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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 24, 2018 13:52:25 GMT -6
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?
Intellectually dishonest claims from one who states they hate lying, yet have been caught in a recent falsehood themselves,(never was on LT while Obama was President),coupled with them earnestly defending a Special Counsel who has been known to lie,(Congressional testimony that Iraq had WMD’s), also violated numerous ethical & legal standards so brazingly that the victims received financial compensation,(Hatfill got close to $6 million, four others wrongfully convicted of murder for decades and had their appeals blocked by said person’s FBI & were later awarded $101 million dollars due to the treatment ), that’s cute. As for the rest, it goes back to a prior conversation you & I had. Basically you asked me if my opinion would change if anything other than Russian related would alter my thinking. I stated it would slightly, but overall not enough to prevent me voting, etc. However, Russian collusion/collaboration related backed with verifiable evidence? Different story. This one falls into what I said about the Starr investigation, basically it’s a politically motivated witch hunt in the desperate hope from the losing side, that they can get something on the sitting President who they dislike. So far, what has been discovered,(paying off women, campaign related or not), raises to the Clinton bj deal. Basically people shrug their shoulders & go “Seriously, that’s it”? Heck, even CNN’s Cuomo,(who despises Trump), even states this does not impress him, etc. Think about that for a moment, after two years of investigations by the FBI/Special Counsel & both houses of Congress,(one completed their investigation & issued a final report), & this is the worse thing they could find close to the President,(they also used spies, wire tapping his phones, got his taxes, etc). Seriously, that’s it. I understand the current letdown. It sucks, but it will get better eventually & will once the left admit to themselves why the American people voted for Trump in the first place. However, given the current mental state of that side, I won’t hold my breath anytime soon. |
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 24, 2018 13:55:13 GMT -6
Cohen’s lawyer admits he lied to media: dailycaller.com/2018/08/24/lanny-davis-admits-false-trump-tower-report/Michael Cohen’s attorney Lanny Davis admitted on Thursday that he erroneously confirmed a CNN report about Trump’s knowledge of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with the Russians. CNN reported on July 27 that Cohen was prepared to tell Special Counsel Robert Mueller that the president had advance knowledge of the Trump Tower meeting. On Wednesday, Davis said that the reporting was “mixed up” and that his client had no information regarding when Trump knew about the meeting. According to the New York Post, however, Davis himself confirmed CNN’s report as an anonymous source when it was first published. Davis is now apologizing on the record for confirming something he did not know to be true. “I regret that I wasn’t clear enough to The Post. I should have been more clear. I could not independently confirm the information in the CNN story,” Davis said. “I’m sorry that I left that impression. I wasn’t at the meeting. The only person who could confirm that information is my client, [Michael Cohen].” Cohen has also provided information to Congress that would debunk CNN’s report. The leaders of the Senate Intel committee said that Cohen testified to them that he personally did not know about the Trump Tower meeting before it happened. This contradicts CNN’s reporting that Cohen was in a meeting with Trump when Donald Trump Jr. informed him of the Russians’ offer for dirt on Hillary Clinton. CNN has yet to issue a correction on their July 27 report or to update it with Davis’ new comments. |
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 24, 2018 14:06:22 GMT -6
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Post by nmgaucho on Aug 24, 2018 14:09:12 GMT -6
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Post by okirishfan on Aug 24, 2018 14:09:44 GMT -6
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?
Intellectually dishonest claims from one who states they hate lying, yet have been caught in a recent falsehood themselves,(never was on LT while Obama was President),coupled with them earnestly defending a Special Counsel who has been known to lie,(Congressional testimony that Iraq had WMD’s), also violated numerous ethical & legal standards so brazingly that the victims received financial compensation,(Hatfill got close to $6 million, four others wrongfully convicted of murder for decades and had their appeals blocked by said person’s FBI & were later awarded $101 million dollars due to the treatment ), that’s cute. As for the rest, it goes back to a prior conversation you & I had. Basically you asked me if my opinion would change if anything other than Russian related would alter my thinking. I stated it would slightly, but overall not enough to prevent me voting, etc. However, Russian collusion/collaboration related backed with verifiable evidence? Different story. This one falls into what I said about the Starr investigation, basically it’s a politically motivated witch hunt in the desperate hope from the losing side, that they can get something on the sitting President who they dislike. So far, what has been discovered,(paying off women, campaign related or not), raises to the Clinton bj deal. Basically people shrug their shoulders & go “Seriously, that’s it”? Heck, even CNN’s Cuomo,(who despises Trump), even states this does not impress him, etc. Think about that for a moment, after two years of investigations by the FBI/Special Counsel & both houses of Congress,(one completed their investigation & issued a final report), & this is the worse thing they could find close to the President,(they also used spies, wire tapping his phones, got his taxes, etc). Seriously, that’s it. I understand the current letdown. It sucks, but it will get better eventually & will once the left admit to themselves why the American people voted for Trump in the first place. However, given the current mental state of that side, I won’t hold my breath anytime soon. Thanks for the commentary that had NOTHING to do with what he have been talking about or what I asked. Unless you're saying your answer to the question, "why do you find it so hard to admit that Trump did not release his taxes as promised", is, "but...but...politics".
