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@Greyparrot
What's scary is the E Jean trial essentially used the same tactic, insinuating rape when it was never charged.
OJ was found not guilty yet was still held civilly liable. Somehow I suspect you were not out there claiming the justice system was being weaponized against him.
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@3RU7AL
who cares how much money you use to deceive voters ?
The law. There is a reason we have rules governing campaign finances.
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@thett3
When the relevant authorities, who have jurisdiction, chose not pursue the case, New York does not get to decide that in fact a violation did occur.
The relevant authority did decide this. The DOJ (as in the federal government) charged Cohen, and Cohen plead guilty and was sentenced to and served 3 years in prison. That by definition, means that Cohen is, legally speaking, guilty of violating federal law.
Donald Trump was proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be involved in this adjudicated crime. So even if we apply the most charitable position towards Trump in this, he is still guilty. Here is the law he was charged with:
A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree when he commits the crime of falsifying business records in the second degree, and when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.
So even if we assume that Trump played no role in the commission of this crime (he did), he at the very least falsified his business records to conceal it. And you don't get to claim the crime wasn't adjudicated when the primary actor in this scheme served 3 years in prison as a result.
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@3RU7AL
if [using large sums of money to] deceive voters [by engaging in a scheme to falsify the documents showing the nature and purpose of said payments] is a crimewe're going to need to build a lot of new prisons
Fixed.
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@Greyparrot
the question is whether NY can determine whether the NY crime someone did commit is considered more egregious because they did it with the intent of violating federal law.And the SCOTUS will decide if that is Constitutional; to have a state jury decide what a federal violation is. Not Merchan.
Wow, you learned the chain of legal progression. Congratulations.
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@thett3
You see, if you put the word "intent" in there, that gives New York the authority to evaluate what actions are a violation of federal law.
No, it doesn’t, and I’ve explained 3 or 4 times now what my actual argument is.
Intent is an entirely different element from the technical violation itself, and the intent behind an action taken is entirely relevant to assessing the egregiousness of that action.
This isn’t even about the law anymore, this is a matter of understanding basic common sense, yet no matter how many examples I give you just keep retreating to the same tired talking point without addressing anything I’ve said.
At some point, after so many attempts to get you to engage, your intent to continue ignoring this element of the conversation becomes apparent, some might say beyond a reasonable doubt.
What Cohen pled guilty to was (according to your link) "making an excessive contribution in violation of the Act by making the Clifford payment from his personal funds." Since there's no limit to how much a candidate can contribute to their own campaign, the exact same contribution by Trump would be legal.
Correct, it would have been legal… it would also have been legal for the guy who robbed the jewelry store to walk out with the goods if he used cash instead of the barrel of his gun.
If Cohen’s contribution was in fact illegal and he did it “in coordination with and at the direction of” Trump then what does that make Trump?
Yes, it would have been legal if Trump made the payment from his own account, that would have also required him to report it, which is exactly why he went out of his way to hide the payment. That’s the whole point here. The falsification of his business records was one thing, but when that falsification is part of a coordinated plot to subvert having to disclose his attempts to use large sums of money to influence the election it becomes something much more.
This is again, a matter of common sense. You do not need to be a lawyer to understand this.
The important point is that the authorities who actually have jurisdiction over this didn't pursue it. You not liking what you think is their reasoning has no bearing on what happened. There was an inquiry, the relevant authorities looked into it, and the inquiry was closed.
The FEC isn’t the DOJ, they do not have the ability to properly investigate criminal activity or press charges. The DOJ has that ability, that’s why they investigated and found Cohen’s actions to be illegal. It’s more than just where the FEC thinks expenditures should be categorized, it’s about the subject’s demonstrated intent because that’s what the law focuses on. The FEC can’t determine that, they don’t have the resources. That’s why they rightly step to the side once the DOJ is involved.
In other words, you are just wrong when you claim the authority here decided this wasn’t illegal. The authority who ultimately decides that is the DOJ, not the FEC. The FEC even said so themselves in their own ruling.
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@thett3
New York State doesn’t get to decide what is a violation of federal law! That includes determining “intent to violate” a federal law
Stating your position in a disagreement over that position is useless, especially when you continue to ignore what the position you’re arguing against is in the first place.
The question is not whether NU gets to decide what is a violation of federal law, the question is whether NY can determine whether the NY crime someone did commit is considered more egregious because they did it with the intent of violating federal law. That’s a very different question, so if you’re going to keep responding to it please argue the actual topic.
Yeah litigated in…New York State
The point of the link was to provide you with the arguments and judges findings in this matter. You seem very interested in this question since you are basing your ire shadiness this case on it, so one would think the arguments and case law establishing this would be of interest.
The proper authorities chose not to pursue this matter, likely because Trump NOT using personal funds in this matter is what would’ve actually been illegal.
The proper authorities already stated their reasons for why they didn’t pursue the matter, and it’s not even close to what you claim. I already provided you that link.
They stated explicitly that they decided to move on simply because they thought their resources would be better spent elsewhere.
They stated that the reason their resources would be better spent elsewhere was because the DOJ was already dealing with this to which they indicted the guy Trump ordered to do it.
It’s pretty odd that the FEC took the position that this was not a campaign violation while expressly acknowledging that the DOJ was actively prosecuting someone for it and explicitly deferring to them.
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@Greyparrot
Do you understand the difference?Yeah, it's an unconstitutional law that will ultimately be struck down on…
So no, you don’t understand the difference.
Let’s try this again. Do you understand the difference between being charged with a crime, and being charged for taking an action with the intent of committing said crime? Yes or No?
rogue judges can't convict you of a crime that was never specified or charged.
First of all, the judge didn’t convict him. That’s what juries do.
Moreover, the charge was specified. NY penal law 175.10, with the underlying crime being NY Election law Chapter 17, Article 17, Title 1, Section 17-152. If you still don’t know this as you claim not to then it’s not because this is complicated, it’s because you’re not paying attention.
since the DOJ was already prosecuting Micheal Cohen for it, which amounts to a tacit admission that Trump was in fact in violation of the law.Like I can't even.... why are you hung up on the idea that in this country, you are guilty until proven innocent?
My god this is so stupid.
I’m not. I never argued nor suggested such a silly thing. You aren’t even trying.
The DOJ dropped the FEDERAL case against Trump because it was clearly partisan, with no precedent, and it would have made Biden look like a subverter of democracy.
Again, the DOJ dropped the case because it decided to be political, by definition, according to your own argument.
Was the indictment against Micheal Cohen clearly partisan? Yes or No?
You never answered that, and the reason why is obvious. It’s either because you realize that if the indictment against Cohen was not partisan then you cannot coherently claim indicting the guy who ordered him to do it is also partisan, or because you realize that calling that indictment partisan not only undercuts your attacks against Cohen (which you use to defend Trump), but more importantly because then you would have to also claim that Trump weaponized his own Justice department to go after his own adversaries, which undercuts the entire reason you claim any of this matters.
So of course you will ignore that point and in the process prove that you aren’t interested in facts, logic, or any stated principals. You’re just scoring political points while pretending that’s what the rest of us are doing.
