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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 24, 2018 10:57:54 GMT -6
Trumps CFO has been granted immunity. Because he has so much info concerning Russia? Allen Weisselberg, President Trump’s longtime financial gatekeeper, was granted immunity by federal prosecutors for providing information about Michael Cohen in the criminal investigation into hush-money payments for two women during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Weisselberg, who is chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, was called to testify before a federal grand jury in the investigation earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal previously reported, citing people familiar with the investigation. He then spoke to investigators, though it isn’t clear whether he appeared before the grand jury. The decision by prosecutors in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office to grant immunity to Mr. Weisselberg escalates the pressure on Mr. Trump, whom Mr. Weisselberg has served for decades as executive vice president as well as CFO for the Trump Organization. After Mr. Trump was elected, he handed control of his financial assets and business interests to his two adult sons and Mr. Weisselberg. |
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Post by NN on Aug 24, 2018 11:07:12 GMT -6
Why would Trump need Sessions to release the dossier? Can't the president declassify anything he wants? |
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Post by kcrufnek on Aug 24, 2018 11:09:28 GMT -6
www.wsj.com/articles/allen-weisselberg-longtime-trump-organization-cfo-is-granted-immunity-by-federal-prosecutors-in-michael-cohen-investigation-1535121992Allen Weisselberg, President Trump’s longtime financial gatekeeper, was granted immunity by federal prosecutors for providing information about Michael Cohen in the criminal investigation into hush-money payments for two women during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Weisselberg, who is chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, was called to testify before a federal grand jury in the investigation earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal previously reported, citing people familiar with the investigation. He then spoke to investigators, though it isn’t clear whether he appeared before the grand jury. The decision by prosecutors in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office to grant immunity to Mr. Weisselberg escalates the pressure on Mr. Trump, whom Mr. Weisselberg has served for decades as executive vice president as well as CFO for the Trump Organization. After Mr. Trump was elected, he handed control of his financial assets and business interests to his two adult sons and Mr. Weisselberg. So I wonder what sort of thumbscrews they used on him? At this rate the witness list could be endless. Maybe Trump's dry cleaner? Maybe Trump saiud something while under the gas at the dentist? |
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Post by NN on Aug 24, 2018 11:13:25 GMT -6
So who faces charges first, Trump or Hillary?
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Post by okirishfan on Aug 24, 2018 11:18:45 GMT -6
So who faces charges first, Trump or Hillary? Well if Hillary was charged as a result of anything found in this investigation, rest assured THAT part of it would be deemed valid by a certain segment of the population. |
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 24, 2018 11:27:51 GMT -6
www.wsj.com/articles/allen-weisselberg-longtime-trump-organization-cfo-is-granted-immunity-by-federal-prosecutors-in-michael-cohen-investigation-1535121992Allen Weisselberg, President Trump’s longtime financial gatekeeper, was granted immunity by federal prosecutors for providing information about Michael Cohen in the criminal investigation into hush-money payments for two women during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Weisselberg, who is chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, was called to testify before a federal grand jury in the investigation earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal previously reported, citing people familiar with the investigation. He then spoke to investigators, though it isn’t clear whether he appeared before the grand jury. The decision by prosecutors in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office to grant immunity to Mr. Weisselberg escalates the pressure on Mr. Trump, whom Mr. Weisselberg has served for decades as executive vice president as well as CFO for the Trump Organization. After Mr. Trump was elected, he handed control of his financial assets and business interests to his two adult sons and Mr. Weisselberg. So I wonder what sort of thumbscrews they used on him? At this rate the witness list could be endless. Maybe Trump's dry cleaner? Maybe Trump saiud something while under the gas at the dentist? Possible, let’s not forget Mueller has interviewed the Manhattan Madam & Russian pop singer, etc. |
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Post by Boots on Aug 24, 2018 11:29:17 GMT -6
1. He gets immunity for information he has on Cohen. Nothing to do with Trump or Murller would still have the case.
2. That's an interesting question. States generally can do whatever they want but courts have stopped them from seeking to enforce what is strictly federal law. Many laws overlap and have federal and state laws such as elections. If we are talking about that issue in particular, it was a federal election. That means federal law. It also means if a state is fired up about it, its political and they dont have shit. 3. Watergate threw the nation into a downward spiral. The stupid ass GOP spent the entirety of Clinton's presidency investigating him. And for what? 1. Is that inference or fact? I would think that if he got immunity, he probably has evidence of something that goes beyond Cohen.
3. Well, despite any negative reactions to Watergate: 1) you don't ignore crimes and 2) much of what led to Watergate,Daniel Ellsburg and the Pentagon Papers, for example, helped put an end to what many, probably a majority of people now (including my father-in-law who was in the thick of it all), to believe that it was a war that was not going to be won and that politicians were lying about for it's continued existence as thousands of American's died.
What crimes would you believe would be worth investigating? I mean let's say the whole Russia thing wasn't a thing. Let's say Trump's financial statements were leaked by wikileaks or something, and it was found that he had committed all kinds of financial crimes, do you think that is worthy of investigation? Or should we just turn a blind eye because he's doing a great job?
I'm just trying to figure out where you (and many others) stand on this issue. I get the issues with the Russia probe. But it seems for many supporters, they could find out during an investigation as I hypothetically noted above that he murdered someone twenty years ago and they'd still yell, "but that's not what the investigation was about!!!" and "it happened so long ago" and "the economy is humming".
I'm just kind of bewildered that some people don't want people to be held accountable, IF in fact they did something wrong (and as it stands, we don't know if he did anything. All you have right now are a bunch of supporters blaming anyone and everyone who goes against him, even the LE institutions, despite them admitting that he's not a credible person). The motivation for his enemies want him investigated is understandable, i.e. the MSM, Dems, etc (I'm not ready to call the FBI and everyone else conspirators just yet). But the motivation has nothing to do with whether or not a criminal act was committed. It doesn't matter if I'm running a drug ring out of my house and my neighbor whom I've been feuding with for years turns me in (even though he does drugs himself) just because he doesn't like me. If there's evidence I'm running a drug ring, that's all that matters. And I can scream "but my neighbor does drugs!!! I only sell them!!!" all day and it won't matter. If there's evidence I committed a crime, that's all that matters.
