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@ADreamOfLiberty
What's the difference between lawyers salary and NDA compensation? Justify with FEC precedent or law citation.
I already explained this. Get to your point.
But as the trial proved, it wasn’t a personal expenseNo such thing was proved.
The jury unanimously disagreed.
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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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@ADreamOfLiberty
So if Trump had chosen 2% he would have had to declare 2% to be a donation and then filed an expenditure of that 2%. "$2,600 to Stormy Daniels"?
No. If the payment to SD was in fact a personal expense then the legal bills associated with executing the contract would have fallen under this provision. But as the trial proved, it wasn’t a personal expense, it was a campaign donation/expenditure. So the first step is that it would need to have been reported as such. From there the rest of this rule is irrelevant because if it’s a campaign expense the campaign could then have paid 100% of the costs associated with it.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
"Up to 50%"Who chooses how much?
The candidate, as long as they don’t surpass 50%. This is basic English.
Not just a personal expense, not just a campaign expense, but both at the same time.That's right boyz, it's the double slit experiment all over again FEC style.
No idea what this is. Are you trying to gloat, and if so, why? You still haven’t addressed the central issue.
It doesn’t matter whether the expenditure could have been covered by the campaign, it wasn’t because the money was never reported as a campaign donation in the first place and campaign expenditures also require disclosure which was never done here, so this entire conversation is irrelevant.
So what is your point?
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@Greyparrot
Because he didn’t meet the basic disclosure requirements needed to allow for campaign funds to go towards his personal legal expenses.According to one man (Merchan)
According to the English language. Are you even following the thread you decided to chime in on?
You can't reason a person out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
Clearly
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Your cult-like denial of the clear meaning of "legal expense" is irrelevant.
Your cult-like insistence that handing a porn star $130k to stay silent is a legal expense is every bit as irrelevant.
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?
The inescapable implication is that it was a personal expense that could be considered partially a campaign expense. True or false?
Could have been considered a campaign expense? Yes, it could have. Which would have required public disclosure, the thing Trump falsified his business records to conceal.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Why does your interpretation of the FEC rules conclude that he could spend $0 campaign dollars
Because he didn’t meet the basic disclosure requirements needed to allow for campaign funds to go towards his personal legal expenses.
and yet you also claimed he could use 100% campaign dollars?
Because I’m talking about the payment to SD which is first of all not a legal expense and therefore not subject to this rule in the first place, and second of all is not a personal expense either since it was made for the purpose of affecting the outcome of the election in his favor. That makes it a campaign expenditure which would have been fine… if it was all reported.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
"ambiguity must favor the accused"
Ambiguity does favor the accused. The problem is that applying laws created in the abstract to tangible real life scenarios will always have to be done by intelligent minds. But we as human beings have this remarkable defense capability of making ourselves dumber, thereby creating ambiguity where in reality there is very little.
The challenge is to get people to stop making themselves dumber which requires them to think, but when someone belongs to a cult that is not realistic. You can only lead the horse to water.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
So if the payment to Stormy Daniels was a legal expense (it’s not) then the campaign can pay half of it provided it meets the proceeding requirements (it didn’t).You claim it didn't meet those requirements, so therefore how much can be covered by campaign money?
$0
If it didn’t meet the requirements then the entire section is moot. So what was your point?
So what is your point?Oh, my patience will be infinite I promise you. No matter how dumb you act, I will spoon feed it until you have nothing left but denial.
Ah, so your point was to assert your own delusions of grandeur. Got it.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
In this case Trump would be beholden to Trump.What horrific revelation that would be!k
It’s more than just that genius, I was just giving a summary for his benefit.
The money can reveal much more about a candidate, which is exactly what all of this was about. The people have a right to know who they’re electing, that’s the point.
But this comment goes to show your hypocrisy and unseriousness. You’ve spent weeks arguing that laws are objective, that any thought involved is subjective and therefore unjust. Well in that case the law says these things have to be reported so the why or the “who Trump was beholden to” would be completely irrelevant. But suddenly when you think it works in your favor…
I'm definitely triggered by people like you trying to put me and the sane population of the world through struggle sessions.
No, just trying to get you to start applying logic critical thinking rather than going down these ridiculous conspiracy theory rabbit holes.
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@Greyparrot
I wonder if in some convoluted court, judge Merchan could be charged with the crime of "concealing information helpful or detrimental to an election" when he gagged Trump.
It’s always amusing watching MAGA cultists purposefully strawman the legal arguments applied as a means to make them sound as stupid as possible, to then use their own made up stupid interpretations as an excuse to impose their own stupid arguments.
Stupidity on top of stupidity.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Ah, so he wasn't required to provide "substantive responses to the press" regarding the allegations and what does that imply in the context of that publication?Hint: Trump wouldn't be allowed to do something, he would not be allowed to pay 50% of the expense with X funds. What is X?