What's so monumentally hilarious is that this blunder has cost Biden an additional 1 to 2% of the black vote where Trump is set to get near 20% of the black vote this year, which is unprecedented for ANYONE on the Republican ticket.
What’s monumentally hilarious is that there are so many people out there so stupid that they would base their vote for President on a case that an NY prosecutor brought that an NY judge allowed that an NY jury agreed with. Tell me you don’t care about facts and logic without telling me you don’t care about facts and logic.
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@Greyparrot
New York similarly would not only have to prove that standard for its existing state laws that essentially mirror federal campaign finance laws, but also would have to prove that they do not conflict with the application of the law, which they clearly did in this case when the FEC chair refused to declare Trump guilty of campaign violations.
Kind of hard to argue that a law which says “committing crime X will be deemed worse if you do so in the course of violating federal law”… is a violation of federal law.
Moreover, as I have explained numerous times already but you seem to skip over every time, is that neither the charges nor a conviction here require Trump to be guilty of violating federal law. The requirement is that he falsified the business records with the intent to violate federal law.
Do you understand the difference?
The far-left deep state media cried for days about how this was a political decision, but that's exactly why the vote was deadlocked, because it was a straight up baseless partisan charge.
The republicans on the committee explained why they voted against it so you can stop making up convenient lies to explain it.
They said, explicitly, that they voted not to pursue the matter because their resources could be better spent elsewhere since the DOJ was already prosecuting Micheal Cohen for it, which amounts to a tacit admission that Trump was in fact in violation of the law.
Moreover, the attorney who carried out the scheme was indicted by Trump’s own DOJ who in the paperwork acknowledged that Cohen did this “in coordination with and at the direction of” Donald Trump. Do you have any response to that, or was that partisan politics as well?
Biden's own DOJ dropped the case after the FEC was deadlocked, precisely because such a move would be clearly seen as a partisan weaponization of the law
Which is a blatant contradiction. Proper enforcement of the law requires that political considerations be put to the side. If your reason for not charging someone is because of the political implications of it then your decision is political by definition.
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Russians thought it would hurt the United States but didn't realize Trump would create a booming economy
He didn’t, this is such a tiresome lie.
Nothing changed when Trump took office. Unemployment, GDP, hell even the stock market, all continued the same upward trajectory we had been seeing for the prior seven years. In fact you could even argue it slowed down under Trump since there were more jobs created in the last 3 years under Obama than there were under Trump.
Please stop repeating this lie, it only makes you look helplessly uninformed at best and a partisan hack at worst.
How are you defining the term "Russian asset"
It means that in Trump Putin was able to see progress towards achieving his top goals that he never could have thought reasonably possible.
Putin is a murderous dictator which means he rules by fear and a sense of hopelessness. The greatest threat to a person like him is a source of inspiration, a place his people could look to and say “that’s what we want”. For about a century now that source has been the United States, so what Putin wanted is to see American democracy crumble. Trump with his bullshit election lies, his flagrant flouting of the law and then weaponizing his own accountability to further destroy confidence in the rule of law… these are things Putin never dreamed would actually see happen in his lifetime.
The second is the weakening of NATO which Trump has unquestionably done. NATO was literally formed as a check against Russian aggression and every president since WW2 has understood his importance to national security… except Trump. Never in Putin’s wildest dreams did he believe NATO would actually topple, but a second Trump presidency would almost guarantee it.
Putin must wake up everyday wondering if he sold his soul to the devil and had the memory of that transaction wiped so he could enjoy the results. Trump is a candidate he never thought possible 15 years ago.
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@TheUnderdog
G13 kids won’t be traumatized by the shooting that G1 endured.
You didn’t hear a word I said. Walking down a hallway or into a classroom where multiple children were shot dead is like walking through ground zero, you don’t just pretend nothing happened there. And even if you think you could, so what? It’s not a good learning environment, and even if it had nothing to do with the children at all, even if it was all about the trauma of the adults it’s still their trauma and their decision. Why do you even care about this?
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@TheUnderdog
There is not a single elementary school aged person in Sandy Hook that will be traumatized by being in the same building.
Because they figured that students are probably not in the best learning environment walking through a hallway where multiple dead bodies of kids once laid for doing the same thing they are doing right now.
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@thett3
The state of New York doesn’t get to decide what means are unlawful in federal elections! The federal government does! And they looked at the case against Trump and said “pass”!
This isn’t an argument, it’s a sentiment based on a fundamentally flawed understanding both of this case and of the law.
Just like the other 49 states, NY sets the rules as to how its own elections will be conducted and how its slated electoral votes will be allocated to the candidates. It has every right to say “you cannot influence how our people will vote through unlawful means, especially when the conduct which did this took place within the state”.
And btw, this whole concept of using an out of jurisdiction crime as the underlying crime was litigated prior to the trial. If you are actually interested see below.
Again, going back to the start of this conversation, my claim isn’t that all of this is ultimately right (I’m not a lawyer either), but that the trial is certainly reasonable both legally and morally. All you’ve presented to support your charges of a weaponized justice system are legal arguments you don’t seem to have thought through or researched. That’s just not enough to hold your position. You appear to believe it because it’s convenient.
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@WyIted
Imagine just for one second that Trump truly had no intention of being a dictator or abusing his power - that his values and principals truly aligned with that of the constitution. When asked whether he intended to be a dictator, wouldn’t he just say “no, of course not” rather than, “nope, except for day one”?That was quite obviously a reference to Biden doing a record amount of executive orders day 1.
Complete and total BS. Nothing Trump said while answering that question would lead anyone to that conclusion, you are just seeing what you want to see.
I think George Bush said it would be easier if he were a dictator and the left made similar statements that he was also about to genocide people and declare himself dictator.
The context was completely different. This kind of language has always been out there, but it has always been rhetorical. Never in our lifetimes and probably not ever have we as a nation had this conversation in a serious context and Trump is fully aware of what he is being accused of. This is an egregious false equivalence.
I know because I was a leftist then and was convinced he would cancel elections.
Then you were a terrible and uninformed leftist. No one who had a firm grasp of reality really thought these things.
Wouldn’t he when having his hand held by sycophantic interviewers practically begging him to say he is not going to abuse power just agree with them rather than talking about how he may have to do the same thing because it was done to him?I just saw an interview 5 minutes ago where he said he was going to be too focused fixing what is wrong with this country to have time for revenge.
This is literally the point of the saying “when someone shows you who they are, believe them”.
I genuinely can’t tell if this is a serious response or satire.
So he is likely going to be surrounded by libertarians, heritage foundation nation people and some boring VP pick. He is obviously using Roger stones playbook so it will be somebody like Marco Rubio, but not him.
He will be surrounding himself with MAGA loyalists who will pledge fealty to him over the constitution. This isn’t the same Trump we saw in 2015 who thought he could win everyone over with how amazing he was. This is someone who has declared war on his political opposition and he will ensure there are no guardrails against him and his impulses like we saw the first time.