It's very simple. Trump said he would release his taxes. To date, he has not released his taxes. It wasn't a liberal conspiracy to get him. It wasn't other conservatives trying to get him. It was a question asked in a debate. He said he'd couldn't do it but would after the election. Thus far he has lied about that. And you want to keep saying that he did release his taxes. He did not. That is a lie.
Can you admit that he has lied by not releasing his taxes? It's a simple yes or no question. He either did or he didn't.
And you're being even more intellectually dishonest by parroting 1tc's lies about me taken out of context. My statement that I didn't post on the LT political board when Obama was president was a response to SPECIFIC "whatoubtisms" put forth by people whose only defense of my criticisms was, "oh, I bet you were really critical of Obama on here when he was president". My response was I wasn't on LT POLITCAL board, that I had not ventured over there until the 2016 election (been on the football board since 2012), when Obama was still obviously president. I did not lie. That's just one miserable persons attempt to make something out of nothing. There's about 5 people on here that share his childish quality, when they don't see something they like they attempt to attack the person and not the message, unprovoked.
And if you could just answer the other question I posed that if Hillary lied about releasing her taxes would you think she was trying to hide something?
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Post by nmgaucho on Aug 24, 2018 14:11:43 GMT -6
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Post by okirishfan on Aug 24, 2018 14:23:50 GMT -6
Here's another good one, "then" and "now". Except it exposes the hypocrisy of BOTH sides. Shameful.
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Post by politicalmexininja on Aug 24, 2018 15:26:23 GMT -6
Earn that money, plagiarist!!!!! Go, girl!!! |
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Post by Boots on Aug 24, 2018 15:52:29 GMT -6
Sometimes I feel like I am pissing into a hurricane around here.
For those of you worked up into a lather over all this, please understand- or Google it if you don't believe me - what limited use immunity is. It isn't blanket immunity.
Then look at the geographic restrictions. It is limited only to the Cohen case in SD of New York where Mueller's team passed the case.
Mueller's case is based in DC.
They are looking at the $130,000 because he claimed it as a campaign contribution and wrote it off on his taxes. He then recieved the $130,000 back with an additional 50k or 60k and never claimed that income.
To snare Trump, they would have to prove Trump told him to write it as a campaign contribution and that Trump knew that it was illegal.
Good luck with that.
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Post by trumped on Aug 24, 2018 16:31:27 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. Awesome! Hell, why not take it a step further. Once a person is identified as a potential future POTUS candidate go ahead and assign a a special counsel for life at that time. Imagine if Crooked Hillary had been assigned one way earlier in time. And for shits and goggles insert FBI backed spies into campaigns for their own good. And we’ll also need a designated dossier creater assigned. |
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 24, 2018 16:44:55 GMT -6
Kimberly Strassel with some good points: www.wsj.com/articles/when-justice-is-partial-1535063261U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami took a few moments in his Tuesday statement about Michael Cohen’s plea deal to sing neutrality’s praise: “His day of reckoning serves as a reminder that we are a nation of laws, with one set of rules that applies equally to everyone.” Noble words, and they used to mean something. But a disparity of justice is at the heart of our current crisis of faith in institutions. Americans aren’t outraged that the Federal Bureau of Investigation felt obliged to investigate allegations leveled at campaigns, or that a special counsel is looking at Russian electoral interference. They are instead furious that Lady Justice seems to have it in for only one side. The country has watched the FBI treat one presidential campaign with kid gloves, the other with informants, warrants and eavesdropping. They’ve seen the Justice Department resist all efforts at accountability, even as it fails to hold its own accountable. And don’t get them started on the one-sided media. And they are now witnessing unequal treatment in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe. Yes, the former FBI director deserves credit for smoking out the Russian trolls who interfered in 2016. And one can argue he is obliged to pursue any evidence of criminal acts, even those unrelated to Russia. But what cannot be justified is the one-sided nature of his probe. .......... If there is only “one set of rules,” where is Mr. Mueller’s referral of a case against Hillary for America? Federal law requires campaigns to disclose the recipient and purpose of any payments. The Clinton campaign paid Fusion GPS to compile a dossier against Mr. Trump, a document that became the basis of the Russia narrative Mr. Mueller now investigates. But the campaign funneled the money to law firm Perkins Coie, which in turn paid Fusion. The campaign falsely described the money as payment for “legal services.” The Democratic National Committee did the same. A Perkins Coie spokesperson has claimed that neither the Clinton campaign nor the DNC was aware that Fusion GPS had been hired to conduct the research, and maybe so. But a lot of lawyers here seemed to have been ignoring a clear statute, presumably with the intent of influencing an election. |
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Post by nmgaucho on Aug 24, 2018 17:06:37 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. Awesome! Hell, why not take it a step further. Once a person is identified as a potential future POTUS candidate go ahead and assign a a special counsel for life at that time. Imagine if Crooked Hillary had been assigned one way earlier in time. And for shits and goggles insert FBI backed spies into campaigns for their own good. And we’ll also need a designated dossier creater assigned. Just admit it, Trump and everyone he surrounds himself with are crooks and traitors. Lock them up!, lock them up!...hehe, sound familiar? karma is a bitch eh Trumpsters? |
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Post by xingtherubicon on Aug 24, 2018 17:22:23 GMT -6