What are you talking about?
The section you quoted says that the campaign can pay *up to* 50% of his personal legal expenses under certain conditions.
So if the payment to Stormy Daniels was a legal expense (it’s not) then the campaign can pay half of it provided it meets the proceeding requirements (it didn’t).
But even granting you all of that…
If he never reported the money as a contribution to the campaign in the first place then he cannot claim the money as a campaign expenditure. It has to be the campaigns’s money in order for the campaign to spend it, so this entire section is irrelevant.
So what is your point?
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@ADreamOfLiberty
[FEC] In specific situations the Commission has concluded that campaign funds may be used to pay for up to 50 percent of legal expenses that do not relate directly to allegations arising from campaign or officeholder activity (for example, activity prior to becoming a candidate or officeholder or activity of a business owned by the candidate/officeholder) if the candidate or officeholder is required to provide substantive responses to the press regarding the allegations of wrongdoing.Try that.
I think you pasted the wrong section.
Again, the $130k paid *TO* Stormy Daniels is not a legal expense, so the entire section is void at the outset.
Trump concealed the payment, again making it void.
It allows for 50%, Trump paid it all himself.
It requires him to provide “substantive responses to the press” regarding the allegations. That’s the complete opposite of everything this was about.
Well you god damn cultist, in order to defend yourself from the accusation of a crime or the accusation of the intent to commit a crime; that crime has to be specified.
It was genius. NY Election law Chapter 17, Article 17, Title 1, Section 17-152 “Conspiracy to promote or prevent election”. And the underlying crime to that law was the Federal Campaign Act of 1971.
And since you really want to know, Title 52 Chapter 301, Subchapter 1, 30101 defines a campaign contribution:
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;
While 30102, section C subsection 5 explains what is required regarding campaign contributions:
(c) Recordkeeping. The treasurer of a political committee shall keep an account of— (5) the name and address of every person to whom any disbursement is made, the date, amount, and purpose of the disbursement, and the name of the candidate and the office sought by the candidate, if any, for whom the disbursement was made, including a receipt, invoice, or cancelled check for each disbursement in excess of $200.
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@n8nrgim
that still means, as i originally argued, that they are saying there's a felony, just because they say there's a felony. there is no coherent way of saying what they felony is, because the jury didn't even agree to that, to my knowledge.
For the third time, no one knows if the jury agreed on the underlying crime because no one aside from those 12 jurors knows what went on in those deliberations. This is a silly point to keep harping on because even setting aside that we have no way of knowing whether you’re right, it is still meaningless.
The law doesn’t say it’s a felony because it’s a felony. It says it’s a felony because of the intent behind it, which is how all wrongdoing in every other aspect of our lives is determined.
I used this example somewhere else before but will just repeat it here; Imagine I were on house arrest and I left my house, in that case I would be in violation and face legal consequences. But what should those consequences be? Answer: that depends.
If I left my house because I looked out my window and saw someone getting mugged and ran out to save them, then my violation would be considered reasonable and any sanction against me would likely be minimal. But if I left my house to mug someone else, then my violation would come with a maximum penalty. Why? Because my violation was done with the purpose of committing another crime which makes it far far worse. And it doesn't matter whether I succeeded either, my intentions behind the act of leaving my house is the point.
Same exact thing here. Trump falsified business records. That’s a misdemeanor, but the reason he falsified them matters, and when done to cover up another crime that makes it worse.
I haven’t read the transcripts so I don’t know the entirety the judge’s instructions to the jury but assuming he didn’t actually go through the specific criminal statutes of the federal campaign law at the heart of this or the other two laws on the table, it all makes perfect sense. The law Trump is charged with only requires that the falsification of records be done with the intent to impact the election “through unlawful means”. You do not need to know the specific criminal statute to determine that because the defendant himself didn’t need to know what specific statute it was. Only that Trump was trying to get around the law when he did it, which he obviously was.
i see that the payment to stormy was suppose to be a campain donation, but that's super tenuous. it's like the urakrine thing not disclosing a finanical gain... to call hush money a campaign donation is just stupid.
How is that stupid? Do you even understand the concept of what a campaign donation is?
Any money that is given for the purposes of promoting the campaign is a campaign donation, or as it is often stated “anything of value” to the campaign. The legal definitions used are intentionally vague because there is no way to know when crafting such laws what would be of value to any political campaign.
Establishing that the Stormy Daniels payment was in fact a campaign contribution was half the trial. That’s why they brought in David Pecker to establish that Trump was heavily involved in the catch and kill scheme which was all about the campaign. That’s why they brought in Hope Hicks to establish the campaign’s view of the threat the Stormy deal posed to the campaign. And ironically, Trump’s own defense gave the prosecution ammo in their closing when they argued that the Stormy allegations were actually public for a long time. Yes they were, and Trump never cared about them until he decided to run for president. And then there’s the timing of this payment.