What Trump learned and showed us all in the wake of January 6th is that our institutions are only as strong as the people running them. If a governor decided not to certify their election, if a county manager somewhere decided to do the same, he could have succeeded.
In 2020 the culture of this country was such that there were still enough people who would put country over party. What’s different in 2024 is that Trump has succeeded in dividing us to the point where the system is now ready to be taken over by people Trump has convinced that there is no longer election integrity or a rule of law. If his people get in this time I truly do not believe we will be strong enough to hold it.
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@ILikePie5
Democrats opened Pandora’s Box
This is exactly my point. You can’t pretend to value the rule of law when you show yourself to be more concerned with abusing it to exact revenge than to focus on ensuring it stays protected.
And if you don’t value it then you have nothing to be outraged about in the first place other than the sting of having been defeated, which is a pretty terrible talking point to convince people to support your cause, which is why you need to pretend to be outraged over something else.
So why not release the tapes?
Well first off because illegitimate requests should be ignored. This is like asking why the pentagon doesn’t give us full access to their video archive to prove flight 77 crashed there.
Second, because the Justice department has an obligation to protect the integrity of future investigations. As Donald Trump taught us, there really is no mechanism to enforce ensuring that presidents will cooperate with special counsel investigations. If the precedent is set that the opposing party can demand that every minute of tape of their interviews be released publicly that pretty much guarantees that no future president will cooperate.
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@Greyparrot
Do you think a state judge has or should have the uncontrolled authority to decide federal law violations?
No, and that’s not what happened here. So what is your point?
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@thett3
A unanimous verdict is required to find someone guilty of a crime. Trump was only guilty in this case if he committed another crime.
First off, you are just wrong on how this works. Trump does not have to commit the crime in order for it to apply because the law makes clear that the only requirement was for him to have had the intent when he committed the falsification of records.
“A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree when he commits the crime of falsifying business records in the second degree, and when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”
intent to commit =/= actually committed
In other words, it’s not Trump’s prior actions that are being adjudicated here, it’s the egregiousness of the falsification itself that takes this to a felony.
I think my house arrest analogy works perfectly here of we tweak it. Imagine I leave my house and walk straight across the street to Walmart where I pull an item off the shelf, rip it out of the packaging and discard the package, shove it down my pants and walk towards the exit. Once there, I see two security guards staring suspiciously at me, get spooked and decide to toss the item and leave.
In that case I didn’t commit a crime, it is only shoplifting if I walked out of the store with it. But my intent was clearly to steal the item and if it turned out that leaving my house with the intent to commit another crime was a felony, a jury on this evidence could very easily convict me.
In this case, the judge allowed jurors to determine what that other crime was without a unanimous verdict.
I don’t think you understand what the charges here were. You keep eluding to the campaign finance violation as if that’s what the jury found was the “intent to commit another crime” as specified by the law. It’s not. The judge laid this out clearly, the law Trump was charged with the intention of violating was NY election law SECTION 17-152 “Conspiracy to promote or prevent election”.
“Any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.”
The problem here is of course that violation of this law requires it to be done by “unlawful means” which means we have to go another layer deep in order to determine whether this law applies. That’s where the campaign finance violation comes in, and the judge allowed the prosecution to include two other possible violations, tax fraud and another that involves the illegal formation of a shell company (which Cohen used to pay off Stormy).
So yes I can see how this is confusing to many and can be considered problematic, but what gets you to what I believe to be an erroneous interpretation of the law is your insistence that the jury has to agree on “what happened”. They don’t, the only thing they have to agree on is whether the elements of the crime that qualify it as a felony were proven. In this case that means they had to agree that Trump
A) falsified his business records, and
B) did so with the intent to influence the election by unlawful means
Provided all twelve jurors agree on (A), it doesn’t matter if they have different reasons for agreeing on (B), the fact still remains that they agree on (B).
This actually reminds me of my time as a juror. We spent 6 days deliberating on a murder trial. In NY the law is that it’s 1st degree murder if it is committed during the course of a robbery. The problem for us to sort out was that we didn’t have the item allegedly stolen, and the murder occurred inside the victims home, but the defendant had never met her before. So this entire thing was a bit odd. What was she even doing there in the first place?
We had many disagreements about what we thought happened, what this was all about, what witnesses were credible, and what evidence was useful. But in the end, all 12 jurors agreed that she did kill her, and that it did take place during the course of a robbery. That’s all that was required so we found her guilty.
If juries were required to agree on all of the details of the story no one would ever be convicted of anything.
I’m not an expert on campaign finance law and don’t claim to be. I would defer to FEC commissioner Smith
Why? Why do you single out one individual who affirms your position and ignore the rest?
The office of general counsel (as in the lawyers) at the FEC determined the contribution to be illegal, Trump’s own DOJ indicted Cohen for it, and even the two republicans who voted not to pursue the issue all but admitted it in their stated reasons for dropping it.
But even if it’s a “technicality”….theres a HUGE difference between not prosecuting someone based on a “technicality” and prosecuting someone on a technicality. One is an exercise in discretion and mercy and one is a gross due process violation. You can’t prosecute someone on a “technicality” dude. I’m stunned you would even say that.
I didn’t say that, I was adopting your logic to show you the problem with it. I wasn’t comparing prosecution via a technicality to prosecutorial discretion to not prosecute. I was comparing your insistence that it is wrong to accept a technicality as a reason to go after Trump while basing your own argument that the justice system is being weaponized… on a legal technicality.
Again, the overwhelming consensus (which includes an actual criminal indictment that Trump’s own lawyer pleaded guilty to) is that this was an illegal contribution. Yet you’re appealing to legal technicalities to argue Trump’s ‘obvious innocence’. Look, we can either debate this through a moral lense or a legal one, but you have to pick.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
It's called escalation.
Escalation only applies if your view of the circumstances surrounding the action are that the parties are already engaged in some kind of warfare, at which point the democrats weaponization of the DOJ is not wrong any more than it is wrong to kill someone in combat.
In other words you’re trying to have it both ways. Either the democrats weaponization of the DOJ is wrong because that’s not how we do things in this country, in which case you would feel obligated to ensure the rule of law is restored, or the justice system is just a tool to be weaponized in which case your only real gripe is that the democrats beat you to it.
Either way, you’re showing yourself to be a hypocrite. You can’t claim to value the rule of law while vowing to weaponize it.
You can claim democrats are liars, but at least our stated values are straight.
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@WyIted
Because you are not interpreting his comments in a generous way.
Correct, I don’t care about being generous, I care about being reasonable. And being reasonable means recognizing that when someone shows you who they are you should believe them.
Imagine just for one second that Trump truly had no intention of being a dictator or abusing his power - that his values and principals truly aligned with that of the constitution. When asked whether he intended to be a dictator, wouldn’t he just say “no, of course not” rather than, “nope, except for day one”?
When giving a speech about how the justice system is being abused by the democrats, wouldn’t he as the guy who values the rule of law be out there galvanizing people to figure out how we can fix it for good instead of musing about how he’s going to indict Hillary Clinton?
Wouldn’t he when having his hand held by sycophantic interviewers practically begging him to say he is not going to abuse power just agree with them rather than talking about how he may have to do the same thing because it was done to him?