You're belief in fair and equal justice is heart warming. This is where all of this is going. No one. And I mean NO ONE will want to seek office or even work for an office holder. This politics of personal destruction. The USA had the same information on Manafort years ago. They chose not to pursue. He gets hired by Trump and BAM! |
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Post by okirishfan on Aug 24, 2018 11:37:52 GMT -6
1. Is that inference or fact? I would think that if he got immunity, he probably has evidence of something that goes beyond Cohen.
3. Well, despite any negative reactions to Watergate: 1) you don't ignore crimes and 2) much of what led to Watergate,Daniel Ellsburg and the Pentagon Papers, for example, helped put an end to what many, probably a majority of people now (including my father-in-law who was in the thick of it all), to believe that it was a war that was not going to be won and that politicians were lying about for it's continued existence as thousands of American's died.
What crimes would you believe would be worth investigating? I mean let's say the whole Russia thing wasn't a thing. Let's say Trump's financial statements were leaked by wikileaks or something, and it was found that he had committed all kinds of financial crimes, do you think that is worthy of investigation? Or should we just turn a blind eye because he's doing a great job?
I'm just trying to figure out where you (and many others) stand on this issue. I get the issues with the Russia probe. But it seems for many supporters, they could find out during an investigation as I hypothetically noted above that he murdered someone twenty years ago and they'd still yell, "but that's not what the investigation was about!!!" and "it happened so long ago" and "the economy is humming".
I'm just kind of bewildered that some people don't want people to be held accountable, IF in fact they did something wrong (and as it stands, we don't know if he did anything. All you have right now are a bunch of supporters blaming anyone and everyone who goes against him, even the LE institutions, despite them admitting that he's not a credible person). The motivation for his enemies want him investigated is understandable, i.e. the MSM, Dems, etc (I'm not ready to call the FBI and everyone else conspirators just yet). But the motivation has nothing to do with whether or not a criminal act was committed. It doesn't matter if I'm running a drug ring out of my house and my neighbor whom I've been feuding with for years turns me in (even though he does drugs himself) just because he doesn't like me. If there's evidence I'm running a drug ring, that's all that matters. And I can scream "but my neighbor does drugs!!! I only sell them!!!" all day and it won't matter. If there's evidence I committed a crime, that's all that matters.
You're belief in fair and equal justice is heart warming. This is where all of this is going. No one. And I mean NO ONE will want to seek office or even work for an office holder. This politics of personal destruction. The USA had the same information on Manafort years ago. They chose not to pursue. He gets hired by Trump and BAM! So you don't have any comments about what I was saying concerning the points we had been civilly discussing other than crass remarks and more conjecture?
Guess we better cancel the midterms if no one is running for office.
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Post by NN on Aug 24, 2018 11:38:53 GMT -6
1. Is that inference or fact? I would think that if he got immunity, he probably has evidence of something that goes beyond Cohen.
3. Well, despite any negative reactions to Watergate: 1) you don't ignore crimes and 2) much of what led to Watergate,Daniel Ellsburg and the Pentagon Papers, for example, helped put an end to what many, probably a majority of people now (including my father-in-law who was in the thick of it all), to believe that it was a war that was not going to be won and that politicians were lying about for it's continued existence as thousands of American's died.
What crimes would you believe would be worth investigating? I mean let's say the whole Russia thing wasn't a thing. Let's say Trump's financial statements were leaked by wikileaks or something, and it was found that he had committed all kinds of financial crimes, do you think that is worthy of investigation? Or should we just turn a blind eye because he's doing a great job?
I'm just trying to figure out where you (and many others) stand on this issue. I get the issues with the Russia probe. But it seems for many supporters, they could find out during an investigation as I hypothetically noted above that he murdered someone twenty years ago and they'd still yell, "but that's not what the investigation was about!!!" and "it happened so long ago" and "the economy is humming".
I'm just kind of bewildered that some people don't want people to be held accountable, IF in fact they did something wrong (and as it stands, we don't know if he did anything. All you have right now are a bunch of supporters blaming anyone and everyone who goes against him, even the LE institutions, despite them admitting that he's not a credible person). The motivation for his enemies want him investigated is understandable, i.e. the MSM, Dems, etc (I'm not ready to call the FBI and everyone else conspirators just yet). But the motivation has nothing to do with whether or not a criminal act was committed. It doesn't matter if I'm running a drug ring out of my house and my neighbor whom I've been feuding with for years turns me in (even though he does drugs himself) just because he doesn't like me. If there's evidence I'm running a drug ring, that's all that matters. And I can scream "but my neighbor does drugs!!! I only sell them!!!" all day and it won't matter. If there's evidence I committed a crime, that's all that matters.
You're belief in fair and equal justice is heart warming. This is where all of this is going. No one. And I mean NO ONE will want to seek office or even work for an office holder. This politics of personal destruction. The USA had the same information on Manafort years ago. They chose not to pursue. He gets hired by Trump and BAM! That ship already sailed, how do you think we ended up with Trump and Hillary? |
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 24, 2018 11:43:07 GMT -6
He's been audited by the IRS. Are you saying they found President Trump had cheated on his taxes? Remember when you didn't post on LT when President Obama was the President? lol Yeah, 12 times in a row if you take his word for it. It's so bad that he still hasn't released his taxes.
Two points: #1: His taxes were leaked to Rachel Maddow. It was a big nothing. Move goalposts as needed. #2: His taxes are next to Obama’s college transcripts which he has refused to release,(Bush’s was leaked to the press). |
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Post by okirishfan on Aug 24, 2018 11:56:11 GMT -6
Yeah, 12 times in a row if you take his word for it. It's so bad that he still hasn't released his taxes.
Two points: #1: His taxes were leaked to Rachel Maddow. It was a big nothing. Move goalposts as needed. #2: His taxes are next to Obama’s college transcripts which he has refused to release,(Bush’s was leaked to the press). 1. Were they the taxes that he promised? No, they weren't were they? The taxes he promised were the ones that he lied about saying he couldn't release because he was being audited. Prolly "leaked" those 2005 taxes himself.