Awesome! Hell, why not take it a step further. Once a person is identified as a potential future POTUS candidate go ahead and assign a a special counsel for life at that time. Imagine if Crooked Hillary had been assigned one way earlier in time. And for shits and goggles insert FBI backed spies into campaigns for their own good. And we’ll also need a designated dossier creater assigned. Just admit it, Trump and everyone he surrounds himself with are crooks and traitors. Lock them up!, lock them up!...hehe, sound familiar? karma is a bitch eh Trumpsters? karma is after you die, moron btw it will be longer than that....still your president. Lulz. |
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Post by politicalmexininja on Aug 24, 2018 17:33:31 GMT -6
Awesome! Hell, why not take it a step further. Once a person is identified as a potential future POTUS candidate go ahead and assign a a special counsel for life at that time. Imagine if Crooked Hillary had been assigned one way earlier in time. And for shits and goggles insert FBI backed spies into campaigns for their own good. And we’ll also need a designated dossier creater assigned. Just admit it, Trump and everyone he surrounds himself with are crooks and traitors. Lock them up!, lock them up!...hehe, sound familiar? karma is a bitch eh Trumpsters? Still waiting for you to 'admit' you're a plagiarist, plagiarist... |
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Post by sheepdog on Aug 24, 2018 17:40:06 GMT -6
Sometimes I feel like I am pissing into a hurricane around here. For those of you worked up into a lather over all this, please understand- or Google it if you don't believe me - what limited use immunity is. It isn't blanket immunity. Then look at the geographic restrictions. It is limited only to the Cohen case in SD of New York where Mueller's team passed the case. Mueller's case is based in DC. They are looking at the $130,000 because he claimed it as a campaign contribution and wrote it off on his taxes. He then recieved the $130,000 back with an additional 50k or 60k and never claimed that income. To snare Trump, they would have to prove Trump told him to write it as a campaign contribution and that Trump knew that it was illegal. Good luck with that. At least you're in Hawaii. |
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Post by sheepdog on Aug 24, 2018 17:42:05 GMT -6
Awesome! Hell, why not take it a step further. Once a person is identified as a potential future POTUS candidate go ahead and assign a a special counsel for life at that time. Imagine if Crooked Hillary had been assigned one way earlier in time. And for shits and goggles insert FBI backed spies into campaigns for their own good. And we’ll also need a designated dossier creater assigned. Just admit it, Trump and everyone he surrounds himself with are crooks and traitors. Lock them up!, lock them up!...hehe, sound familiar? karma is a bitch eh Trumpsters? You're still on the outside throwing stones. That's gotta help a bunch. |
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Post by kcrufnek on Aug 24, 2018 18:08:04 GMT -6
Tucker has some Dem chick on just throwing out all the talking points. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
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Post by trumped on Aug 24, 2018 20:14:14 GMT -6
Sometimes I feel like I am pissing into a hurricane around here. For those of you worked up into a lather over all this, please understand- or Google it if you don't believe me - what limited use immunity is. It isn't blanket immunity. Then look at the geographic restrictions. It is limited only to the Cohen case in SD of New York where Mueller's team passed the case. Mueller's case is based in DC. They are looking at the $130,000 because he claimed it as a campaign contribution and wrote it off on his taxes. He then recieved the $130,000 back with an additional 50k or 60k and never claimed that income. To snare Trump, they would have to prove Trump told him to write it as a campaign contribution and that Trump knew that it was illegal. Good luck with that. |
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Post by 1tc on Aug 24, 2018 21:02:32 GMT -6
Intellectually dishonest claims from one who states they hate lying, yet have been caught in a recent falsehood themselves,(never was on LT while Obama was President),coupled with them earnestly defending a Special Counsel who has been known to lie,(Congressional testimony that Iraq had WMD’s), also violated numerous ethical & legal standards so brazingly that the victims received financial compensation,(Hatfill got close to $6 million, four others wrongfully convicted of murder for decades and had their appeals blocked by said person’s FBI & were later awarded $101 million dollars due to the treatment ), that’s cute. As for the rest, it goes back to a prior conversation you & I had. Basically you asked me if my opinion would change if anything other than Russian related would alter my thinking. I stated it would slightly, but overall not enough to prevent me voting, etc. However, Russian collusion/collaboration related backed with verifiable evidence? Different story. This one falls into what I said about the Starr investigation, basically it’s a politically motivated witch hunt in the desperate hope from the losing side, that they can get something on the sitting President who they dislike. So far, what has been discovered,(paying off women, campaign related or not), raises to the Clinton bj deal. Basically people shrug their shoulders & go “Seriously, that’s it”? Heck, even CNN’s Cuomo,(who despises Trump), even states this does not impress him, etc. Think about that for a moment, after two years of investigations by the FBI/Special Counsel & both houses of Congress,(one completed their investigation & issued a final report), & this is the worse thing they could find close to the President,(they also used spies, wire tapping his phones, got his taxes, etc). Seriously, that’s it. I understand the current letdown. It sucks, but it will get better eventually & will once the left admit to themselves why the American people voted for Trump in the first place. However, given the current mental state of that side, I won’t hold my breath anytime soon. Thanks for the commentary that had NOTHING to do with what he have been talking about or what I asked. Unless you're saying your answer to the question, "why do you find it so hard to admit that Trump did not release his taxes as promised", is, "but...but...politics".