Of course he would, because that’s what it looks like when the person speaking actually believes those things. That’s not TDS, that’s common sense.
He is not Hitler he is not setting up camps
No, but the people he is inspiring and whom he is most likely to surround himself with if he gets reelected are planning such types of things. A second Trump term will be nothing like the first.
it is silly to simultaneously weaponize the DOJ while crying that Trump may do the ssn
The DOJ isn’t weaponized, this is a complete nonsense conspiracy theory right on par with 9/11 and Sandy Hook
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@thett3
In fact, Trump paying for this NDA with campaign funds which he was apparently supposed to do
What he was supposed to do is not use a large sum of money to influence an election if he wasn’t willing to report it. That’s the idea behind campaign finance law.
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@thett3
The actual equivalent is the state saying "yeah you can choose that he broke house arrest to mug someone, rape someone, murder someone, harass someone, whatever. And when you come to a decision he doesn't have to know what you think happened. Your decision on what happened doesn't have to be unanimous
This describes every criminal trial we’ve ever seen. Jurors do not have to agree on what actually happened, they only need to agree on the components that make up the crime. How they got there could be and often are remarkably different and no one including the defendant gets to know that unless jurors voluntarily decide to recount their thoughts.
But it's made worse by the fact that the institutions who actually have jurisdiction over this DID NOT PROSECUTE.
While technically accurate with regards to the defendant, this argument is “in spirit” a load of BS. The FEC explicitly declined to move forward because “other government agencies” were already addressing this, as in the DOJ. And the DOJ didn’t just charge Trump’s personal attorney with making the illegal campaign contribution, they said in the indictment that he did so “in coordination with and at the direction of individual 1” whom we all know for a fact is Donald Trump.
So it seems a bit ironic here that you substantiate your claim of a weaponized justice system on legal technicalities, but when the prosecutors use legal technicalities to prosecute Trump somehow the use of legal technicalities becomes unacceptable.
Also all of this happened in a different state lol" and if the state doesn't allow you to present arguments for why you left your house and doesn't disclose their own theory for why you left until closing arguments.
This is another debunked lie that continues to circulate around right wing circles. The Trump team knew exactly what the prosecution’s case was because they laid it out in painstaking detail 5 months before the trial.
Trump was not found guilty (or even indicted) of a federal elections crime so no, a New York jury can't decide that he is guilty of a federal offense as a predicate for their own verdict.
They didn’t. The trial adjudicated the falsification with intent to commit a crime (which is what the law requires), not whether he ultimately succeeded, so the specifics as to what qualifies under the campaign finance act was not a necessary component for jurors to consider.
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@WyIted
And what about when he does?Then that's fine. If somebody weaponizes the justice system and then it is weaponized against them it seems fair, but he has stated he wouldn't and his history indicates this is true
I think you misunderstood the question. You said you believe him when he says he won’t use the DOJ for revenge, but he also says (or strongly implies since he knows better than to just flat out admit it) that he will, so why do you believe him when he says that which is politically expedient but when he repeatedly says things that are politically toxic you brush it off?
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@Greyparrot
It never ceases to amaze me how often you do not answer the question.
Because your questions are stupid.
What will happen to Garland? Under a Biden administration - nothing, because he hasn’t done anything. Under a Trump administration? Who tf knows what BS Trump’s minions will conjure up as political revenge.
The question you would ask if you were looking for a serious conversation is ‘what should happen to Garland?’ to which the reasonable answer is nothing, but at least then you would have the floor to provide an answer that you yourself would actually have the burden to substantiate. So of course you wouldn’t go that route.
What's really on the Biden tapes? The same damn thing we’ve already been made aware of through the transcripts and through the testimony of the special counsel appointed by Donald Trump. The only reason republicans want this is because they want to search for a soundbite they can use to slander Biden. It’s pathetic and this attempt to ask for something with no valid reason and then act as if the DOJ’s refusal to play their silly political game is somehow suspicious is just stupid.
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@WyIted
Bannon had executive privilege and would be breaking the law by testifying.
No he didn’t and no he wouldn’t. Executive privilege does not apply to people who are not serving in the administration.
Now I believe Trump when he says he won't seek revenge.
And what about when he does?
I am convinced judges, lawyers and law makers who are republican and want to make a name for themselves will take action, they will get justice and in doing so will earn my undying loyalty no matter how stupid their policies are In their political career.
Translation: politics is far more to you a team sport than having anything to do with improving people’s lives.
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@Greyparrot
With Bannon sentenced to jail for this crime, what might happen to Merrick Garland in the current scramble to appear like the law is working?
It never ceases to amaze me how right wingers bend over backwards to justify both being outraged at the democrats weaponization of the justice department, and advocating for the republicans weaponization of the justice department… without plainly admitting that this entire pretend outrage session is really about nothing more than their own partisan hackery.
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@3RU7AL
first of allthey were not "campaign funds" and therefore could not violate "campaign finance regulations"
Google “in kind campaign contribution”
second of alleven if they were "campaign funds" falsifying records in the second degree is a misdemeanor
Unless you falsify them with the intent to cover up another crime. That’s how the law works.
I wonder if they are now allowed to say what the underlying crime actually was.i thought it was "defrauding voters"
Here are the underlying crimes laid out:
“…and the intent behind them were proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be in violation of the law”how did they determine this ?hypnosis ?some new kind of brain scan ?
By applying common sense to the evidence. The exact way we determine criminal intent in nearly every criminal case… ever.
Why do people act like determining a person’s intent is impossible? We do it literally every time we find ourselves around other people, it’s one of the most basic elements of human nature. If we shake hands with someone and they hold our hand a little too long we take that as a sign they want to sleep with us. It doesn’t require mind reading, just common sense.
a novel and untested legal theory.with extremely convenient timing
It would have been convenient timing no matter when they brought them, and they would have been brought sooner if Trump’s legal strategy wasn’t to delay at all costs.
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@thett3
The point is that the authorities who actually have jurisdiction over federal election law (the FEC and the DOJ…aka not New York State) were made aware of the situation and chose not to bring any fines or charges.
Which is fine, when the argument is that the charges should not ultimately stand. We can have reasonable disagreements on that. But when the argument is that the law is being weaponized against Trump, the difference between ‘the FEC decided not to pursue the matter any further since the primary actor in this scheme was already held legally liable for it’ and ‘the FEC determined that it was not a campaign contribution’ is materially different. The latter is misleading at best and at worst is an egregious lie.
this legal analyst for CNN made the point that no prosecution in all fifty states had ever used a federal elections violation as a predicate for a state crime. None, ever, zero.
I am quite frankly, just tired of this argument. Trump is the most unprecedented political figure in our lifetime and probably in the nation’s history. Of course the way he is dealt with would be unprecedented as well.
This argument is essentially one big question begging fallacy. It’s like mob bosses from the 40’s claiming that they are being persecuted because RICO laws are being written specifically to take them down.