2. More, "whatboutism" defenses. Did Obama promise to release his transcript to the American people during his campaign?
But, 5th avenue and all that. If Hillary lied and said she couldn't release her taxes because she was being audited (a total farce), and then reneged, you, and every other person who has the capacity to think critically would say she was attempting to hide something. Plain and simple. But because it's your guy, you'll defend him just as he prophesied you would.
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Post by NN on Aug 24, 2018 11:58:48 GMT -6
Yeah, 12 times in a row if you take his word for it. It's so bad that he still hasn't released his taxes.
Two points: #1: His taxes were leaked to Rachel Maddow. It was a big nothing. Move goalposts as needed. #2: His taxes are next to Obama’s college transcripts which he has refused to release,(Bush’s was leaked to the press). Just stop. The ones that mad cow ended up with were like 10 years old. Not to mention Trump said he'd release the current returns once elected. |
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Post by Boots on Aug 24, 2018 12:05:24 GMT -6
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Post by okirishfan on Aug 24, 2018 12:06:26 GMT -6
Two points: #1: His taxes were leaked to Rachel Maddow. It was a big nothing. Move goalposts as needed. #2: His taxes are next to Obama’s college transcripts which he has refused to release,(Bush’s was leaked to the press). Just stop. The ones that mad cow ended up with were like 10 years old. Not to mention Trump said he'd release the current returns once elected. He does this every time this subject is brought up failing to realize that the fact they were leaked still proves HE hasn't released any taxes.
As I said, if it were anyone else, most people, rightfully so, would think they were hiding something, especially after stating they would do it.
Sounds like his, "Oh I want to talk to Mueller but my lawyers won't let me (lawyers also tell him to stop tweeting but he doesn't listen....but NOW he listens to their advice)" "I'd love to release my taxes but I can't because I'm being audited". lol.
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Post by oilsooner on Aug 24, 2018 12:07:47 GMT -6
Two points: #1: His taxes were leaked to Rachel Maddow. It was a big nothing. Move goalposts as needed. #2: His taxes are next to Obama’s college transcripts which he has refused to release,(Bush’s was leaked to the press). Just stop. The ones that mad cow ended up with were like 10 years old. Not to mention Trump said he'd release the current returns once elected. If you don’t like the (lack of a) law requiring presidential candidates to release their tax returns, change it. If you don’t like that he lied and said he’d release his tax returns then didn’t, don’t vote for him, or vote for his challenger. There is no ethical option, however, to open an investigation without evidence of a crime to get his tax returns. So, stop doing it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk |
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Post by sheepdog on Aug 24, 2018 12:09:12 GMT -6
Just stop. The ones that mad cow ended up with were like 10 years old. Not to mention Trump said he'd release the current returns once elected. He does this every time this subject is brought up failing to realize that the fact they were leaked still proves HE hasn't released any taxes.
As I said, if it were anyone else, most people, rightfully so, would think they were hiding something, especially after stating they would do it.
Sounds like his, "Oh I want to talk to Mueller but my lawyers won't let me (lawyers also tell him to stop tweeting but he doesn't listen....but NOW he listens to their advice)" "I'd love to release my taxes but I can't because I'm being audited". lol.
He has the right to play people for fools just like people have the same right to play the role of the fool. |
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Post by NN on Aug 24, 2018 12:11:16 GMT -6
Trump should rehire him, and then fire him again. Just hand it over to Wray or Sessions, lock the bitch up. No one cares. |
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Post by NN on Aug 24, 2018 12:18:33 GMT -6
He does this every time this subject is brought up failing to realize that the fact they were leaked still proves HE hasn't released any taxes.
As I said, if it were anyone else, most people, rightfully so, would think they were hiding something, especially after stating they would do it.
Sounds like his, "Oh I want to talk to Mueller but my lawyers won't let me (lawyers also tell him to stop tweeting but he doesn't listen....but NOW he listens to their advice)" "I'd love to release my taxes but I can't because I'm being audited". lol.
just like people have the same right to play the role of the fool.  |
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Post by sheepdog on Aug 24, 2018 12:25:04 GMT -6
He has the right to play people for fools just like people have the same right to play the role of the fool. If he wants to jokingly claim that as a president he has the best golf game he has that right. Now if you or anyone else wants to spend 5 hours of your time researching to see if it is accurate it is entirely up to you. Some people have the ability to not take everything at face value and make room for a person's personality to enter into the equation while the retentive crowd will have no ability to do such thing. |
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Post by NN on Aug 24, 2018 12:37:08 GMT -6
Just stop. The ones that mad cow ended up with were like 10 years old. Not to mention Trump said he'd release the current returns once elected. If you don’t like the (lack of a) law requiring presidential candidates to release their tax returns, change it. If you don’t like that he lied and said he’d release his tax returns then didn’t, don’t vote for him, or vote for his challenger. There is no ethical option, however, to open an investigation without evidence of a crime to get his tax returns. So, stop doing it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk You left the bitching about it on a political message board option. |
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 24, 2018 12:37:43 GMT -6
Two points: #1: His taxes were leaked to Rachel Maddow. It was a big nothing. Move goalposts as needed. #2: His taxes are next to Obama’s college transcripts which he has refused to release,(Bush’s was leaked to the press). 1. Were they the taxes that he promised? No, they weren't were they? The taxes he promised were the ones that he lied about saying he couldn't release because he was being audited. Prolly "leaked" those 2005 taxes himself.
2. More, "whatboutism" defenses. Did Obama promise to release his transcript to the American people during his campaign?
But, 5th avenue and all that. If Hillary lied and said she couldn't release her taxes because she was being audited (a total farce), and then reneged, you, and every other person who has the capacity to think critically would say she was attempting to hide something. Plain and simple. But because it's your guy, you'll defend him just as he prophesied you would.