It's very simple. Trump said he would release his taxes. To date, he has not released his taxes. It wasn't a liberal conspiracy to get him. It wasn't other conservatives trying to get him. It was a question asked in a debate. He said he'd couldn't do it but would after the election. Thus far he has lied about that. And you want to keep saying that he did release his taxes. He did not. That is a lie.
Can you admit that he has lied by not releasing his taxes? It's a simple yes or no question. He either did or he didn't.
And you're being even more intellectually dishonest by parroting 1tc's lies about me taken out of context. My statement that I didn't post on the LT political board when Obama was president was a response to SPECIFIC "whatoubtisms" put forth by people whose only defense of my criticisms was, "oh, I bet you were really critical of Obama on here when he was president". My response was I wasn't on LT POLITCAL board, that I had not ventured over there until the 2016 election (been on the football board since 2012), when Obama was still obviously president. I did not lie. That's just one miserable persons attempt to make something out of nothing. There's about 5 people on here that share his childish quality, when they don't see something they like they attempt to attack the person and not the message, unprovoked.
And if you could just answer the other question I posed that if Hillary lied about releasing her taxes would you think she was trying to hide something?
Go fuck yourself trying to call me a liar for exposing your lie. Your lie to explain was worse than your lie. You simply are not smart enough to keep up your charade. I can see why you left the religious leader vocation and went to work for the state. Sooo dumb. So full of lies. Sooooo lazy. Nobody believes that your anti-Hillary comments were made on the football board. I can’t believe you are doubling down on your lie. |
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Post by nmgaucho on Aug 25, 2018 0:15:06 GMT -6
Another one is about to bite the dust....Stone oozes slime
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Post by kcrufnek on Aug 25, 2018 0:32:41 GMT -6
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Post by politicalmexininja on Aug 25, 2018 5:19:23 GMT -6
Another one is about to bite the dust....Stone oozes slime
Go to bed, plagiarist...gotta busy day of copying/pasting others' thoughts tomorrow... |
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 25, 2018 10:16:19 GMT -6
www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2018/08/22/despite_comey_assurance_vast_bulk_of_weiner_laptop_emails_never_examined.htmlIn fact, a technical glitch prevented FBI technicians from accurately comparing the new emails with the old emails. Only 3,077 of the 694,000 emails were directly reviewed for classified or incriminating information. Three FBI officials completed that work in a single 12-hour spurt the day before Comey again cleared Clinton of criminal charges. “Most of the emails were never examined, even though they made up potentially 10 times the evidence” of what was reviewed in the original year-long case that Comey closed in July 2016, said a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the investigation. Yet even the “extremely narrow” search that was finally conducted, after more than a month of delay, uncovered more classified material sent and/or received by Clinton through her unauthorized basement server, the official said. Contradicting Comey’s testimony, this included highly sensitive information dealing with Israel and the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas. The former secretary of state, however, was never confronted with the sensitive new information and it was never analyzed for damage to national security. Even though the unique classified material was improperly stored and transmitted on an unsecured device, the FBI did not refer the matter to U.S. intelligence agencies to determine if national security had been compromised, as required under a federally mandated “damage assessment” directive. The newly discovered classified material “was never previously sent out to the relevant original classification authorities for security review,” the official, who spoke to RealClearInvestigations on the condition of anonymity, said. Other key parts of the investigation remained open when the embattled director announced to Congress he was buttoning the case back up for good just ahead of Election Day. One career FBI special agent involved in the case complained to New York colleagues that officials in Washington tried to “bury” the new trove of evidence, which he believed contained the full archive of Clinton’s emails — including long-sought missing messages from her first months at the State Department. ........ President Trump responds to breaking news about the FBI not going through Weiner’s emails, etc: Donald J. Trump ✔ @realdonaldtrump Big story out that the FBI ignored tens of thousands of Crooked Hillary Emails, many of which are REALLY BAD. Also gave false election info. I feel sure that we will soon be getting to the bottom of all of this corruption. At some point I may have to get involved! 9:05 AM - Aug 25, 2018 52.5K 37.4K people are talking about this
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 25, 2018 10:19:15 GMT -6
It’s no longer about collusion/collaboration with Russia,(which looking at the evidence as it stands, did not happen). Now it’s about him paying two women to be quiet about alleged affairs that happened a decade prior to him running for office. Seriously, after two years of investigations with all the sources at their disposal, this is all they have. Even Cuomo on CNN said he wasn’t impressed. |