Really the issues here are so immense it’s hard to even know where to begin. A judge who donated to the defendants political opponent, the state somehow giving itself the authority to enforce federal law (????), the jury not needing to be unanimous on what the “second crime” even though you need unanimity to be convicted of a crime, the vagueness of the indictment, Trump himself not even knowing what the “second crime” was after he’s been convicted….
The issues seem so immense because there is a concerted effort on the political right to ensure people remain confused about it rather than to educate people on what the charges were and how they can be interpreted reasonably.
The law Trump was convicted of is falsifying business records with the intent of covering up another crime. They did not need to adjudicate whether he actually committed a federal crime, because the intent is the only thing that was required.
I’ve used this analogy a few times already but I’m guessing you didn’t read the whole thread so I’ll try it again here;
Imagine I am on house arrest and I leave my house. It’s a violation no matter why I did it, but the reason I did so matters. If I looked out the window and saw someone getting mugged and decided to stop them… my punishment would be minimal at worst. If on the other hand, I left my house to mug someone else… my punishment would (rightfully) be severe.
In both cases the violation is the same, but the reason why makes the difference as to whether the consequence should be a slap on the wrist or jail time. And it doesn’t even matter if I pulled off the mugging, the fact that this is why I left is makes that violation egregious, and that is what the state is adjudicating.
So no, NY was not enforcing federal law by bringing these charges. And yes Trump knew what these second charges were because everyone in earth did given that his personal attorney who handled this exact violation already pleaded guilty to it. Again, difficult questions to address here legally, but far from an egregious use of the law as a weapon the way the political right is pretending this to be.
I’m just saying if you asked people “which is more corrupt, a politician using campaign funds from donors to pay off his mistress or using his own money” people would say that using campaign funds from donors was more corrupt.
How about neither?
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@Greyparrot
The standard is that Trump’s actions....If this is the current legal standard that your political enemies are going to use to destroy your tribe, I'd say you are pretty doomed.
You conveniently left off the rest of my post…
“…and the intent behind them were proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be in violation of the law”
Turns out that when your actions along with their intent violate the law, you get prosecuted. Wow.
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@thett3
when if anything the opposite was the case since the FEC investigated this very thing and determined that no violation occurred.
This is factually false. The office of General counsel at the FEC submitted to the board that Trump’s payment was in fact an illegal contribution, but the vote to rule it as such failed by a partisan 2-2 split. The statement released by the 2 republicans that voted against it explicitly clarified that they did so as a matter of “prosecutorial discretion” stating that because Cohen already plead guilty the FEC’s concerns were satisfied, so in short, they had other shit to worry about.
This was a transparently obvious weaponization of the legal system, which is unfortunate.
This is what I take issue with. I don’t deny that there are legitimate legal questions at the heart of this that reasonable minds can disagree on, but that doesn’t support claiming the system was weaponized against Trump. For that you need an egregious misrepresentation of the law, not a novel and untested legal theory.
I also think it’s funny that the states theory of the case is that apparently Trump would’ve been totally in the clear using campaign funds from donors to pay off his mistress, but using his own money is felonious.
The absurdity is in what Trump was trying to accomplish - using a large sum of money to influence his own election without anyone ever finding out about it. It’s not a gotcha that he had no legal way of accomplishing this, that’s the point of campaign finance law.
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@Greyparrot
No genius, that’s not even remotely close to what I just said.
Let me know when you have a serious question.
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@Greyparrot
What exact example (standard) applies to this specific case, so it can then be weaponized on your tribe by your political enemies?
The standard is that Trump’s actions and the intent behind them were proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be in violation of the law (as the judge determined it).
If you’re looking for a more specific answer then be more specific.
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@Greyparrot
No stated underlying crime. Just a statement of possible crimes.
While there are certainly interesting legal questions about the process here, this is such a nonsense complaint from a political perspective. Everyone knows what the underlying crimes are, Trump’s own personal attorney whom he was coordinating all of this with already plead guilty to this very offense prior to the trial.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
It doesn't, but it doesn't exclude them from personal expenses either which means they are in the overlap which means nobody can convict anybody of anything without getting a change in policy from the FEC
There is no literature anywhere that supports this interpretation. Nothing about the law or FEC page says if something is not singled out to be excluded then it’s fair game.
A contribution is anything of value given, loaned or advanced to influence a federal election.
Note how it does not say “a contribution occurs only if it’s specified below”.
“For other expenses not mentioned on this page, the Commission will determine, on a case-by-case basis through the advisory opinion process, whether the expense is one that would exist irrespective of the candidate's campaign or duties as a federal officeholder and would be considered a personal use expense.
Again, does not say “if it’s not listed here then the expense is whatever the candidate says”
Bla bla sophistry
It doesn’t take sophistry to recognize that the negation of “this debate will be over” is “this debate will not be over”. As in, we will continue the conversation. Not “this debate will be over and I win”.
Must have missed that, what was your error? Cause it seemed like you said "Well my interpretation is absolutely correct unless specifically contradicted by an example given by the FEC"
I already explained my error. I applied the test to items that the FEC already singled out as not being subject to it. That’s why they created a section entitled “Automatic personal use”, which, by definition, means the test the FEC stated does not apply there.
It’s not a contradiction when the FEC spells it out in plain English. Here, I’ll post it again:
“For other expenses not mentioned on this page, the Commission will determine, on a case-by-case basis through the advisory opinion process, whether the expense is one that would exist irrespective of the candidate's campaign or duties as a federal officeholder and would be considered a personal use expense.
“Will determine” =/= “automatic”
The term “contribution” includes— (i) any gift, subscription, loan, advance, or deposit of money or anything of value made by any person for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office;Apply it to a tuxedo bought for a campaign rally.
I did, that was the gotcha you laid out for me and I fell into. That’s why the FEC singled this out for exclusion, which follows from the word “automatic”.
My interpretation doesn't require the automatic personal expenses to be in contradiction with the default (irrespective test).
Your interpretation of campaign finance law is that a bunch of lawmakers sat around and wrote thousands of pages explaining what are campaign expenses vs personal expenses just so that the candidates can chuck it all in the trash and determine it for themselves. That’s absurd.
Oh, and it also plainly contradicts the FEC’s interpretation when they stated “the commission will determine…”
Because otherwise the irrespective test could be used by the candidate to abuse campaign laws, the opposite of its intention.Only if he assumed, like you are assuming, that if the test fails then it is a legitimate campaign expense.
There is no practical way to apply the test in many circumstances, that’s the point you don’t seem to be getting.
The question isn’t whether the test fails “in spirit”, it’s whether the test fails to a degree that is actionable. That is a factor in every law; a law can be written however one wants but is ultimately meaningless if it has no practical mechanism to be enforced.
When it comes to campaign finance law, the essence of what separates the personal from the campaign comes down to intent, which is a very difficult thing to prove so it is only natural that certain expenses types would be singled out for pre-determination.
If the candidate bought a pair of shoes for the exclusive purpose of propping up his own campaign then that does meet the legal definition of a campaign contribution, but it would be absurd for the FEC or anyone else to sit around trying to figure out what the purpose was of every shoe or pair of pants every candidate purchased. Conversely, the candidate could also claim their personal expenses are really for the campaign and then use it as an excuse to live off of donor money. The practical element here has to be dealt with, which is exactly what the FEC is doing when they single out specific types.
