We now have the first impeachable offense in place....who was that candidate for federal office?

Vikingwoman wrote:Manafort set it all up. He came to Trump w/ the deal he would win the election w/ the help of the Russians in exchange for what the Russians wanted. Manafort was the connection. Manafort got lots of money for that. It's why he hid it.

PkrBum wrote:Link? His charges so far are all prior to his ever working for trump... and even that only lasted a few months.

ConservaLady wrote:

Vikingwoman wrote:Manafort set it all up. He came to Trump w/ the deal he would win the election w/ the help of the Russians in exchange for what the Russians wanted. Manafort was the connection. Manafort got lots of money for that. It's why he hid it.

No silly.  You've been watching too much lying loony liberal television, Hun.

You might not like President Trump and his administrations policies, and that's your right.  But settle it at the ballot box why don't you and let's not go around making up and spreading fantastical lies of so-called "collusion" that never happened.

Manafort earned the money in question from his (legal) consulting work in Ukraine long before the campaign.  As did Tony Podesta (The Podesta Group), Clinton-ite and former Chair of Democrat Governor of Pennsylvania Ed Rendell's campaign.  Should Manafort have registred as a foreign agent?  Possibly.  But this has not yet gone to trial so we will see.  Did Tony Podesta register as a foreign agent?   But let me just point out that Failure To Register as a Foreign Agent is a violation that is not often prosecuted.  If it were we'd have hundreds of people (many of them Democrat affiliated) up on that charge every year.  Read this link:
 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/30/paul-manafort-indictment-foreign-lobbying-russia-probe-215764   

(Just like many complicated tax irregularities that occur due to misinterpretation of the tax laws and regulations are often handled administratively via audit and fine/penalty and payment of back taxes, rather than going straight to criminal prosecution.  Unless, of course, one has been selected for prosecution for political reasons.)

As to Russian interference in the election, they had already hacked the DNC emails.  The DNC had sloppy computer security.  Bad on them. And in light of that, do we really want them in charge of our national secuirty?   The Russians also had attempted to hack the RNC computers but couldn't get in.  (read the investigation - this was proven)  So they sent this Russian attorney who was in the US on other business to meet with the Trump campaign and offer them up the damaging (and true!)  information they had on the Hillary campaign and the DNC's nefarious plot to shut Bernie down.   They had an intermediary contact Don Jr with the Trump campaign and set up the meeting.   Don Jr and some others went to the meeting not knowing what the information might be or where it was coming from.  They smelled something not right and so Don Jr left within fifteen minutes and turned them down flat. The Russians then afterwards released the info to WikiLeaks of their own accord.  

As to the DNC email information the Russians had obtained, well, the Hillary campaign actually paid a foreign national to go out and meet with persons associated with the Russian government/intelligence (and probably paid them) for all kinds of salacious unproven dirt that became the infamous fake dossier. This is fact.  If anybody was directly colluding" with agents of the Russian government it was the Hillary Clinton campaign !!!  Where's the outrage over that?

The Russians interfered with both campaigns in the election.  Their objective was to create electoral chaos in the US.   The difference being the Clinton campaign actively sought out and paid for the information.

zsomething wrote:

Fascinating story.  Somebody let me know when "Batman" starts showing up in it.  

ConservaLady wrote:

zsomething wrote:

Fascinating story.  Somebody let me know when "Batman" starts showing up in it.  

The fact you cannot logically nor legitimately rebut not one jot nor tittle of my post only demonstrates the weakness of your lying loony liberal sauce.

ConservaLady wrote:

zsomething wrote:

Fascinating story.  Somebody let me know when "Batman" starts showing up in it.  

The fact you cannot logically nor legitimately rebut not one jot nor tittle of my post only demonstrates the weakness of your lying loony liberal sauce.

The Russians also had attempted to hack the RNC computers but couldn't get in.  (read the investigation - this was proven)

Don Jr and some others went to the meeting not knowing what the information might be or where it was coming from.

The Russians then afterwards released the info to WikiLeaks of their own accord.  

As to the DNC email information the Russians had obtained, well, the Hillary campaign actually paid a foreign national to go out and meet with persons associated with the Russian government/intelligence (and probably paid them) for all kinds of salacious unproven dirt that became the infamous fake dossier. This is fact.  If anybody was directly colluding" with agents of the Russian government it was the Hillary Clinton campaign !!!  Where's the outrage over that?

ConservaLady wrote:

PkrBum wrote:Link? His charges so far are all prior to his ever working for trump... and even that only lasted a few months.