There is no reasonable case to be made that this was anything other than a campaign contribution.
you're just too bias to think objectively.
The tell of someone who is too biased to think objectively is when they purport to be asking questions in search of a better understanding but instead of ending each post with follow up questions, just accuse everyone else of hopeless bias because they failed to change your mind in one post.
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@Greyparrot
6th Amendment exists.
Yes it does. So are you going to make an argument as to how it’s relevant or just keep implying it?
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Let me know if anything stands out.
Nope. But I only skimmed through it because it’s a very long page, got halfway through before I decided to stop wasting my time. If you have a point feel free to make it.
There was no falsification and NDAs aren't campaign spending
Paying $130k to a porn star to stay quiet is not a legal expense, it’s a campaign contribution.
So there.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Thanks for the input cultist
lol
Your constant and repetitive usage of the word cultist is so hilarious. You are really triggered by that aren’t you?
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even the link you provided seems to suggest that they didn't agree on what fraud was committed, just that there was fraud.
The link doesn’t address whether they agreed on what the fraud was because it has nothing to do with the jury’s deliberation. It was a link to a Forbes article explaining the laws he is accused of violating and how they work with regards to these specific charges. Is that not what you started this thread asking for?
Why would you ask me to prove to you what the jury concluded apart from the verdict when there isn’t a single publicly available source out there on that?
also you didn't provide a statement about what the election law was violated, or make a statement of what the law actually is, you just cited a link. that's a gray parrot move right there, and i know you dont like it when he does that.
The article goes through each of them and even names the federal law at the center of the case. If you couldn’t find it it’s because you didn’t read it.
even if the election law was not disclosing a financial gain, and the jury agreed that was unlawful, it's still a cheap move to call hiding hush money a 'financial gain'.
It has nothing to do with not disclosing a financial gain. It’s about the fact that the payment to Stormy Daniels was a campaign contribution, which means it was subject to public disclosure. That’s how campaign finance laws work because if you’re running for public office the people have a right to know what money is coming in and out of your campaign so they can see and judge for themselves who you might be beholden to.
But Trump decided we wouldn’t get to know about the money being spent here to get him elected, so he falsified his business records to ensure we would never know about them. That’s crime #1 - falsification of documents, with the intent to commit crime #2 - the concealment of a campaign donation.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Sure...and if it was a campaign expenditure then he could have used donation money correct?
If the money was donated to the campaign? Sure.
Your baseless speculation of their motives is irrelevant.Suddenly intent and context don't matter
Suddenly English doesn’t matter. Read my words again. Note the bold.
So it became illegal when it was not reported, that means without that element it was not illegal.
Uh, yeah. If it was reported as a campaign donation then it would have been accurate, which is the opposite of falsification.
Double_R is trying to gaslight people into believing that even if an element is necessary for illegality it does not need to be charged.
Uh, yeah genius. That’s how prosecution of laws normally works.
In almost any crime there are numerous elements that have to be proven. I’ve never heard of a crime where each of the elements required their own charge and definitely not their own trial and conviction.
In NY, 1st degree murder occurs when the defendant causes the death of their victim during the coarse of a robbery. The fact that the element of a robbery has to be proven does not require the defendant to first be charged and tried for robbery. In fact, it doesn’t even require that the defendant did in fact rob their victim, only that the murder occurred during the course of the robbery. In other words, the prosecution only needs to show their intent to rob, not the actual commission of the underlying crime.
This is the exact same thing.
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@Greyparrot
intent is anything a judge or jurist can decide in the fantasyland of their own minds, which isn't based on anything logically consistent with an evidentiary trial that our justice system is based on. This is the precise mechanism that allows the law to be weaponized.
Intent and the necessity of proving it is one of the most basic concepts within law. In many laws, like shoplifting, money laundering, any kind of fraud, intent isn’t just an element, it is the central element needed to be guilty. Intent is the literal difference between murder and manslaughter. The reason why is obvious; purposeful wrongdoing is worse than happenstance wrongdoing.
This is such basic common sense it is just baffling that this needs to be explained at all. This is why we call MAGA a cult, even the simplest of ideas we all live by every single day of our lives suddenly becomes unacceptable when it works against Donald Trump.
If my two year old accidentally spills water on the floor, I’ll tell her it’s ok and clean it up. If she purposefully poors it on the floor, she will be in trouble. We all know how to assess people’s intentions and we all hold people accountable for them in every aspect of our lives. The law is no different.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
By reporting it as a campaign contributionAnd a campaign expenditure?