#1: You said release his taxes, you didn’t specify a date. They were released, since they didn’t show what you wanted, move the goalposts & ask a similar question. #2: Simple question, should Obama release his transcripts since his opponents want them,(which goes with his statements about being the “most transparent administration in history?”). But “not my President, Resistance, etc”. |
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 24, 2018 12:42:22 GMT -6
www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/immunity-agreements-for-american-media-executives-shore-up-cohen-case/Immunity Agreements for AMI Execs Aimed to Shore Up Case against Michael Cohen By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY August 24, 2018 6:30 AM There is almost certainly much less here than meets the eye. There is always a lag between when things happen and when we learn about them through media reports. That is important to bear in mind when there are breathless news accounts of the kind that broke on Thursday: the revelation that federal prosecutors in New York granted immunity from prosecution to David J. Pecker, the chairman and CEO of American Media Inc. (AMI) and longtime friend of Donald Trump. American Media controls the National Enquirer, which was deeply involved in the hush-money payments to two women who allege that they had extramarital liaisons with Donald Trump a dozen years ago and whose silence was purchased when they sought to sell their stories prior to the 2016 election. Naturally, coming on the heels of Tuesday’s guilty plea by Michael Cohen to campaign-finance offenses arising out of those two transactions, there was frenzied speculation that the investigation is heating up, with the noose tightening around the president. In reality, there is almost certainly much less here than meets the eye. In short, while we are just now learning that Pecker and his subordinate, Dylan Howard, were granted immunity, this appears to have happened many weeks ago — to be precise, shortly after search warrants were executed in April on the office and residences of Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer. Back then, prosecutors did not know whether Cohen would fight them or plead guilty. They needed Pecker and Howard in order to tighten up the case against Cohen, not necessarily to make a case on the president. Perusing the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Vanity Fair reports (here, here, and here), we find something important is missing: They don’t tell us when Pecker and Howard got immunity. But we get a hint. The Times tells us: “In spring 2018, prosecutors subpoenaed communications between Mr. Pecker and Mr. Howard.” We also know that information from Pecker and Howard is reflected in the eight-count criminal information filed against Cohen, which refers to them, respectively, as “Chairman-1” and “Executive-1.” (AMI is “Corporation-1” and the Enquirer is “Magazine-1.”) We can therefore deduce that the immunity was granted sometime after the April Cohen searches and the “spring” subpoena for Pecker-Howard communications, but well before this week, when the charges were filed and Cohen pled guilty. I am betting it happened very soon after the subpoenas because, as the Journal explains, prosecutors had a heavy hammer: AMI is in deep financial trouble. Criminal charges would likely be fatal, and AMI had potential criminal exposure because it conducted itself more as an adjunct of the Trump campaign than as a media outlet. We can grasp the role Pecker and Howard played in building the prosecutors’ case against Cohen by scrutinizing the charges to which Cohen pled guilty. First, a word about those charges. It has become common to refer collectively to Counts 7 and 8 as the “campaign finance offenses,” as if they were indistinguishable from one another. We need to be more precise. This is not a situation in which the same statutory crime has simply been charged twice because there are deals with two different women. Counts 7 and 8 are saliently different, invoking distinct provisions of the campaign finance laws and proceeding on divergent theories of liability. Specifically, Count 7 charges Cohen not with making an illegal donation, but with “Causing an Unlawful Corporate Contribution” (emphasis added). By contrast, Count 8 alleges that Cohen himself made an “Excessive Campaign Contribution” (emphasis added). Let’s focus first on Count 7. Federal campaign finance law makes it illegal for a corporation to make direct (“hard money”) contributions to candidates. Count 7 alleges that Cohen induced AMI (through its executives, Pecker and Howard) to use the “catch and kill” strategy — i.e., to pay $150,000 for the exclusive rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story about an affair with Donald Trump, but to bury it rather than publish it. Much has been made about Cohen’s admission in court that the payments to the two women involved — Ms. McDougal and Stephanie Clifford, the porn star known as “Stormy Daniels” — were made “in coordination with and at the direction of” candidate Trump. Yet Cohen (and, derivatively, Trump) made no payment at all to McDougal; AMI paid the $150,000. That was not the way it was supposed to go. The plan was for Cohen (backed by Trump) to reimburse most of the costs by paying AMI $125,000 to transfer the rights to McDougal’s story to a dummy corporation (“Resolution Consultants LLC”) set up by Cohen. At the last minute, however, Pecker balked at this arrangement (which was memorialized in a signed agreement seized through the Cohen search warrants). Pecker was evidently following the advice of counsel: If AMI sold the rights to Trump, it would manifestly have bought the story to help his campaign, not for journalistic reasons. These facts created a proof problem for prosecutors: How to charge Cohen with an illegal contribution when he didn’t pay any money? They solved this problem by accusing him of causing the corporation to make the illegal contribution. But to pull that off, they needed Pecker and Howard as witnesses. That, I believe, is why they gave the AMI executives immunity. Let’s compare Count 8. It alleges that Cohen himself made an excessive contribution. This is the much more straightforward Stormy Daniels payoff: Through another dummy corporation (“Essential Consultants LLC”), Cohen paid her $130,000, far in excess of the $2,700 limit for individuals. There is an ironic twist to this transaction. It was the AMI executives who alerted Cohen that Ms. Clifford was shopping her story. Cohen ended up cutting a deal with Clifford’s lawyer to buy her silence just days after publication of the infamous “Access Hollywood” video (in which Trump is heard bragging about groping women). The temporal proximity of the video’s surfacing and the hush-money agreement is a key fact relied on by prosecutors to allege that the payoff was election-related (i.e., an in-kind campaign contribution), not just hush money to avoid personal embarrassment. Upon making the agreement, though, Cohen failed to pay the money. After three weeks of this foot-dragging, Clifford got impatient and threatened to go public. AMI’s Howard got wind of this and warned Cohen in a text. Howard and Pecker followed up with an encrypted phone call, after which Cohen forked over the $130,000. Consequently, the script flips: Just as it was said in Count 7 that Cohen caused AMI to make an unlawful corporate contribution, it could also be said in Count 8 that Pecker, Howard, and AMI caused Cohen to make an excessive campaign contribution. Of course, the immunity agreement protected the two executives on this score, and the corporation has not been charged. Two significant points emerge here. First, though the immunity agreements are just being reported