This is also why there is an overlap, there are certain expense types that no one but the candidate/campaign is in any position to weigh in on when it comes to determining where it belongs. It’s a practical reality, not the purpose of the law.
You have asserted/implied that if someone intends to help their campaign by spending money, then whatever they are spending money on is a mandated campaign expense.
That’s literally how the law defines it
That ultra-wide definition of mandated campaign expenses leads to absurdities and the most relevant example of the absurdity is that it bulldozes right over mandated personal expenses.
That’s why we have regulatory bodies to address the specifics behind the law and the FEC did exactly that. They said ‘here are examples that are predetermined, and everything else will be determined based on this test’. There is nothing absurd or difficult to understand about that.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
This isn’t even close to what I argued.The quote is right there.
And it doesn’t mean what you claim it does, because as usual, you have no to refutation except strawman arguments.
I told you to provide the part where the FEC excludes NDA payments from campaign contributions stating that if you could do that this debate would be over. At no point did I state, suggest, or imply that your failure to do so would affirm my position. You made that part up entirely because you either do not know how to read, do not understand logic 101, or have no interest in dealing with the actual arguments I am making.
It also pulls out specific examples of expense types that qualify as automatic personal expenses.So a tuxedo is a personal expense but shoes aren't huh? GTFO
No genius. I really don’t know who you are talking to but perhaps I should leave the room so you two can be alone.
I said nothing like this. You are still working with the original point I made even after I acknowledged my error. Pay attention to the conversation.
Ah, so the irrespective test applies when it's not a personal expense. Show me the irrespective test in the law or the FEC website.
The irrespective test is not something the FEC invented for the purposes of determining whether the personal use ban applies, it’s a very basic concept in law (often referred to as the but/for test), and it definitionally follows from the word “would”. I have just been appealing to it because it came from your own chosen source.
Again, here is the Federal Campaign Finance Act defining what a contribution is:
The term “contribution” includes— (i) any gift, subscription, loan, advance, or deposit of money or anything of value made by any person for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office;
There is only one test that logically applies to establish whether an expenditure meets this definition, and it’s not whether the expenditure could exist without the campaign. And the fact that the FEC uses this test to determine whether an expenditure qualifies under the personal use ban gives you another clue as to what that test would be.
The test determines (as this whole page determines) if you're allowed to use donor money. Not whether you're allowed to use personal money. You couldn't even get that right because you don't have the categories straight in your mind and blindly applied "campaign purposes" from another page to shoes and produced a contradiction.
It wasn’t a contradiction, it was a failure to account for instances where the FEC singled out specific types of spending to be excluded from this test. And why would the FEC do that? Because otherwise the irrespective test could be used by the candidate to abuse campaign laws, the opposite of its intention.
In other words, if the candidate could credibly argue that their shoes were specifically purchased for the campaign then candidates could use campaign funds to build themselves a new wardrobe. So it does make perfect sense to single out these kinds of expenditures when we’re talking about campaign funds out of the campaign account.
I didn’t think about that part because that’s not the subject of our conversation so I made the mistake of thinking you were arguing in good faith. I already pointed out to you in post 213 how stupid it is to even be talking about this page in the first place given that these were not the circumstances of the payment we are supposedly discussing. The fact that you decided to use this page and start arguing over what qualifies under the personal use ban when the conversation is actually about an in kind contribution that had nothing to do with the funds in the campaign account speaks to which one of us is being dishonest here.
If you go back to the point I actually made note that all I was really doing is following the tone of your question and applying it to what we are actually talking about:
Now apply your standards and tell me if buying new shoes under those circumstances is exclusively a campaign expense that must be reported?Yes, if someone says out of their own mouth “I spent this money exclusively for campaign purposes” then guess what… it’s a campaign expense. Let’s see who else agrees with me…“When candidates use their personal funds for campaign purposes, they are making contributions to their campaigns.”
Note the dishonesty here. You’re asking me about campaign expenditures that must be reported (the subject of our conversation) but inserting an example that falls under the personal use ban (not the subject of our conversation), then acting like you won the debate because you succeeded in getting me to provide a confusing answer (since you are covering two different subjects at the same time).
My point is and has been from the start that the in kind contribution that Cohen made to the Trump campaign at the behest of Trump was required to be reported. Do you have an argument that it wasn’t which actually sticks to the topic?
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Now show me the example where the FEC says payments made to shut up pornstars are excluded from campaign expenditures and this debate will be over.Implying that unless the FEC enumerates the exact circumstances as personal expenses, then they must be a campaign expenditure.
This isn’t even close to what I argued.
The FEC lays out an irrespective test to determine whether something qualifies as a campaign expenditure. It also pulls out specific examples of expense types that qualify as automatic personal expenses.
So naturally, since you can’t refute that the payment to Stormy fails that test, you engage in a dishonest game of gotcha walking me through a scenario where you ask me to apply the irrespective test to something the FEC has preemptively singled out as an automatic personal expense, just so you can claim victory when I walked into your silly little trap. That doesn’t refute a single argument I’ve made. There is a reason the FEC singled out these types of expenses - because it would otherwise conflict with their own respective test, so it is there to clarify when to apply the irrespective test:
“Case-by-Case determination of personal use
For other expenses not mentioned on this page, the Commission will determine, on a case-by-case basis through the advisory opinion process, whether the expense is one that would exist irrespective of the candidate's campaign or duties as a federal officeholder and would be considered a personal use expense.”
It explicitly states that if the expense in question is not listed on this page, then it is subject to its personal use determination (based on its irrespective test). Therefore, if you are claiming that the test does not apply to the Stormy payment, you would need to show me where it singles out this type of expense. Otherwise, it is in fact subject to this test (that’s what “not mentioned on this page” means).
Saying it is subject to the irrespective test does not =/= “it must be a campaign expenditure”.
If you had a real argument you wouldn’t need to waste your time with these silly little games. But you don’t.
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@Greyparrot
I still don't understand why the FEC needs to prove a person innocent.
No one has argued this
Either it's against the law to create a NDA during an election or it isn't.
It isn’t. That’s not what was alleged in this case.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Yes, it is a meaningless gotcha.No, you are debunked.
Right… on a meaningless gotcha.
The debate is over. You lost.
lol ok bro
Then why does Alan Dershowitz claim that the electorate would not have seen the filing till after the election?
Ask him
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@Mall
Having children by way of sex is not a risk but a function.
That’s your opinion, you don’t have a right to impose that opinion on anyone else.
The function of sex is whatever the individuals engaging in it say it is. It is no different than a book being used to keep a coffee table level.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
I gave you the link, you refused to read it, then you go ahead and jump down the hole with spikes at the bottom. Let me guess, your interpretation being in direct contradiction with an FEC example is just another attempt at a 'meaningless' 'gotcha'?
Yes, it is a meaningless gotcha. I’m talking about a principal used to determine what sits outside of the grey areas, so naturally you decided to use an example that the FEC decided ahead of time in an apparent effort to test whether I read the entire page even after I told you I skimmed through it. Congratulations.