Sure
No charge of violating election law was brought against Donald Trump.
Because that wasn’t necessary. See my earlier comments explaining why.
it's clear they tacked that on to get Trump. Guilty pleas are not binding legal precedent. Cohen was not punished for this, they combined the other charges into a plea deal to confuse the issue.
Your baseless speculation of their motives is irrelevant.
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@Greyparrot
Because there exists a law where you do not have to be charged for an underlying crime to be found guilty.
The crime he was charged for was the falsification of business records *with the intent* to commit another crime. It is not a 6th amendment violation to say that he must have actually committed the other crime in order to be charged and convicted here.
The point of the law is that the reason you do something matters. If I am on house arrest and I leave my house, that’s bad. But if the reason I left my house was to mug someone, that is far worse than if I left my house because I saw someone being mugged and decided to come to their rescue.
If your overly simplistic and purposeful misapplication of logic and morality was applied, not only would there be no difference between these two things, but the only way to determine that the action of leaving my house could only be deemed worse if I succeeded in mugging someone. So if the person turned out to be an MMA fighter and whooped my ass then because my attempt failed my actions were no worse. That’s nonsense.
This is how we go about assessing people’s actions in every other aspect of our lives. There is nothing wrong and certainly nothing unconstitutional about applying the law in the exact same way. In fact it’s how almost every law is adjudicated since the country’s founding.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
The argument has never been that NDA’s are illegal.Then how could Trump pay for an NDA?
By reporting it as a campaign contribution
So buying an NDA is legal, until you buy it for Trump.
The stupidity of this response really speaks to the issue with MAGA. This isn’t complicated so you go out of your way to strawman it to make it seem as silly as possible. Reality is a real thing. Deal with it.
Indictment unnecessary, guilty until proven... actually just guilty no proof will be accepted.
Apparently you missed the trial where they provided documents, played recordings and interviewed witnesses. You are free to use google you’d like to catch up.
He pleaded guilty to itHe was never charged with it, it is impossible to plead guilty to crimes you were never charged with.
Funny, the southern district of NY seems to think otherwise.
But why listen to them? The only person who understands how the law works is ADOL on debateart.com.
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@Greyparrot
Well, that certainly seems like a 6th Amendment violation worthy of SCOTUS review.
Really? How so?
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@ADreamOfLiberty
[Double_R] The law does not require the jury to agree, that is an entirely different thing.'Jury unanimity has never been a requirement. It's always been that way. That's just how the law works.'
Strawmanning is the tell of someone who not only isn’t interested in reality, but also knows they are losing the argument. It’s why you are so proficient at it.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Even Cohen who they claim did it is immune.
He pleaded guilty to it and spent three years incarcerated because of it along with a few other charges.
Liars gonna lie.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Like I said, NDAs are illegal; but only for Trump.
The argument has never been that NDA’s are illegal. You know this despite your rage filled projection.
Buying a pack of cigarettes is legal, until you buy it for a 12 year old.
Having sex is legal, until you do it against the will of the person you’re having sex with.
Picking up someone at the bank is legal, until you do it knowing they just robbed the place.
I could go on, because this is really, really, really basic common sense; The reason why you do something matters.
The NDA wasn’t illegal. Hell, even executing it during the campaign wasn’t illegal. Not reporting it as the campaign contribution it actually was… that’s where it became illegal. And the effort to hide this by documenting it as a business expense, that’s where it became a felony.
This isn’t complicated, unless you want it to be. And you clearly want it to be. Your sense of identity and self worth is too far tied into your delusions of civil war heroism to concern yourself with reality. You really need to layoff the John Wayne movies.
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@Greyparrot
Oh that's right, he wasn't formerly charged with any campaign finance violation.... he was charged if the jury "felt" he violated the law.
The law doesn’t require that he be charged with the other violation, only that he falsified the business records with the intent to commit another crime.
Determining intent is nothing new, happens in almost every criminal trial, ever.
Looks like "They" would have charged Trump either way. If he used campaign funds to benefit his marriage, that would be a violation. The fix was always in.
Correct, when you do illegal things, the law is fixed to make sure you get charged.
In other words, biased judge goes rogue, because the only interpretation that will be heard is what the judge says, not what the jury might hear.
Imagine a world where the judge has the final say on how the law should be interpreted and applied the case at hand and not the defendant’s hand picked attorney. Crazy.
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@n8nrgim
you can fact check me, but my understanding is that they couldn't agree on what fraud was committed, just that there was fraud.
There is no evidence the jury “couldn’t agree” on what fraud was committed, and the fact that they unanimously agreed on all 34 counts suggests the opposite.
The law does not require the jury to agree, that is an entirely different thing.
also, you dont cite the law that hiding info about the election is fraud.