Manafort took the tax violations (that had nothing to do with Trump) to trial probably because the prosecutor was leaning on him to make a plea agreement in which he would also have to plea to some bogus charge involving Trump in order to get the agreement.  Which is exactly the same thing they did with Cohen!   But Cohen, not being as financially successful as Manafort had not the funds to pay for a proper defense (and possibly being actually more guilty of tax violations than Manafort) so he took the deal and agreed to implicate Trump in a non-crime in order to mitigate his tax charges.

Manafort has too much integrity to do such a thing, so there was no plea agreement and he was essentially forced to go to trial (for tax violations that normally would have probably been handled via administrative audit, fine, penalties, and payment of back taxes.) The selective prosecution of Mr Manafort was clearly politically motivated.  He should receive a pardon and I hope he does.

Vikingwoman wrote:
Cohen had no deal when he went into court. Coming on here and making statements Manafort had too much integrity when he was convicted of 8 counts shows you don't have any sense and are deceitful to say the least.

ConservaLady wrote:It's not a crime to pay someone for a non-disclosure agreement.  

Deus X wrote:

ConservaLady wrote:It's not a crime to pay someone for a non-disclosure agreement.  

Sweetbleedin'jesus, how is it possible for you to be so ignorant!

Of course, it's a crime if it is done by a candidate in furtherance of a political campaign.

DUH!

Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former attorney, is “pleading guilty to a crime that doesn’t exist” to further Democrats’ plans to impeach the president. He offered his analysis during a Wednesday interview with Breitbart Senior Editors-at-Large Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight.

“I don’t think there’s an impeachable offense,” said Dershowitz. “I believe you need to have a specific crime — treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors — and none of the things that [Michael] Cohen pleaded guilty to would rise to that level or even come close to it. What Cohen pleaded guilty to may not even be a crime, the part about the election campaign laws.”

Dershowitz continued, “Even if it’s true that President Trump contributed $280,000 for the explicit purpose of paying hush money in order to prevent the public from knowing that he had these alleged affairs with these two women, that would simply not be a crime. It might be a political sin, but it would not be a crime.”

Dershowitz advised political observers to maintain scrutiny when consuming “media … that is part of the posse of ‘let’s get Trump at all costs.'”



“There’s a hard question about whether any crime has been committed at all,” stated Dershowitz.

Dershowitz maintained that payment for a non-disclosure agreement from a candidate’s personal funds is entirely lawful. Mark Levin echoed this analysis on Tuesday.

Dershowitz explained, “A candidate can give contributions [to his campaign]. So even if it’s true that the only purpose was to help his campaign — obviously it had multiple purposes; it was obviously designed to also prevent embarrassment to his family, his wife, his children, and all that — but even if you could show, even if he had a memo saying, ‘I want you, my lawyer, to pay $80,000. I’ll pay you back. It’s my campaign contribution, and I want it to be hush money in order to help me be elected president,’ no crime. No crime.”

Dershowitz added, “You don’t charge people with a crime when the law is vague.

On Wednesday, Lanny Davis — Clinton associate and Cohen’s attorney — framed Trump’s alleged conduct as amounting to “a high crime and misdemeanor.” Dershowitz rejected Davis’s characterization.

“This isn’t even close to high crimes and misdemeanors,” said Dershowitz. “First of all, it has to be a crime, and this isn’t a crime.”

Dershowitz concluded, “Cohen is pleading guilty to a crime that doesn’t exist. [u]The only reason they put it in there [is because] they had him dead to rights on other crime. The only reason they put it in there is to connect Trump because Trump isn’t connected to any of the other crimes to which he pleaded guilty. Those are real crimes.”

Deus X wrote:
Of course, it's a crime if it is done by a candidate in furtherance of a political campaign.

ConservaLady wrote:

Deus X wrote:
Of course, it's a crime if it is done by a candidate in furtherance of a political campaign.

So by your line of reasoning it's a campaign expenditure?   Thus it would logically follow it could have, should have, been paid for with campaign funds?  That's just illogical loony liberal nonsense !!

Tell us.  How do you think Mr Trump should have paid for it within the bounds of the law?  

It's a personal expenditure and thus cannot be paid for with campaign funds.  And if it's something that's not allowed to be paid for with campaign funds, then it plainly follows it's not a "campaign" expenditure.  So how can such a non-campaign related expenditure be characterized as a "campaign donation?"  

Your loony liberal logic would allow politicians to pay off mistresses (and all manner of other non-campaign related things) with campaign funds!

You can't have it both ways.
You can't maintain on the one hand (incorrectly) that:

"it's a campaign expenditure and thus the payment of it constitutes a campaign donation"

- and at the same time on the other hand say (correctly)

"it's a personal expenditure and thus can't be paid with campaign funds".  