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 25, 2018 10:30:53 GMT -6
dailycaller.com/2018/08/25/steele-right-concerned/STEELE IS RIGHT TO BE CONCERNED 12:08 PM 08/25/2018 Christopher C. Hull | Contributor 1 “Very concerned” about what? According to a new documents, then fourth-ranking Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr wrote that Christopher Steele, the former British spy paid by Fusion GOP to compile an anti-Trump dossier that even former FBI director James Comey called “unverified and salacious,” with help from Russian intelligence officials on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, was “very concerned about Comey’s firing — afraid they will be exposed.” Which raises the obvious question: Who might be exposed? Doing what? First, we know that Steele was a key source cited by the FBI and Department of Justice to obtain a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) warrant to spy on Trump advisor Carter Page. www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/08/17/dojs-bruce-ohr-wrote-christopher-steele-was-very-concerned-about-comeys-firing-afraid-will-be-exposed.htmlwww.investors.com/politics/editorials/russian-collusion-hillary-clinton/Given the extraordinary level of the Obama administration’s so-called “unmasking,” that is, exposing American citizens “accidentally” captured in what is supposed to be foreign intelligence surveillance, it is likely that this spying was an end in itself. As of the last tally, in the fiscal year 2015 alone, the Obama administration made 654 requests to unmask U.S. citizens’ identities, resulting in a total of a towering 2,232 individual citizens unmasked. We still do not have a full accounting of who in the Obama administration requested each unmasking, who was unmasked, and to whom that information was distributed. It may be that all of it was perfectly legitimate. Or, it may be that the Obama administration was systematically spying on the Trump campaign, using the ruse of a counterintelligence investigation about which even now-fired pro-Hillary FBI head of counterintelligence Peter Strzok said to his paramour Lisa Page as recently as May 19, 2017: “You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I’d be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern that there’s no big there.” So, perhaps Steele was “very concerned” about Comey’s firing because he and his allies inside and outside the Obama administration, Clinton Campaign, would be exposed as having deliberately thwarted the law to spy on an opposing presidential campaign. And perhaps that is why, during a closed-door congressional testimony last year, the co-founder of Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, claimed he had no contact with Ohr until after the presidential election. But Ohr’s work emails conflict with Simpson’s testimony, and show contact months earlier”, according to the newly released materials. If that interview was under oath, Simpson committed a crime. Second, according to one source, GPS head “Simpson admits he had dinner with [Russian informant Natalia] Veselnitskaya both the night before and the night after the Trump Tower meeting.” She, in turn, “claimed that the talking points for her meeting with the Trump people were provided to her by Simpson.” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has said: “[The dossier] was handed directly from Russian propaganda arms to the Clinton campaign, fed into the top levels of the FBI and Department of Justice to open up a counterintelligence investigation into a political campaign that has now colluded (with) nearly every top official at the DOJ and FBI over the course of the last couple years. Absolutely amazing.” So perhaps Steele was “very concerned” about Comey’s firing because he was afraid that he and Simpson would be exposed as having tried to set up the Trump campaign, colluding directly with Russian intelligence assets to do so. Or perhaps Steele was very concerned about both. And more. Seems as though he is right to be very concerned. Let’s just hope he and his co-conspirators are exposed, as he feared. Christopher C. Hull, Ph.D., the Executive Vice President of the Center for Security Policy, served four tours on Capitol Hill, including most recently as the Chief of Staff for U.S. Rep. Steve King, (R-Iowa). He is the author of Grassroots Rules.www.circa.com/story/2017/05/09/obama-administration-underreported-number-of-americans-who-were-unmasked-by-nsa-in-2016slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/04/lawyer-who-met-with-trump-jr-admits-she-is-informant-for-russian-government.html
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 25, 2018 10:43:11 GMT -6
Campaign Finance related flashback from April this year: thefederalist.com/2018/04/24/bombshell-fec-records-indicate-hillary-campaign-illegally-laundered-84-million/Bombshell: FEC Records Indicate Hillary Campaign Illegally Laundered $84 Million The mainstream media took no notice of a federal court filing that exposes a $84 million money-laundering conspiracy Democrats executed during the 2016 presidential election. Margot Cleveland By Margot Cleveland APRIL 24, 2018 The press continues to feed the dying Russia collusion conspiracy theory, spending Friday’s news cycle regurgitating Democrat talking points from the just-filed Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act lawsuit against the Trump campaign, WikiLeaks, and Russia. Yet the mainstream media took no notice of last week’s federal court filing that exposes an $84 million money-laundering conspiracy the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign executed during the 2016 presidential election in violation of federal campaign-finance law. |