Now show me the example where the FEC says payments made to shut up pornstars are excluded from campaign expenditures and this debate will be over.
...and just to be clear the purpose was to win the 2016 presidential election? Which you claim would not have happened if it had been filed as a compensated NDA to Stormy Daniels?
The evidence overwhelmingly shows their intentions were to impact the election, and the jury agreed.
I never claimed claimed Trump would have lost 2016 if this came out, I said it’s very possible. That is of course irrelevant here, the fact that they believed it would have made an impact is all that matters.
I'm talking about Stormy and her lawyer here.Are you ceding that they were co-conspirators?
Possibly, although it would be a really shaky case since the essence of the crime was the intentional non-reporting of the payment which it would be really hard to legally tie Stormy to. It wasn’t her responsibility, so they would probably need evidence that this was all discussed.
What was illegal was the falsification of Trump’s documents, which there is no reasonable way to tie Stormy to.Your theory also require non-reporting to be illegal. I just pointed out how non-reporting should have been obvious if your assertion that the supposed campaign finance violation was obvious is true.
This makes no sense, please rephrase.
Failure to report something and engaging in conspiracy to hide something are two totally different things.
the question is why the lawyer would lead his client straight into a criminal conspiracy.You have in the past repeatedly appealed to concepts you do not understand. One of them is Occam's razor. Here is how to correctly use it:By Occam's razor the explanation with the least assumptions tends to be correct, and the explanation with the least assumptions is that there was no reason to believe it was a criminal conspiracy because it wasn't a criminal conspiracy because this is not federal election law as so aptly demonstrated by your total failure to cite precedent, law, or even come up with a coherent understanding of FEC guidance as seen above.
This is like a blind person trying to lecture me on how to mix colors.
Occam’s razor (used properly) requires that all of the known data points be included, you don’t get to just cherry pick one set of points and pretend the rest of the data doesn’t exist.
We know they conspired because we have the testimony of Pecker, the recordings by Cohen, the documentary evidence, and the timing of this whole scheme, just to name a few, and we know what the law is because we can read it (which I’ve already provided here).
So no, Occam’s razor does not negate all of that. The simplest explanation here is either because Stormy’s lawyer has a valid legal argument as to why her client has no legal liability (which is not hard to imagine) or we could even go further and assume he did recognize there was an issue here but decided that getting paid was more important. Either of those explain the facts far better than “because it wasn’t a conspiracy by Trump and Cohen to falsify the payments to hide a campaign contribution”.
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@Mall
If you don't want children, don't have sex. Plain and simple.
If you don’t want to die in a car crash, don’t get into a car. Plain and simple.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
So uh, the guy who has been framed, gagged, the target of tons of online censorship, who was dropped from fox news live because they "couldn't confirm what he was saying" or some such deep state bullshit, the guy CNN won't broadcast because they want to fact check it first.... that's the guy you're pegging as the problem for free speech?
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@Greyparrot
I was doing a bit of digging and the amount of cases where a person got convicted without getting overturned solely on the testimony of a convicted felon was about 100 cases out of a million, or .01% chance.
Solely? Do you even know what the evidence against Trump was?
And btw, why was Cohen a felon?
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Now apply your standards and tell me if buying new shoes under those circumstances is exclusively a campaign expense that must be reported?
Yes, if someone says out of their own mouth “I spent this money exclusively for campaign purposes” then guess what… it’s a campaign expense. Let’s see who else agrees with me…
“When candidates use their personal funds for campaign purposes, they are making contributions to their campaigns.”
The FEC has literally said that the candidate decides how much can be paid by campaign money in other circumstances.Therefore "for campaign purposes" must me "for expenses that could not exist without a campaign" or it contradicts with the rest of the FEC guidance, precedent, and history.
It doesn’t, because what made your hypothetical an obvious violation was the blatant and explicit admission of the violation. That is not something you’d find anywhere else in your historical examples. In any other real life example, you’d have those grey areas where there is no way for the FEC to determine whether it was personal or for the campaign (like buying a pair of shoes) so they wouldn’t waste their time trying to step in and determine that.
No one is claiming the NDA was illegal.Yes you have. You claimed it would have to be disclosed to the public and you have claimed that would cancel the purpose of the NDA.
The NDA being legally required to be disclosed does not mean the NDA was illegal. What was illegal is what Trump and his attorney did with it afterward, and how they did it.
The fact that the disclosure requirement contradicted its purpose is exactly why they chose not to disclose it. That was the entire point of the trial.
Why didn't it occur to them that there was no point in having an NDA if everyone in the world would know that an NDA was paid for?
It did, that’s why they falsified the records, to prevent everyone from finding out thereby securing Trump’s chances of getting elected (which entirely worked btw).
The only conclusion would have been that Cohen and Trump were planning to commit a crime, in which case lawyer's rules of ethics would have required Daniel's lawyer to tell his client that she would be aid and abetting a crime by seeking this compensation. Like signing a contract to receive stolen goods.Can you point out a flaw in the above chain of inference?
Again, the NDA itself was not illegal. What was illegal was the falsification of Trump’s documents, which there is no reasonable way to tie Stormy to. Moreover, if they made Stormy a target that would have blown up the entire case, so of course they wouldn’t have gone after her. As prosecutors have been doing for over a century now, you don’t charge the minions when you can use them to charge the people at the top of the scheme.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
which means you are claiming that the payment could not exist without a campaign to support.
There you go again… claiming that the standard is about whether the payment “could not exist” rather than “would not have existed” despite me pointing this out to you already.
“I could beat up a 10 year old”
“I would beat up a 10 year old”
The difference between these two statements is not semantic, they are saying completely different things. Injecting the word “could” merely refers to the possibility, while “would” refers to the reality.
That matters here because by using the word could you are inflating the overlap between personal and campaign to a point where any expense could reasonably be placed under either, and then using this to argue that the payment to SD can’t therefore be deemed a campaign contribution. This isn’t what any of the literature you’ve presented says, isn’t what the FEC guideline I cited says, isn’t what the law says, and for the reasons I just explained defies all logic and common sense.
I never argued that there is no overlap, of course there is.Yes you have, by implication.
No, I haven’t, that’s what your brain chose to see because it’s easier to argue with imaginary Double_R than the person typing these words.
In the overlap, candidates choose whether it's a campaign purpose or a personal expense by the act of using personal money vs campaign money.That’s not even close to what it says.That is what the whole of the guidance (including the page I linked to) and common sense (as in avoiding absurd conclusions) says.
No, it’s not.
“When candidates use their personal funds for campaign purposes, they are making contributions to their campaigns.”
Note the bold. It does not say “well since it came out of a personal account it’s a personal expense” nor “it’s a campaign expense if the candidate says so”. It literally says the opposite.
You know, if you knowingly aid someone in violating the law that makes you an accessory? If Stormy had any clue she's an accessory. If her lawyer had any clue he's an accessory.When Trump found out, and his other lawyers found out; did they freak out "oh no we've violated campaign finance law!" No, didn't even cross their minds until the witch-hunt goons attacked Cohen
The entire point of the trial was for the prosecution to prove that Trump and his attorney knew this from the start and did it anyway, and the jury found that they did.