It's either one or the other, and clearly such expenditures can't be made with campaign funds.    Have you ever heard of the so-called FEC "mistress loophole"?
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2018/05/04/donald-trump-john-edwards-and-the-mistress-loophole/

Donald Trump consulted his attorney on this, as any prudent person would do.   If something was illegal about the way it was paid should not his attorney have informed him of that?  That's why people pay attorneys, for legal advice so they don't run afoul of the law.  

Cohen only acceded to the bogus campaign-donation charge in his plea agreement to get off easier on his tax charges (which he did)  It's a really slimy thing this prosecutor has done.  The Judge should reject the plea agreement as written, call the prosecutor out on it, & make him throw that charge out of the agreement because  A. It's clearly entirely unrelated to the much older tax violations, and B.  It's a bogus charge to begin with.  All competent and serious legal experts say so.   C.  The entire plea agreement is clearly politically motivated to implicate Trump (in what is actually a non-crime).  And the prosecutor should be duly sanctioned for his prosecutorial misconduct in this case.

Floridatexan wrote:

Wow...that is some serious denial.  You need an intervention.

Floridatexan wrote:

ConservaLady wrote:

Deus X wrote:
Of course, it's a crime if it is done by a candidate in furtherance of a political campaign.

So by your line of reasoning it's a campaign expenditure?   Thus it would logically follow it could have, should have, been paid for with campaign funds?  That's just illogical loony liberal nonsense !!

Tell us.  How do you think Mr Trump should have paid for it within the bounds of the law?  

It's a personal expenditure and thus cannot be paid for with campaign funds.  And if it's something that's not allowed to be paid for with campaign funds, then it plainly follows it's not a "campaign" expenditure.  So how can such a non-campaign related expenditure be characterized as a "campaign donation?"  

Your loony liberal logic would allow politicians to pay off mistresses (and all manner of other non-campaign related things) with campaign funds!

You can't have it both ways.
You can't maintain on the one hand (incorrectly) that:

"it's a campaign expenditure and thus the payment of it constitutes a campaign donation"

- and at the same time on the other hand say (correctly)

"it's a personal expenditure and thus can't be paid with campaign funds".  

It's either one or the other, and clearly such expenditures can't be made with campaign funds.    Have you ever heard of the so-called FEC "mistress loophole"?
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2018/05/04/donald-trump-john-edwards-and-the-mistress-loophole/

Donald Trump consulted his attorney on this, as any prudent person would do.   If something was illegal about the way it was paid should not his attorney have informed him of that?  That's why people pay attorneys, for legal advice so they don't run afoul of the law.  

Cohen only acceded to the bogus campaign-donation charge in his plea agreement to get off easier on his tax charges (which he did)  It's a really slimy thing this prosecutor has done.  The Judge should reject the plea agreement as written, call the prosecutor out on it, & make him throw that charge out of the agreement because  A. It's clearly entirely unrelated to the much older tax violations, and B.  It's a bogus charge to begin with.  All competent and serious legal experts say so.   C.  The entire plea agreement is clearly politically motivated to implicate Trump (in what is actually a non-crime).  And the prosecutor should be duly sanctioned for his prosecutorial misconduct in this case.

Wow...that is some serious denial.  You need an intervention.

ConservaLady wrote:

Floridatexan wrote:

Wow...that is some serious denial.  You need an intervention.

I notice none of the loony liberals on here dare to answer the question.  

Perhaps you would like to?

Are payments such as these:  
A.  campaign expenditures?
or
B.  personal expenditures?

It's very easy, A or B.






Or here's another question for you:  Is liberal-darling nationally-reknown Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz wrong about this?  How so?  

https://www.the-american-interest.com/2018/05/04/donald-trump-john-edwards-and-the-mistress-loophole/

Floridatexan wrote:
Alan Dershowitz is a grandstanding pig.  I wouldn't leave him alone with my daughters or grandkids for one New York minute.  And you are still stupid....what time is it?  Yep, still stupid.

ConservaLady wrote:
Alan Dershowitz disagrees with you.  As do a whole lot of other legal experts.

Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz said...

blah, blah, blah...

Dershowitz added, “You don’t charge people with a crime when the law is vague."

2seaoat wrote: Trump is a mobster.

2seaoat wrote:I have run for public office.  I had to document and report all my personal contributions to the campaign fund.  

ConservaLady wrote:

2seaoat wrote:I have run for public office.  I had to document and report all my personal contributions to the campaign fund.  

You are missing the point.