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Post by NN on Aug 25, 2018 10:52:17 GMT -6
Campaign Finance related flashback from April this year: thefederalist.com/2018/04/24/bombshell-fec-records-indicate-hillary-campaign-illegally-laundered-84-million/Bombshell: FEC Records Indicate Hillary Campaign Illegally Laundered $84 Million The mainstream media took no notice of a federal court filing that exposes a $84 million money-laundering conspiracy Democrats executed during the 2016 presidential election. Margot Cleveland By Margot Cleveland APRIL 24, 2018 The press continues to feed the dying Russia collusion conspiracy theory, spending Friday’s news cycle regurgitating Democrat talking points from the just-filed Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act lawsuit against the Trump campaign, WikiLeaks, and Russia. Yet the mainstream media took no notice of last week’s federal court filing that exposes an $84 million money-laundering conspiracy the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign executed during the 2016 presidential election in violation of federal campaign-finance law. Is today the day you finally get her? Lock her up, no one cares. |
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 25, 2018 10:55:46 GMT -6
www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/trump-cohen-hush-money-president-had-lack-of-criminal-intent/LAW & THE COURTS On Hush Money, the President’s Best Defense Is Lack of Criminal Intent By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY August 25, 2018 5:30 AM The prosecutor must establish that Trump understood that his conduct was illegal. The government is unlikely to meet such a demanding burden of proof. You can be forgiven if you’ve forgotten there even is a Mueller investigation. Just a week ago, the country was on tenterhooks as the jury in Paul Manafort’s trial headed into the weekend without having reached a verdict. Would they hang? Had Special Counsel Robert Mueller overreached? Did federal judge T. S. Ellis of the Eastern District of Virginia undermine the prosecutors? Such is the permanent frenzy of the Trump news cycle that, even with Tuesday’s convictions, Manafort and Mueller seem like old news. They’ve been superseded by Michael Cohen’s guilty plea; specifically, by the fallout of Cohen’s having implicated the president in felony campaign-finance offenses during his allocution in Manhattan federal court late Tuesday afternoon — an otherworldly media moment, simultaneous with the jury verdict in Manafort’s trial 200 miles south. “Implicate” is a loaded word. In this week’s columns, we have looked closely at the Cohen case; we’ve considered salient differences in how campaign-finance law applies to candidates, such as Trump, and other putative donors, such as Cohen; and we’ve analyzed potential ramifications under New York law from the manner in which Cohen and the Trump Organization accounted for the reimbursement of Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Stephanie Clifford (better known as the porn star “Stormy Daniels,” who alleges a tryst with Donald Trump a dozen years ago; the president denies it — not very persuasively). We are still at an early stage, with much to learn and many news cycles yet to be spun. For now, though, it is safe to say only that Cohen has implicated the president in hush-money transactions, not in crimes. Paying hush money is not admirable, but neither is it criminal. Lanny Davis’s meanderings notwithstanding, acknowledgment that the president is complicit in Cohen’s conduct is not tantamount to asserting that he is culpable in Cohen’s felonies. Malum ProhibitumThis is not an endorsement of the president’s behavior. It is simply a reflection on the complexities of campaign-finance law. For conservatives, it also reflects a fact of life: Regulating behavior that is not innately criminal is a tortuous endeavor, too intricate for mere mortals to foresee all the consequences. Inevitably, some outcomes are sure to defy our commitment to equal justice under the law. Most criminal behavior is wrong by nature — malum in se. Laws prohibiting, say, murder or robbery are easy for the average person to grasp, and relatively easy to enforce evenhandedly if enforcement is done in good faith. But then there is the category of behavior that is not inherently wrong; it is wrong only because we choose to prohibit it — malum prohibitum. Campaign spending, which makes possible robust political speech that the First Amendment is supposed to protect, is deemed “wrong,” or at least potentially evil, only because progressives insist that we regulate it. But it is regulation in the teeth of core liberties, so it is hard to do. The predictable result is regulatory ambiguity, which is an invitation to capricious outcomes and enforcement. Hence, to take the obvious example before us, Donald Trump and Michael Cohen can participate in the same transaction, doing essentially the same thing, and yet be treated differently because their status is different — candidate versus mere contributor. There is a superficial appeal to the notion that if Cohen is guilty, Trump must be guilty. But of course, such logic must work reciprocally, too. That is, if Trump is innocent, Cohen must have pled guilty to a non-crime. This theory is championed by some whip-smart lawyers, such as my friend Mark Levin and the eminent Bradley Smith, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, who wrote a