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@Greyparrot
Where's the proof that campaign funds were used?
Campaign funds weren’t used despite this payment being made for the benefit of the campaign. That’s the whole point.
How are you guys so angry over a prosecution you don’t even know the basics of?
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@ADreamOfLiberty
So it would have had to been written down "campaign contribution" even "NDA" would have been fraudulent in your opinion
He wasn’t prosecuted because he used the wrong words on a piece of paper.
Trump made what was in fact a campaign contribution, but he did not report it as such because doing so would have become public information which would have opened the contribution up to scrutiny thereby unraveling the whole scheme. Or to put it more simply; The point was to keep it secret, publicly reporting the payment would have accomplished the opposite.
So instead he conspired with his attorney and accountant to represent the payment as something it wasn’t (legal expenses).
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@Greyparrot
Unlike your opinions, NDA's are not bound by context "senses"It's a precise legal document.
He didn’t pay $130k for a document.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
It doesn't do Trump any favors to take out a personal loan and then force Trump to pay back everything plus taxes when Trump could have just paid Cohen directly without taxes, interest, or Cohen's collateral. There is no loyalty there, there is deceiving Trump and the only possible reason to deceive Trump is Cohen is a goofball with delusions of grandeur who thought he would do all this stuff and pretend to be a wizard or as he puts it "a fixer"
The facts are that Trump slept with a porn star, then in the middle of running for president his personal attorney barrows $130k against his own house to pay off that porn star to not tell anyone about the affair she had with Trump, Trump then pays that attorney back for the deal with notes written by his accountant showing the added taxes to cover hiding the payments as legal services.
And the explanation you think best explains this is that Trump’s personal attorney - a known sleaze bag who also stole from Trump - did this all on his own to help Trump and didn’t even tell him because he wanted to play pretend fixer?
Hey did you know the Brooklyn bridge is for sale?
This is what happens when people go down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole. There is no circumstance where if we remove Trump and Cohen and substitute them for generic presidential candidate and generic personal attorney that any reasonable person would not instantly recognize how ridiculous this story is.
What reasonable people who are not in a cult would do is apply Occam’s razor. People do what they perceive to be in their best interest. So if you are going to claim Cohen went rogue you would either need to show that Cohen was either the kind of person who would risk his well being for Trump (which is kind of hard being that Cohen stole from him) or that Cohen had a grand scheme here to benefit himself. You haven’t provided anything that explains this.
Nor do you address the fact that Trump is on tape discussing the McDougal deal with Cohen, showing that he absolutely was involved in these kinds of things.
Nor do you address David Pecker’s testimony showing Trump’s heavy involvement in stopping negative stories from coming out against him.
Nor do you address the timing of all of this which fits perfectly with the prosecutions narrative explaining exactly why Trump would be motivated to engage in this while keeping it secret.
Facts be dammed. This is what being in a cult actually looks like.
It is insane to claim someone would do by illegal means what one can do by legal means just as easily.
To do so legally would have meant disclosing the payments, which would have defeated the entire purpose of this.
Do you even understand what the allegations here were?
so the insane gaslighting obvious falsehood that paying a lawyer is in no way a legal expense
The payment wasn’t to the lawyer, it was to Stormy Daniels.
Or to explain it like Hannity and Rudy Giuliani… it was “funneled through the law firm”.
Lawyers get paid big money. They send the invoices. Accountants don't follow them around with drones to see how many hours they worked. A lot of business relationships work based on trust
Right, the “Trump has no idea what everyone who working for him was doing” defense. Cause you know, he’s a strong competent leader.
Lawyers provide an itemized breakdown for their services showing what they did to charge the fees they did. You’re trying to argue that Trump just paid Cohen blindly, which is absurd on its face given how cheap we all know Donald Trump is - the guy doesn’t even pay people who did work for him.
But it’s even worse when again… Trump’s own accountant had the breakdown of what Cohen was getting paid and why. They all knew what was going on despite your gaslighting to the contrary.
Legal expenses aren't limited to payment for services. They include court fees, settlement sums, research, copying, notaries, verified delivery, paying fines, paying liabilities, and more.
Yes, legal fees include compensation to the attorney for any expenses they have incurred that were necessary for them to provide their services. That can include the pen and paper they used, their gas mileage when traveling etc. That’s because a law firm is a business and like any business it has expenses. You know what is not a business expense? Paying off a porn star for their silence. That’s the client’s expense.
Let’s look at your definition and point to one of those terms; “settlement”. Here’s a great example. Question for you… if the client agrees to a settlement payment, is that settlement taxable income for the recipient?
Answer: yes, it is taxable as income (with exceptions like a work place injury, etc.). So why does this matter? Because if this is income… where did this income come from?