In fact when Trump knew, he authorized suing Daniels under the NDA. May as well use it right? Now what is the point of bringing a legal case with a contract that was executed by illegal means? Does it seem possible that multiple sane lawyers would do that?
No one is claiming the NDA was illegal. The falsification of the record of the payment is what was illegal, and the intended purpose of that falsification is what made it really illegal.
That is the most basic fact of the case, how do you still not know this?
and by resolved I mean when you agree with me.Yes
Exactly. I don’t know why you keep pretending you have any intention to engage on that question. You have no answer, ask yourself why, I already know.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
Another Trump associate is going to prison!
That’s because of the work of the deep state and their weaponized justice department. Duh.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
...and you cultist would argue that Trump would have paid off Stormy even if he wasn't running and then claim he violated the personal use ban by using campaign funds for a personal expense.
You really enjoy arguing with imaginary people don’t you?
"Under the "irrespective test," personal use is any use of funds in a campaign account of a candidate (or former candidate) to fulfill a commitment, obligation or expense of any person that would exist irrespective of the candidate’s campaign or responsibilities as a federal officeholder" - FECHe didn't use campaign funds, so there is no way for the personal use ban to apply. I am pointing out, that you are inverting the standard by claiming he MUST use campaign funds.
Yet another strawman.
I never said the funds must come out of the campaign account, I argued that the payment to SD was a campaign contribution, which means it should have been reported.
So naturally, instead of showing me FEC rules that explain when personal expenses are actually campaign expenses, you show me a rule that explains when campaign expenditures can be used as personal expenses. I’m not the one doing the inverting here. And why? Probably because that way it’s easier to strawman my point. Your specialty.
Not "any expense", "any expense in the overlap between personal and campaign expenses"That overlap is huge, especially for celebrities. You have butchered election law into an absurdity by asserting that there is no overlap.
And yet, another strawman.
I never argued that there is no overlap, of course there is. Campaign finance is always going to be a difficult topic because there are always going to be grey areas. That’s why we have certain tests, and I’ve already described to you what those tests are. So naturally, you ignore those entirely so you can focus on your irrelevant inverted example in an attempt to “catch me”. This is what it looks like when you care more about winning the argument than facing reality. If you knew what you were talking about and were right you wouldn’t need to.
“When candidates use their personal funds for campaign purposes, they are making contributions to their campaigns.”In the overlap, candidates choose whether it's a campaign purpose or a personal expense by the act of using personal money vs campaign money.
That’s not even close to what it says.
I even made it clear with "lawyer's salary" to bypass your idiotic and no doubt very recent nomenclature epiphany.
The fact that reimbursements are not someone’s salary is basic common sense, and bookkeeping 101.
This payment does not require a campaign to exist. Therefore it is not up to you whether it is a campaign expenditure. It is not a matter of deluding yourself into thinking you know someone's intent. The only intent that matters is using campaign funds or personal funds.
Then all campaign finance law is irrelevant. According to this standard, as long as the candidate can argue that his expense was personal, it was personal. And as long as he can argue that any personal expense is a campaign expense, it’s a campaign expense. We can’t know anyone’s intent after all. Not through evidence, not through actions, not through testimony, not through tape recordings. So just chuck it all in the trash.
Or better yet don’t. Do that in your own imaginary country when you get to write the laws and the rest of us here in reality will continue to use common sense to prove what people’s intentions were and hold them to account for it, the same way we have done in every criminal trial ever and the same way you do in every other aspect of your life.
Still waiting.The delay is you. When the issue of what constitutes a campaign expenditure and who decides is resolved we can debate that.
Translation: I have no good answer to your question so I’m going to pretend this issue must be resolved first, and by resolved I mean when you agree with me.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
If Trump built a building as candidate and put his name on it, as he always have, your interpretation would hold that it was money spent to influence an election.No one has ever been held to this standard because it is unlawful and downright stupid.
Strawman arguments normally are downright stupid, that’s the point of them. You can’t refute my actual position so you have to make one up to attack instead.
The test of what makes an expense personal vs a campaign contribution that I’ve been arguing is exactly the same is your own link:
“if the expense would exist even in the absence of the candidacy or even if the officeholder were not in office, then the personal use ban applies.”
Notice the key word in this sentence: “would”. Not “could”, as in, not in some absurd imaginary theoretical example, but “would”, as in, in real life what would have happened.
In the case at hand, and in accordance with the above test, the burden was on the prosecution to show that this payment was expressly for the purposes of advancing Trump’s campaign. And they did. The timing of the payment gives that away right off the bat, the testimony of Pecker demonstrating Trump’s personal involvement and motivations, the Hope Hick testimony showings the campaigns urgency on controlling this issue, etc. They made very clear what this was all about.
Nothing in your Trump hypothetical applies. There is no reason to think putting his name on a building as he has done his entire life would not have occurred if he were not running for office.
You keep twisting my words into ‘if a possible personal expense can be considered a campaign expense, then any expense can be twisted into a campaign expense’. That’s an absurd interpretation of my argument and you do this all the time. You clearly have a disdain for the concept of applying logic and reason to interpret laws.
So again, let me make this very simple. Instead of asking for legal citations and historical precedent, here is very simply what I am talking about so if you have an issue with the way I am interpreting campaign finance law take it up with the FEC:
“When candidates use their personal funds for campaign purposes, they are making contributions to their campaigns.”
What's the difference between lawyer's salary and NDA compensation?
Reimbursements are not part of someone’s salary.
Didn't stop you when you asserted repeatedly that NDA compensation is necessarily campaign expenditure
I never said NDA compensation is necessarily a campaign expenditure. I said this payment was a campaign expenditure. As in the one Trump made and was convicted for.
Question; if Trump and Daniels had just sat down at the kitchen table and agreed that he would hand her $130k cash if she promises not to speak about it… is that still a legal expense?
Still waiting.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Again, the question is:
Get to your point.
Don't hold your breath. It's going to take a long time before he gets tired of running around in circles and quits
What I’m tired of is this line of questioning where you’re asking me to provide a legal interpretation of the words you cited, even though neither of us are lawyers.
But that’s fine, we can both apply our own logic and reasoning and have a reasonable discussion about what it says and what it means.
What I’m not willing to do is waste my time googling information for you when you refuse to chime in with any thoughts of your own. If you have a point then make it. Otherwise I’m not interested in playing your silly little game. Especially when I’ve been asking you one very simple question that doesn’t require you to google anything and you’ve been ignoring it for days. Here, I’ll post it again so you can ignore it… again.
Question; if Trump and Daniels had just sat down at the kitchen table and agreed that he would hand her $130k cash if she promises not to speak about it… is that still a legal expense?
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@Greyparrot
Justify with FEC precedent or law citation.So there's none?
Not how logic works
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Question; if Trump and Daniels had just sat down at the kitchen table and agreed that he would hand her $130k cash if she promises not to speak about it… is that still a legal expense?
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