fine Washington Post op-ed on the subject this week. They argue that, despite his guilty plea, Cohen did not violate the campaign-finance laws. The idea is that paying hush money is not an “in-kind” campaign contribution even though the concealment of embarrassing conduct may have been intended, at least in part, to influence an election. Smith explains that paying for silence is more in the nature of a “personal use” expenditure — defined in the law as an obligation or expense that would exist even if the person for whom it is paid were not a candidate in an election campaign. A candidate is not permitted to divert campaign funds to his personal use. Given that, Smith posits a deft “they get you coming or going” argument. Sure, Donald Trump’s political opponents are now saying he violated campaign-finance laws by failing to disclose the election-eve hush-money payments as campaign expenses. Yet what would have happened if Trump had regarded these payments as campaign expenses and used campaign funds to pay them? Does anyone doubt that many of these same opponents would insist that he violated campaign-finance laws by diverting campaign funds to his personal use? I am persuaded by Smith’s and Levin’s reasoning. In a perfect world, it would carry the day. But far from a perfect world, ours is one in which this solid interpretation is not accepted by everyone who matters. The Edwards Case: FEC v. DOJTo underscore how vague these laws are: They have been construed contradictorily by the two government entities responsible for enforcing them: the FEC and the Justice Department. Worse, this was done in a case that very much resembles President Trump’s situation: the prosecution of John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator and Democratic vice-presidential candidate. When Edwards ran for president in 2007–08, wealthy donors helped him conceal an extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter, who was pregnant with his child. The FEC did not see these expenditures as in-kind campaign contributions, notwithstanding that they were intended to influence the election, far exceeded contribution limits, and were not reported. In stark contrast, the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section decided to indict Edwards on six felony counts of violating campaign-finance laws. The ambiguity problem does not stop there. A skilled trial lawyer in his own right, Edwards and Abbe Lowell, his superb defense attorney, made all the convincing arguments advanced by Smith and Levin. While those arguments persuade me, they did not persuade Catherine Eagles, the judge in the 2012 trial. She allowed the prosecution’s case to go to the jury. Implicitly, that means the court ruled that a rational juror could convict Edwards of campaign-finance violations involving in-kind contributions made to conceal marital infidelity, the disclosure of which could have blown up Edwards’s presidential bid. And matters get still murkier. Though Judge Eagles allowed the case to proceed to deliberations, it was palpably a weak case. Whatever spending the campaign-finance laws may legitimately capture, these expenditures were, at best, at the outer margins. Not surprisingly, the jury refused to convict Edwards. But, this being campaign-finance law, the result was nebulous: Edwards was acquitted on one count, but the jury hung on the other five. Then the Obama Justice Department, which could have retried the five unresolved charges, chose instead to drop the case. It’s Bad Law, Not a Get-Trump ConspiracySo, that is where things stand: vague laws lending themselves to inconsistent, unpredictable enforcement. Caprice naturally makes people suspicious. So some Trump supporters contend that, being hell-bent to get the president and having Cohen dead to rights on evading taxes on millions of dollars in income, Southern District of New York (SDNY) prosecutors pressured Cohen to plead guilty to non-crimes — the campaign-finance charges — so they could get him to implicate the president and start the ball rolling toward impeachment. I don’t see it. The SDNY is run by a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, Geoffrey Berman. Although he is recused from Cohen’s case, his office is run by lawyers he has chosen. The SDNY, moreover, has consulted closely with the Trump Justice Department here. (As we’ve previously noted, the Justice Department gets heavily involved in prosecutions against lawyers because of the knotty attorney–client privilege issues). Here I must make some disclosure. I was an SDNY prosecutor for almost 20 years. The acting U.S. attorney running the Cohen case is Rob Khuzami, one of my partners on the Blind Sheikh prosecution. Cohen’s lawyer, Guy Petrillo, was my appellate editor on the brief I wrote defending the convictions in that case in the Second Circuit. Given what I know of the culture of the SDNY, and of Khuzami and Petrillo, who are among the best and most ethical lawyers in this country, it is inconceivable to me that Cohen’s campaign-finance convictions are a get-Trump ploy. The Justice Department filed the charges because it believes, as it did in Edwards’s case, that campaign-finance law was violated by Cohen’s conduct — making an expenditure that far exceeded the donation limit, and causing an unlawful corporate expenditure, with both actions intended to affect the election. Cohen pled guilty because the risk of conviction was real — just as Edwards could have been convicted on any of the five counts on which his jury hung. One can abhor the campaign-finance laws, and disagree with the decision to charge Cohen, while still accepting that