Hint: Not the law firm.
It is income paid by the client, the law firm was just the entity handing it over. The law firm charges for the services they provided to execute the agreement. The money they handed right over to her is not part of that.
The only way for "legal expense" to be substantially false is for the expense to have nothing to do with lawyers, courts, judges, negotiated contracts, criminal liability, or civil liability (all at once).
So to be clear, if I have my attorney go out and find me a prostitute to sleep with, pay her and then bring her to my house so I could have sex with her… is the money he paid her that I reimbursed a “legal expense”. He is my lawyer after all, right?
Who could have guessed campaign finance law made compensated NDAs illegal?
It didn’t. What’s illegal is making the contribution but reporting it as “legal expenses” so that no one would know it was a campaign contribution.
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@Greyparrot
That was kinda weird he dug his heels in over the whole "NDA to shut someone up isn't a legal expense"
As I’ve repeatedly explained and ADOL has completely ignored, we’re not talking about an NDA in any traditional sense. An NDA is “I’m going to hire you to do a job for me and you’re not going to tell anyone what you saw”. This was “you have information that would be damaging to me so I want to purchase it from you”.
These two things are not remotely the same. The work put in by your attorneys to negotiate and draw up the contract is legal services. The money that pays off the holder of that information is not.
Why is this so difficult for you guys?
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Taking out a home equity loan against your own house to pay her the $130k she was asking for… that is not a legal expense. That’s not what lawyers do.Cause he was rouge.
So the story you believe to be most credible is that Trump’s personal attorney, who engaged in a plot to steal from his client, was also so loyal and so concerned about that same client that he decided to take out a loan against his own house to pay off a porn star so that porn star would not disclose the affair she had with him. Really?
You are not this stupid.
And even if we wanted to pretend that this absurdly stupid story was credible, how do you deal with Trump’s own accountant working out the math to pay this rogue attorney back? And the recordings that demonstrated how involved Trump was in all of this? And the circumstances that all aligned with Trump engaging in this behavior?
This is what being in a cult actually looks like.
If Trump had wanted to entered a compensated NDA he has every fucking right to do so and to label the whole thing "legal expenses" in any fucking ledger he wanted.
That’s literally what the law says he can’t do. Not sure if you’re aware of this, but we just had a whole trial over it.
He could also have written down "NDA compensation" without being at all specific about to whom or for why
What he could have done is completely irrelevant to what he did and whether his actions were legal.
Why would he not do that if there was even the slightest hint in all precedent and by any professional that an NDA was not a legal expense
Because as I have already explained and you completely ignored; this was not just an NDA. Stormy already had the information they didn’t want disclosed, so they weren’t just agreeing to provide information for silence. They were purchasing her rights to information she already had. That’s not what NDA’s typically entail, and that purchase is entirely separate from the legal services that put the contract together.
So cultist, you're claiming that Trump knowingly paid Cohen unnecessary amount extra to cover taxes so that Cohen would be reimbursed for an NDA all so he didn't have to write "NDA" on a ledger?Why?
Because that would have made it obvious that he was making an illegal campaign contribution.
Did you pay attention to any of the trial?
He didn't cook up anything. Cohen did. Then he billed Trump for it. Then Trump's accountant paid a retained lawyer what that lawyer billed.
Oh right because Trump is known for paying all of his legal bills without questioning any of them right? And his accountant didn’t bother to question any of this or bring any of this to Trump’s attention right?
There no way you are being serious.
If you own a business and you send your employee to the store to purchase can of paint and then repay them when they return with it, the repayment is not part of their salary.Which would have the slightest bit of relevance if the invoice was marked "salary"
It’s an analogy genius. Salary vs legal expenses are analogous because they are both payment for services (aka income to the service provider). Repaying a purchase is not.
There was no trial. There were defense lawyers pretending there was a trial
So Trump’s own attorneys are also part of the conspiracy, lol. This is what being in a cult actually looks like.
Except NDAs are legal, always have been.
Purchasing an ak47 is legal, always have been. Until you purchase it for someone else with the intent for them to rob a bank. Then you become an accessory to grand larceny.
Trump gains NOTHING by paying for Cohen's taxes. He gains NOTHING by having Cohen shuffle personal money and credits around.
Are you on crack?
Trump literally gained the US presidency. That was the entire point of the trial.
What the hell did Micheal Cohen gain by borrowing 130k against his house to pay off a porn star he didn’t sleep with? What is wrong with you?
Non disclosure isn't a product
Yes it absolutely is when the person already has the information.
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@Swagnarok
Nonetheless, he was a Republican president who made the executive branch's policies lean right instead of left.
Yes he did, and you can defer to that all you want as a reason to vote for him, but it is not an argument for why anyone who isn’t already part of the Republican base to vote for him. So far we’re in agreement.