on now, they appear to have been driven by the prosecutors’ need, three months ago, to shore up their case against Cohen. It is not clear that they signal an ongoing effort to make a case against the president. To be sure, if there is such an effort, the AMI angle would be relevant. But the immunity agreements are not a new development. Second, parsing Counts 7 and 8 carefully elucidates the speciousness of the claim by Lanny Davis — the longtime Clinton confidant who is shilling for Michael Cohen — that if Cohen is guilty of violating campaign finance laws, Trump, too, must be guilty. The president could not be guilty of the offense charged in Count 8 because he could not make an excessive contribution — the limits that apply to other donors do not apply to the candidate himself. As for Count 7, based on what is publicly known at this time, there is extensive evidence that Cohen caused AMI to make an illegal in-kind contribution, but scant evidence that Trump did. That could change. After all, Pecker has longstanding ties to Trump, and the payoff to McDougal was done for Trump’s benefit. That, however, is smoke, not fire. As I pointed out in Wednesday’s column, the president is by no means out of the woods on this. There is potential aiding and abetting liability; even though candidates have no spending limits, there are reporting requirements; and just as it is illegal for donors to make unlawful contributions, it is illegal for candidates to accept illegal contributions. I will have more to say about this in the weekend column. For now, suffice it to say that I believe the president’s best defense here is that prosecutors could not possibly prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended to violate campaign finance laws, rather than that there were no such violations (which is a colorable claim but a highly debatable one). As I will also discuss separately, prosecutors have suggested that fraud attends the manner in which reimbursement payments to Cohen were totaled up, invoiced, and processed. (See the last four paragraphs of the press release section titled “Campaign Finance Violations.”) Nevertheless, the immunity agreements may be new news, but they relate to dated developments. Editor’s Note: This column has been corrected. It originally referred to Michael Avenatti as Stephanie Clifford’s attorney at the time of a non-disclosure agreement entered into with Michael Cohen. Mr. Avenatti was not the attorney representing Ms. Clifford at that time.
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 24, 2018 12:48:40 GMT -6
Just stop. The ones that mad cow ended up with were like 10 years old. Not to mention Trump said he'd release the current returns once elected. He does this every time this subject is brought up failing to realize that the fact they were leaked still proves HE hasn't released any taxes.
As I said, if it were anyone else, most people, rightfully so, would think they were hiding something, especially after stating they would do it.
Sounds like his, "Oh I want to talk to Mueller but my lawyers won't let me (lawyers also tell him to stop tweeting but he doesn't listen....but NOW he listens to their advice)" "I'd love to release my taxes but I can't because I'm being audited". lol.
You guys scream taxes, they were released. Since they didn’t have what you wanted, move the goalposts and ask again,(just like every other time similar situations arise). Lather, rinse, repeat. |
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Post by sheepdog on Aug 24, 2018 12:52:12 GMT -6
www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/immunity-agreements-for-american-media-executives-shore-up-cohen-case/Immunity Agreements for AMI Execs Aimed to Shore Up Case against Michael Cohen By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY August 24, 2018 6:30 AM There is almost certainly much less here than meets the eye. There is always a lag between when things happen and when we learn about them through media reports. That is important to bear in mind when there are breathless news accounts of the kind that broke on Thursday: the revelation that federal prosecutors in New York granted immunity from prosecution to David J. Pecker, the chairman and CEO of American Media Inc. (AMI) and longtime friend of Donald Trump. American Media controls the National Enquirer, which was deeply involved in the hush-money payments to two women who allege that they had extramarital liaisons with Donald Trump a dozen years ago and whose silence was purchased when they sought to sell their stories prior to the 2016 election. Naturally, coming on the heels of Tuesday’s guilty plea by Michael Cohen to campaign-finance offenses arising out of those two transactions, there was frenzied speculation that the investigation is heating up, with the noose tightening around the president. In reality, there is almost certainly much less here than meets the eye. In short, while we are just now learning that Pecker and his subordinate, Dylan Howard, were granted immunity, this appears to have happened many weeks ago — to be precise, shortly after search warrants were executed in April on the office and residences of Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer. Back then, prosecutors did not know whether Cohen would fight them or plead guilty. They needed Pecker and Howard in order to tighten up the case against Cohen, not necessarily to make a case on the president. Perusing the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Vanity Fair reports (here, here, and here), we find something important is missing: They don’t tell us when Pecker and Howard got immunity. But we get a hint. The Times tells us: “In spring 2018, prosecutors subpoenaed communications between Mr. Pecker and Mr. Howard.” We also know that information from Pecker and Howard is reflected in the eight-count criminal information filed against Cohen, which refers to them, respectively, as “Chairman-1” and “Executive-1.” (AMI is “Corporation-1” and the Enquirer is “Magazine-1.”) We can therefore deduce that the immunity was granted sometime after the April Cohen searches and the “spring” subpoena for Pecker-Howard communications, but well before this week, when the charges were filed and Cohen pled guilty. I am betting it happened very soon after the subpoenas because, as the Journal explains, prosecutors had a heavy hammer: AMI is in deep financial trouble. Criminal charges would likely be fatal, and AMI had potential criminal exposure because it conducted itself more as an adjunct of the Trump campaign than as a media outlet. We can grasp the role Pecker and Howard played in building the prosecutors’ case against Cohen by scrutinizing the charges to which Cohen pled guilty. First, a word about those charges. It has become common to refer collectively to Counts 7 and 8 as the “campaign finance offenses,” as if they were indistinguishable from one another. We need to be more precise. This is not a situation in which the same statutory crime has simply been charged twice because there are deals with two different women. Counts 7 and 8 are saliently different, invoking distinct provisions of the campaign finance laws and proceeding on divergent theories of liability. Specifically, Count 7 charges Cohen not with making an illegal donation, but with “Causing an Unlawful Corporate Contribution” (emphasis added). By contrast, Count 8 alleges that Cohen himself made an “Excessive Campaign Contribution” (emphasis added). Let’s focus first on Count 7. Federal campaign finance law makes it illegal for a corporation to make direct (“hard money”) contributions to candidates. Count 7 alleges that Cohen induced AMI (through its executives, Pecker and Howard) to use the “catch and kill” strategy — i.e., to pay $150,000 