the Justice Department, defense counsel, and the court are all proceeding in good faith. The Impossibility of Proving Trump’s WillfulnessI believe this good faith will ultimately serve the president well. If I am right, Donald Trump will not face criminal campaign-finance charges. Cohen’s convictions would not preclude Trump’s lawyers from arguing that the expenditures at issue were not in-kind contributions. But it should never come to that. The president will not be charged because prosecutors cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he had the required intent to violate the law. Unlike Cohen, Trump, as the candidate, was not constrained by a dollar-amount limit in what he could spend on his campaign. Unlike Cohen (not to mention John Edwards), Trump is not a lawyer — indeed, he relied on his lawyer, Cohen, to deal with the legal aspects of business he trusted Cohen to conduct. Unlike Cohen, then, Trump did not have pressing reasons to keep campaign-finance regulations at the front of his mind. When the non-disclosure arrangements were made, Trump may well have been thinking about the impact on his election chances that disclosure of extramarital affairs with a Playboy model and a porn star might have — especially after the infamous Access Hollywood tape emerged. But unlike Cohen, Trump had major concerns that had nothing to do with the election: personal embarrassment, the humiliation of his family, and the blow to his marriage. All of this is must be weighed because the campaign-finance laws require prosecutors to establish that an accused person “knowingly and willfully” committed a violation. (See FEC Compendium of Federal Election Campaign Laws, Section 30109(d)(1)(A) of Title 52, U.S. Code.) Willfulness is the law’s most burdensome mens rea standard for prosecutors. It comes close to refuting the adage that “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” To prove that a defendant acted knowingly and willfully, the prosecutor must establish beyond a reasonable doubt that (a) he understood his conduct was illegal and (b) he acted with the purpose to disobey the law. I do not see how the government could meet this demanding burden of proof — not unless there is as-yet-undisclosed evidence that Trump actually paused to consider the possibility that these payments were in-kind campaign expenditures, believed they might well be, yet went through with them anyway. Finally, as we have repeatedly observed throughout the Mueller investigation and when news of Cohen’s guilty plea broke, Donald Trump is not going to face an indictment as long as he is president. Justice Department guidelines would not permit it. The germane issue here is not whether the SDNY can prove courtroom guilt. It is whether Congress may construe dubious campaign-finance infractions as high crimes and misdemeanors. That is, the question is whether the president may be impeached and removed over this. That seems implausible, to put it mildly. If the FEC and the Justice Department, the expert enforcers of campaign-finance laws, cannot even agree on what a crime is, how can there be a high crime? It is true enough, as I have frequently pointed out, that Congress need not find a penal offense in order to find an impeachable offense. That, however, is because impeachment is supposed to be reserved for egregious official misconduct that amounts to a profound abuse of power or betrayal of an official’s fiduciary duties. This doesn’t make the cut.
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Post by soonernvolved on Aug 25, 2018 10:58:31 GMT -6
Campaign Finance related flashback from April this year: thefederalist.com/2018/04/24/bombshell-fec-records-indicate-hillary-campaign-illegally-laundered-84-million/Bombshell: FEC Records Indicate Hillary Campaign Illegally Laundered $84 Million The mainstream media took no notice of a federal court filing that exposes a $84 million money-laundering conspiracy Democrats executed during the 2016 presidential election. Margot Cleveland By Margot Cleveland APRIL 24, 2018 The press continues to feed the dying Russia collusion conspiracy theory, spending Friday’s news cycle regurgitating Democrat talking points from the just-filed Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act lawsuit against the Trump campaign, WikiLeaks, and Russia. Yet the mainstream media took no notice of last week’s federal court filing that exposes an $84 million money-laundering conspiracy the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign executed during the 2016 presidential election in violation of federal campaign-finance law. Is today the day you finally get her? Lock her up, no one cares. Same can be asked of your side & your obsession with removing Trump over nothing yet,(still failed to prove any Russian collusion &/or collaboration). Simply pointing out how others have skirted/flaunted the same laws many are upset about what Trump is alleged to have done, yet they are still walking around & not in jail. |
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Post by NN on Aug 25, 2018 11:13:40 GMT -6
Is today the day you finally get her? Lock her up, no one cares. Same can be asked of your side & your obsession with removing Trump over nothing yet,(still failed to prove any Russian collusion &/or collaboration). Simply pointing out how others have skirted/flaunted the same laws many are upset about what Trump is alleged to have done, yet they are still walking around & not in jail. LOL, I wish someone would lock her up just so I wouldn't have to hear all the pubs constantly crying about it. |
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