And until Covid, which was outside of everyone's control and caught the whole Western world unprepared
Why does Trump get a pass for everything that happened as a result of Covid, but Biden who was tasked with cleaning up its mess does not? Why does Trump’s term economically not include December 2020 but Biden is responsible for what happens in January 2021?
Putin didn't do diddly-squat when Trump was in office.
And seriously, why do you think that was?
I mean, Biden supporters routinely brag about his numbers. Why can't we do the same?
Biden supporters brag about it because it’s all we’ve heard sent for the past 7 years. When Obama was president, no matter how good things were getting every time he would say anything remotely good about the economy he would get blasted by both sides for being insensitive to those who were still struggling. Then Trump comes along bragging about having the greatest economy in the history of economies and no one gives a damn. The double standard is absurd so democrats got tired of it.
Also, that's not true. Perhaps Trump inherited a good economy from Obama and simply didn't screw it up. But he also oversaw the fastest economic recovery in US history.
What are you talking about? Trump inherited an economy that had been growing for seven straight years. There was nothing to recover.
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@ILikePie5
It’s more so to prove you were wrong and to tell ADreamOfLiberty of when it’s worth talking to you
lol right… to prove I was wrong… by ignoring the fact that ADOL is declaring himself the victor of our forum debates and responding only to me pointing out why his arguments are stupid… not by showing how they aren’t stupid, but by beating your own chest.
Great proof. Maybe one day I’ll be on your level so I can understand it.
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@Swagnarok
Yes, I know how jury trials work.
Then why are you arguing it is suspicious that we don’t know their identities?
The process as it's worked for centuries is no reliable indicator for this case.
If you have no information (as was your claim) then there is nothing left to base a position on.
Never has there been so strong a unanimous motive from so many diverse actors to make sure the defendant gets convicted.
Because never has there ever been an actor who has so flagrantly flaunted the law in front of all of our faces with such impunity. You guys love to blame law enforcement for the consequences of Trump’s actions as if Trump himself is not responsible. That’s absurd.
The DA staked his entire public reputation, and possible reelection chances, on Trump going to jail. Liberals in general, due to years of oligarch conditioning, tend to feel incredible distress at the thought of Trump being President again and would make moral compromises they wouldn't otherwise make in the pursuit of "defending" themselves and the country against him. This applies to the jurors, the judge, and countless other people who had any degree of influence over the trial.
Irrelevant to whether the facts support a criminal conviction. Again, you demonize everyone involved because you have no argument.
And in hindsight yes, there is apparently some evidence that would throw the verdict into question. Like the judge giving jury instructions which downplayed Trump's right to the presumption that he had no criminal motive [necessary for his conviction IIRC] until proven that he did.
That’s what the access Hollywood tape, the Hope Hicks testimony and a few other pieces established. His motives were beyond clear.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Negotiating with her and then paying her as part of a NDA is a legal expense.
No, it’s not. What a ridiculous thing to argue.
Negotiating with her - that’s a legal expense. The cost of traveling to her (if done in person) - that’s a legal expense. The time spent drafting the NDA - that’s a legal expense. Taking out a home equity loan against your own house to pay her the $130k she was asking for… that is not a legal expense. That’s not what lawyers do.
Lawyers practice law and they bill their clients for their time and for expenses incurred as a result of performing their services. Funding your client’s schemes to later be repayed is not an expense incurred - it’s a reimbursement. If you own a business and you send your employee to the store to purchase can of paint and then repay them when they return with it, the repayment is not part of their salary.
Everyone knows this. That’s why the three of them worked out this scheme where Cohen would be reimbursed the $130k plus the taxes he would incur on it. And why would he have to pay taxes on it? Because if Trump was paying this money to him as a legal expense then Cohen would have to report it as income which means he’d be taxed on it. And why would he be taxed on that money? Because that’s what legal expenses are - income to the person who performed the service. This was not that, so they had to hide it.
If you are seriously arguing in good faith and are really convinced of what you argue, you would ask yourself why Trump, his attorney, and his accountant cooked up this scheme in the first place when it was so simple from the start, and why Trump’s defense team didn’t pound this issue in the trial. Why go to such great lengths to cover up a perfectly legitimate transaction?
Because it wasn’t legitimate, and they all knew it.
If I hand my attorney $100k to put in escrow account as a down payment on a house, that $100k is part of the purchase price. I don’t get to write that $100k off as “legal services”.Taxes have nothing to do with whether the description of the payment is false.
Neither did it have anything to do with my point, but when you’re so obviously wrong there’s no other option but to attack the straw man.
The example was yet another illustration of the separation between the services your lawyer performs (which are valid legal expenses) and them funding your ventures (which is not).