for the exclusive rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story about an affair with Donald Trump, but to bury it rather than publish it. Much has been made about Cohen’s admission in court that the payments to the two women involved — Ms. McDougal and Stephanie Clifford, the porn star known as “Stormy Daniels” — were made “in coordination with and at the direction of” candidate Trump. Yet Cohen (and, derivatively, Trump) made no payment at all to McDougal; AMI paid the $150,000. That was not the way it was supposed to go. The plan was for Cohen (backed by Trump) to reimburse most of the costs by paying AMI $125,000 to transfer the rights to McDougal’s story to a dummy corporation (“Resolution Consultants LLC”) set up by Cohen. At the last minute, however, Pecker balked at this arrangement (which was memorialized in a signed agreement seized through the Cohen search warrants). Pecker was evidently following the advice of counsel: If AMI sold the rights to Trump, it would manifestly have bought the story to help his campaign, not for journalistic reasons. These facts created a proof problem for prosecutors: How to charge Cohen with an illegal contribution when he didn’t pay any money? They solved this problem by accusing him of causing the corporation to make the illegal contribution. But to pull that off, they needed Pecker and Howard as witnesses. That, I believe, is why they gave the AMI executives immunity. Let’s compare Count 8. It alleges that Cohen himself made an excessive contribution. This is the much more straightforward Stormy Daniels payoff: Through another dummy corporation (“Essential Consultants LLC”), Cohen paid her $130,000, far in excess of the $2,700 limit for individuals. There is an ironic twist to this transaction. It was the AMI executives who alerted Cohen that Ms. Clifford was shopping her story. Cohen ended up cutting a deal with Clifford’s lawyer to buy her silence just days after publication of the infamous “Access Hollywood” video (in which Trump is heard bragging about groping women). The temporal proximity of the video’s surfacing and the hush-money agreement is a key fact relied on by prosecutors to allege that the payoff was election-related (i.e., an in-kind campaign contribution), not just hush money to avoid personal embarrassment. Upon making the agreement, though, Cohen failed to pay the money. After three weeks of this foot-dragging, Clifford got impatient and threatened to go public. AMI’s Howard got wind of this and warned Cohen in a text. Howard and Pecker followed up with an encrypted phone call, after which Cohen forked over the $130,000. Consequently, the script flips: Just as it was said in Count 7 that Cohen caused AMI to make an unlawful corporate contribution, it could also be said in Count 8 that Pecker, Howard, and AMI caused Cohen to make an excessive campaign contribution. Of course, the immunity agreement protected the two executives on this score, and the corporation has not been charged. Two significant points emerge here. First, though the immunity agreements are just being reported on now, they appear to have been driven by the prosecutors’ need, three months ago, to shore up their case against Cohen. It is not clear that they signal an ongoing effort to make a case against the president. To be sure, if there is such an effort, the AMI angle would be relevant. But the immunity agreements are not a new development. Second, parsing Counts 7 and 8 carefully elucidates the speciousness of the claim by Lanny Davis — the longtime Clinton confidant who is shilling for Michael Cohen — that if Cohen is guilty of violating campaign finance laws, Trump, too, must be guilty. The president could not be guilty of the offense charged in Count 8 because he could not make an excessive contribution — the limits that apply to other donors do not apply to the candidate himself. As for Count 7, based on what is publicly known at this time, there is extensive evidence that Cohen caused AMI to make an illegal in-kind contribution, but scant evidence that Trump did. That could change. After all, Pecker has longstanding ties to Trump, and the payoff to McDougal was done for Trump’s benefit. That, however, is smoke, not fire. As I pointed out in Wednesday’s column, the president is by no means out of the woods on this. There is potential aiding and abetting liability; even though candidates have no spending limits, there are reporting requirements; and just as it is illegal for donors to make unlawful contributions, it is illegal for candidates to accept illegal contributions. I will have more to say about this in the weekend column. For now, suffice it to say that I believe the president’s best defense here is that prosecutors could not possibly prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended to violate campaign finance laws, rather than that there were no such violations (which is a colorable claim but a highly debatable one). As I will also discuss separately, prosecutors have suggested that fraud attends the manner in which reimbursement payments to Cohen were totaled up, invoiced, and processed. (See the last four paragraphs of the press release section titled “Campaign Finance Violations.”) Nevertheless, the immunity agreements may be new news, but they relate to dated developments. Editor’s Note: This column has been corrected. It originally referred to Michael Avenatti as Stephanie Clifford’s attorney at the time of a non-disclosure agreement entered into with Michael Cohen. Mr. Avenatti was not the attorney representing Ms. Clifford at that time. A story based on logic, common sense and reason makes for a sad day for the societal worms. |
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Post by okirishfan on Aug 24, 2018 12:59:14 GMT -6
1. Were they the taxes that he promised? No, they weren't were they? The taxes he promised were the ones that he lied about saying he couldn't release because he was being audited. Prolly "leaked" those 2005 taxes himself.
2. More, "whatboutism" defenses. Did Obama promise to release his transcript to the American people during his campaign?
But, 5th avenue and all that. If Hillary lied and said she couldn't release her taxes because she was being audited (a total farce), and then reneged, you, and every other person who has the capacity to think critically would say she was attempting to hide something. Plain and simple. But because it's your guy, you'll defend him just as he prophesied you would.
#1: You said release his taxes, you didn’t specify a date. They were released, since they didn’t show what you wanted, move the goalposts & ask a similar question. #2: Simple question, should Obama release his transcripts since his opponents want them,(which goes with his statements about being the “most transparent administration in history?”). But “not my President, Resistance, etc”. 1. Who did I say released by? TRUMP. Not Maddow. So now you're just being obtuse and intellectually dishonest in an effort to continue to defend your guy. I didn't move any goal posts. I said TRUMP has not released his taxes and that is still true to this very date, regardless of what years tax returns we were talking about, is it not?
2. And no, that's not a simple question. You're attempting, yet again, to claim "whatoubtisms" to protect your guy, rather than just admitting, "yeah, Trump should do what he says he would do"
There are two reasons why your #2 is not comparable: 1) It's not a long standing tradition over the past 45 years to release one's transcripts in response, especially in response to opposition conspiracy theories 2) Obama never promised (to my knowledge) he would release them, lie about the reason why he couldn't release them during the campaign, and then refuse to release them after.
