whole "for the purpose of influencing an election" argument goes right down the toilet.
You confuse me, Turtle. Yes it is illegal to posess a firearm during the commission of a felony. I made that very point, did I not?
I'm not a lawyer who is "learned in the law" and neither are you. But I have stayed in a Holiday Inn Express and I have served as the treasurer of various political campaigns and committees. In that service, I developed an understanding of campaign finance law that is above that of the average citizen. I'm not saying you're wrong in making the above point but I'm not going to agree that you are right either. I have never seen or heard that "in order to qualify as a campaign expenditure, the expenditure must be one that would have not been made if the candidate was not running for office."
Source please?
Please consider the following hypothetical example, variations of which are very common in political campaigns. The example illustrates why I am skeptical of your claim.
Ingrid Johnson is a real estate broker. Her firm operates out of an office that has desks and phones often seen in such firms. She makes monthly business expenditures for leased furniture, rent, supplies and telephone lines.
When she becomes a candidate for a public office and allows her campaign committee to use that space as its campaign headquarters and her volunteers to use the phone lines, campaign finance laws require her to report the value of those resources as a contribution in kind. If she does not, she is violates campaign finance law. The law also requires her to observe certain campaign contribution limits (vary depending on the public office being sought). If she accepts contributions in excess of those limits, she violates campaign finance law.
In Ingrid's case, the expenditure was not one that would have not been made if the candidate was not running for office. Ingrid makes that expenditure every month in the course of her real estate business, whether she is a candidate or not. But because she is a candidate, and because the resources are being used for the purposes of influencing an election, Ingrid is legally bound to report the value of the office space, phones and supplies as a campaign contribution.
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The above comments about the law are as far as I am going to go in the discussion. None of us know exactly what evidence the SDNY prosecutors have regarding Trump and the Daniels and McDougal payments. We do know from the Cohen sentencing document that they are confident enough to implicate Trump in two election law crimes. Since we are blind to the evidence the prosecutors have, discussing the details of the case in this fourm seems like a waste of time.
I wish ....
Unfortunately he isn't going to jail.
Nixon didn't go to jail neither will Trump.
Yeah, probably not.
I wish ....
Unfortunately he isn't going to jail.
Nixon didn't go to jail neither will Trump.
You did. But you argued that it was a parallel situation, when it is not
Carrying a gun when not committing a crime is legal, but when committing a crime is explicitly illegal.
Making payments to women to keep quite when not a candidate is legal, and remains legal if one continues to make the same kinds of payments as a candidate. Explicitly.
I must admit that as a treasurer for a political campaign, I'm surprised that you are not intimately familiar with the "irrespective test" the Federal Election Commission uses to determine the legality of campaign expenditures.
My source is the text of the statute, from the FEC:
Personal use - FEC.gov
The pertinent text of the law says that an expenditure is personal if it’s "any commitment, obligation, or expense of a person that would exist irrespective of the candidate’s election campaign."
The FEC does not ask, ‘Would it help a candidate to buy the silence of an old girlfriend?’ Rather it asks, ‘Would there be any other reason, other than the campaign, for this person to buy the silence of an old girlfriend?’ The answer here is yes, there are many reasons a man like Trump would want to buy the silence of old girlfriend. Then the FEC will look to see if similar expenditures have been made in the past. If so, then it's even more unlikely that payments to Daniels and others violated campaign finance laws.
I think it's important for people, Democrats in particular, to keep in mind is that the Mueller report is not a finding of fact. People have the attitude of, "Mueller is going to get to tie bottom of this." Well, no he's not That's not his job. His report will be an extremely one-sided prosecutorial docement full of one-sided allegations, innuendo and conclusions.
The rule you cite refers to campaign funds used in an improper way. That is not what happened in the Trump/Daniels and Trump/McDougal cases. Those are cases where funds from outside the campaign were used for the benefit of a campaign and not reported. An example of someone violating the personal use rule you cite would be a candidate who took a weekend mini vacation with one's spouse for strictly personal reasons and paid for it with funds from the campaign's bank account.