Handing your attorney money for a house and him using that money to execute the purchase of the house on your behalf, does not make that money “legal expenses”.
NDAs are legal expenses on their own.
In most cases, yes they are. Because typically NDA’s are worked out beforehand where the person agreeing not to speak is doing so because they have something to gain from whatever activity would expose them to the confidential information. In that case there are no other expenses incurred other than the legal services it took to execute it.
That’s not what this was, so it’s dishonest of you to portray it as such. The individual had the information already and was free to speak if she so chose. The expense here was to purchase that right. The purchase itself was not of legal services.
Your gaslighting is utterly disgusting.Filthy.Vile.I've given you far far too much respect before now.
Translation: “I have no arguments left, so at this point I will only resort to insulting you to avoid confronting the fact that I have no arguments left.”
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@Greyparrot
True or false, do legal NDA's "shut people up"
Trump is the one who paid for it so ask him. It’s completely irrelevant to this conversation.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
that the $130k wasn’t for Cohen’s services, it was to shut Stormy up.Via a legal contract negotiated by a lawyer as a lawyer.
The fact that Trump paid $130k to shut Stormy up ‘via a legal contract’ doesn’t change the fact that he paid $130k to shut Stormy up.
Unless you are going to argue that Stormy is a lawyer and the act of her shutting up is a legal service, that’s not what that means so long as we’re both speaking English.
If I hand my attorney $100k to put in escrow account as a down payment on a house, that $100k is part of the purchase price. I don’t get to write that $100k off as “legal services”.
If I order a pizza and the pizza guy shows up at my door, I hand him $30, he hands me the pizza and goes on his way… I didn’t pay $30 for delivery services. I paid for a pizza with a small portion of that money counting as delivery services.
This is really basic common sense.
Only a cultist would try to gaslight people into thinking that a legal agreement executed by paying a lawyer isn't a "legal expense"
“I know you are but what am I?” Worked in third grade.
You’re the one who suddenly can’t tell the difference between paying for a service and paying for the thing that service brought to you. Before Trump everyone knew this, suddenly it’s too complicated. That’s what being in a cult looks like.
So so far we have
Turning in documents to law enforcement without being asked = lying, concealing, and obstructing the efforts by law enforcement to get them back.
And now:
Paying $130k to a porn star through your lawyer = paying $130k for legal services rendered.
Whatever we need it to be to appease the dear leader, that’s what it is. This is what being in a cult looks like.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
The point was: You are a in a cult.
But you never made that point, you just shouted it.
You claimed Trumps payment to Cohen was a valid legal expense. I pointed out the huge hole in your story - that the $130k wasn’t for Cohen’s services, it was to shut Stormy up. That’s not a legal expense. You came back with “here’s what an NDA is”.
So again, what does your response have to do with the conversation?
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@Best.Korea
Guys, why are you talking about a debate that was 3 years ago?
Why are you directing this at me? I’m responding to the fact that he loves to bring it up
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@ILikePie5
That’s…obviously not true. You’re beneath my level…which is why I beat you :)
Right… bragging 3 years later about beating someone beneath your level… ok bro
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@Greyparrot
Sometimes it's better to do nothing instead of creating chaos.
Sure, but if that’s the case then the argument for making Trump president is that he did a great job doing nothing to screw up what Obama handed him. Kind of an odd pitch, especially when the story this time around is that the country and the world is in shambles.
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@ILikePie5
That…make zero sense lol
If you’re still bragging about beating someone in a debate 3 years later, you clearly don’t see them as someone beneath your level. Setting the childishness aside of course.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
A non-disclosure agreement (NDA) is a legallybinding contract that requires parties to keep certain information confidential. NDAs are also known as confidentiality agreements, confidentiality disclosure agreements, or secrecy agreements.
What does this have to do with what I just pointed out?
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@Greyparrot
I'm ok with removing confederate history if it means removing black history as well.
Removing statues isn’t removing history. We learn about history through books and documentaries, statues are statements of our ideals.
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@Swagnarok
enjoyed record low unemployment prior to the worldwide Covid pandemic.
It is telling to me that Trump defenders always talk about the circumstances during the time Trump was president instead of talking about anything Trump actually did.
Setting aside that the job numbers are factually better under Biden, this bragging about Trump’s job numbers is just taking credit for things he had nothing to do with. By the time he took office the economy had already been growing for seven straight years, and we gained more jobs in Obama’s last three years than we did over Trump’s first three, so under Trump job growth slowed down.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Any person who is willing to say "legal expenses" is a substantially false description of a payment to a lawyer to execute a legal agreement is so far outside the bounds of reason as to be surely unreachable by any argument.
130k to a porn star to keep her quiet is not a legal expense. Everyone knows that.
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