Had there been a long standing tradition of providing transcripts and a promise that he would, I'd say he should do so.
If it were me, I would have shown it just to quell the conspiracy theories but that's just me. And maybe he did have something to hide (which is why I would have released them and show that I didn't have anything to hide). But you see, I can admit that because I wasn't a supporter of his. I can admit that MAYBE he did have something to hide.
I'll tell you one thing I wouldn't do, however. I wouldn't claim Obama released his transcripts after they had been leaked and displayed on television as a defense of what really happened, as you are doing.
And if you'll remember, the request for Trump's tax returns was not a request made just by Hillary but by other conservatives. And it wasn't in relationship to any conspiracy theories. It was a simple question asked of every candidate during the debate.
Now you answer: If Hillary did exactly what Trump did, say she couldn't release her taxes (current taxes) because she was being audited (we all know that no one is prohibited from this), but stated she would after the election, would you think she had something to hide? Or at the very least a liar for not doing what she said she would do?
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Post by politicalmexininja on Aug 24, 2018 12:59:55 GMT -6
How's your day going, plagiarist? |
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Post by okirishfan on Aug 24, 2018 13:03:28 GMT -6
He does this every time this subject is brought up failing to realize that the fact they were leaked still proves HE hasn't released any taxes.
As I said, if it were anyone else, most people, rightfully so, would think they were hiding something, especially after stating they would do it.
Sounds like his, "Oh I want to talk to Mueller but my lawyers won't let me (lawyers also tell him to stop tweeting but he doesn't listen....but NOW he listens to their advice)" "I'd love to release my taxes but I can't because I'm being audited". lol.
You guys scream taxes, they were released. Since they didn’t have what you wanted, move the goalposts and ask again,(just like every other time similar situations arise). Lather, rinse, repeat. Intellectually dishonest.
You know the context of him saying he would release his returns dealt with CURRENT returnS, i.e. multiple returns from several years that were not over a decade ago. C'mon man.
And his taxes were not released by HIM, as he stated he would do.
Why do you find it so hard to just admit the following: He did not release his taxes as he promised?
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Post by oilsooner on Aug 24, 2018 13:21:09 GMT -6
If you don’t like the (lack of a) law requiring presidential candidates to release their tax returns, change it. If you don’t like that he lied and said he’d release his tax returns then didn’t, don’t vote for him, or vote for his challenger. There is no ethical option, however, to open an investigation without evidence of a crime to get his tax returns. So, stop doing it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk You left the bitching about it on a political message board option. That’d be cool if that’s all it was. As if people aren’t out acting on it as we speak. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk |
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Post by sooner98 on Aug 24, 2018 13:30:50 GMT -6
I have a great idea: I propose that Congress pass a bill that would mandate the Department of Justice assign a Special Counsel to every incoming presidential administration from now on, regardless of whether or not any crimes have been committed, or any evidence of any crimes exists. The Special Counsel gets to investigate everything about that President from the day he was born, until the day he was inaugurated, looking for any crimes or wrongdoings that they can find. They also get to oversee all activities the president engages in while in office, looking for any "crimes", including treason if he says the wrong thing about a foreign adversary, or if he "lies repeatedly". If anything is found, the SC writes a report and sends it to Congress, where articles of impeachment will then be drawn up and proceeded upon, and the Senate decides whether or not to throw that president out of office. Then, once that president is removed, resigns, is assassinated by deranged members of the opposing party, or survives his/her one or two terms of office, a new Special Counsel is assigned to the next incoming president. There is totally no way that this could possibly have any de-stabilizing effects on our country, and could not possibly end badly at all.
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Post by oilsooner on Aug 24, 2018 13:37:04 GMT -6
www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/immunity-agreements-for-american-media-executives-shore-up-cohen-case/Immunity Agreements for AMI Execs Aimed to Shore Up Case against Michael Cohen By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY August 24, 2018 6:30 AM There is almost certainly much less here than meets the eye. There is always a lag between when things happen and when we learn about them through media reports. That is important to bear in mind when there are breathless news accounts of the kind that broke on Thursday: the revelation that federal prosecutors in New York granted immunity from prosecution to David J. Pecker, the chairman and CEO of American Media Inc. (AMI) and longtime friend of Donald Trump. American Media controls the National Enquirer, which was deeply involved in the hush-money payments to two women who allege that they had extramarital liaisons with Donald Trump a dozen years ago and whose silence was purchased when they sought to sell their stories prior to the 2016 election. Naturally, coming on the heels of Tuesday’s guilty plea by Michael Cohen to campaign-finance offenses arising out of those two transactions, there was frenzied speculation that the investigation is heating up, with the noose tightening around the president. In reality, there is almost certainly much less here than meets the eye. In short, while we are just now learning that Pecker and his subordinate, Dylan Howard, were granted immunity, this appears to have happened many weeks ago — to be precise, shortly after search warrants were executed in April on the office and residences of Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer. Back then, prosecutors did not know whether Cohen would fight them or plead guilty. They needed Pecker and Howard in order to tighten up the case against Cohen, not necessarily to make a case on the president. Perusing the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Vanity Fair reports (here, here, and here), we find something important is missing: They don’t tell us when Pecker and Howard got immunity. But we get a hint. The Times tells us: “In spring 2018, prosecutors subpoenaed communications between Mr. Pecker and Mr. Howard.” We also know that information from Pecker and Howard is reflected in the eight-count criminal information filed against Cohen, which refers to them, respectively, as “Chairman-1” and “Executive-1.” (AMI is “Corporation-1” and the Enquirer is “Magazine-1.”) We can therefore deduce that the immunity was granted sometime after the April Cohen searches and the “spring” subpoena for Pecker-Howard communications, but well before this week, when the charges were filed and Cohen pled guilty. I am betting it happened very soon after the subpoenas because, as the Journal explains, prosecutors had a heavy hammer: AMI is in deep financial trouble. Criminal charges would likely be fatal, and AMI had potential criminal exposure because it conducted itself more as an adjunct of the Trump campaign than as a media outlet. We can grasp the role Pecker and Howard played in building the prosecutors’ case against Cohen by scrutinizing the charges to which Cohen pled guilty. First, a word about those charges. It has become common to refer collectively to Counts 7 and 8 as the “campaign finance offenses,” as if they were indistinguishable from one another. We need to be more precise. This is not a situation in which the same statutory crime has simply been charged twice because there are deals with two different women. Counts 7 and 8 are saliently different, invoking distinct provisions of the campaign finance laws and proceeding on divergent theories of liability. Specifically, Count 7 charges Cohen not with making an illegal donation, but with “Causing an Unlawful Corporate Contribution” (emphasis added). By contrast, Count 8 alleges that Cohen himself made an “Excessive Campaign Contribution” (emphasis added). Let’s focus first on Count 7. Federal campaign finance law makes it illegal for a corporation to make direct (“hard money”) contributions to candidates. Count 7 alleges that Cohen induced AMI (through its executives, Pecker and Howard) to use the “catch and kill” strategy — i.e., to pay $150,000 for the exclusive rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story about an affair with Donald Trump, but to bury it rather than publish it. Much has been made about Cohen’s admission in court that the payments to the two women involved — Ms. McDougal and Stephanie Clifford, the porn star known as “Stormy Daniels” — were made “in coordination with and at the direction of” candidate Trump. Yet Cohen (and, derivatively, Trump) made no payment at all to McDougal; AMI paid the $150,000. That was not the way it was supposed to go. The plan was for Cohen (backed by Trump) to reimburse most of the costs by paying AMI $125,000 to transfer the rights to McDougal’s story to a dummy corporation (“Resolution Consultants LLC”) set up by Cohen. At the last minute, however, Pecker balked at this arrangement (which was memorialized in a signed agreement seized through the Cohen search warrants). Pecker was evidently following the advice of counsel: If AMI sold the rights to Trump, it would manifestly have bought the story to help his campaign, not for journalistic reasons. These facts created a proof problem for prosecutors: How to charge Cohen with an illegal contribution when he didn’t pay any money? They solved this problem by accusing him of causing the corporation to make the illegal contribution. But to pull that off, they needed Pecker and Howard as witnesses. That, I believe, is why they gave the AMI executives immunity. Let’s compare Count 8. It alleges that Cohen himself made an excessive contribution. This is the much more straightforward Stormy Daniels payoff: Through another dummy corporation (“Essential Consultants LLC”), Cohen paid her $130,000, far in excess of the $2,700 limit for individuals. There is an ironic twist to this transaction. It was the AMI executives who alerted Cohen that Ms. Clifford was shopping her story. Cohen ended up cutting a deal with Clifford’s lawyer to buy her silence just days after publication of the infamous “Access Hollywood” video (in which Trump is heard bragging about groping women). The temporal proximity of the video’s surfacing and the hush-money agreement is a key fact relied on by prosecutors to allege that the payoff was election-related (i.e., an in-kind campaign contribution), not just hush money to avoid personal embarrassment. Upon making the agreement, though, Cohen failed to pay the money. After three weeks of this foot-dragging, Clifford got impatient and threatened to go public. AMI’s Howard got wind of this and warned Cohen in a text. Howard and Pecker followed up with an encrypted phone call, after which Cohen forked over the $130,000. Consequently, the script flips: Just as it was said in Count 7 that Cohen caused AMI to make an unlawful corporate contribution, it could also be said in Count 8 that Pecker, Howard, and AMI caused Cohen to make an excessive campaign contribution. Of course, the immunity agreement protected the two executives on this score, and the corporation has not been charged. Two significant points emerge here. First, though the immunity agreements are just being reported on now, they appear to have been driven by the prosecutors’ need, three months ago, to shore up their case against Cohen. It is not clear that they signal an ongoing effort to make a case against the president. To be sure, if there is such an effort, the AMI angle would be relevant. But the immunity agreements are not a new development. Second, parsing Counts 7 and 8 carefully elucidates the speciousness of the claim by Lanny Davis — the longtime Clinton confidant who is shilling for Michael Cohen — that if Cohen is guilty of violating campaign finance laws, Trump, too, must be guilty. The president could not be guilty of the offense charged in Count 8 because he could not make an excessive contribution — the limits that apply to other donors do not apply to the candidate himself. As for Count 7, based on what is publicly known at this time, there is extensive evidence that Cohen caused AMI to make an illegal in-kind contribution, but scant evidence that Trump did. That could change. After all, Pecker has longstanding ties to Trump, and the payoff to McDougal was done for Trump’s benefit. That, however, is smoke, not fire. As I pointed out in Wednesday’s column, the president is by no means out of the woods on this. There is potential aiding and abetting liability; even though candidates have no spending limits, there are reporting requirements; and just as it is illegal for donors to make unlawful contributions, it is illegal for candidates to accept illegal contributions. I will have more to say about this in the weekend column. For now, suffice it to say that I believe the president’s best defense here is that prosecutors could not possibly prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended to violate campaign finance laws, rather than that there were no such violations (which is a colorable claim but a highly debatable one). As I will also discuss separately, prosecutors have suggested that fraud attends the manner in which reimbursement payments to Cohen were totaled up, invoiced, and processed. (See the last four paragraphs of the press release section titled “Campaign Finance Violations.”) Nevertheless, the immunity agreements may be new news, but they relate to dated developments. Editor’s Note: This column has been corrected. It originally referred to Michael Avenatti as Stephanie Clifford’s attorney at the time of a non-disclosure agreement entered into with Michael Cohen. Mr. Avenatti was not the attorney representing Ms. Clifford at that time. This National Inquirer head who had a literal safe full of secrets against people is a pretty interesting revelation. One of those things you figure is true, but an actual safe of secrets? Lol. And, he was using them to extort people for cash and favors? That’s pretty fucked up. And extremely illegal. If the best they get out of all that is an excessive campaign contribution, that’ll be pretty sad. I mean, the real damage is outing all of Trumps personal information over a relatively small charge, but that’s no problem as long as you hate him. Because he’s a bad enough hombre to justify having his rights violated. Think of the children!!!  Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk |
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