Nope. In the cited case, the corrupt Obama DOJ threw the book at a republican campaign consultant for supposed coordinated contributions, ie recycling PAC money to evade donor limits. Disgraced FBI deputy director McCabe took credit for it. This is the same guy whose wife received nearly a million bucks from Clinton bagman Terry McAuliffe while he was supposedly investigating Hillary's email scam. You seriously cannot make this stuff up. Again, the real violation was practicing politics while republican. Anyway a candidate can contribute as much as he wants to his own campaign, so all you have is a reporting violation at best. To a blackmailing whore.
It is a factor but not as simple as your black and white mind is processing it. Most of the federal crimes are also state crimes so a person can still assert the fifth if he is potentially subject to prosecution by the state. If you want to go full-Piezo and try to analyze it based on Canadian law- go for it.
That is true and AAA is correct as well. But the press - of all stripes- is bungling the reporting on this. Several major media outlets are reporting it as making an illegal hush money payment which it is not. It is not illegal to buy a non-disclosure agreement. And other media are reporting it as being an illegal use of campaign funds. It is not- unless the facts change. It was Trumps money in origin. The best case that can be made is that it was a contribution to a campaign in excess of the limit which- even if proven to be true- is usually just an appear in court - pay a big fine- and that's it. We are not talking -usually- prison time or anything major. If if it was embezzlement of campaign funds or something as John Edwards scenario it would be uglier. Note that I am just playing along with the violation of campaign limits argument. In reality AAA's point about it being a contribution to his own campaign applies and then there is the issue of whether he paid out of a personal account or through a corporate account which probably makes some difference. And then there is the point I made yesterday- ie. the prosecutor must demonstrate that the purpose of the payment was to illegally influence the outcome of a campaign- not just that he was doing something that he has done before for other basic reasons and not that it would just eliminate a problem for the candidate. Candidates settle all sorts of legal matters suddenly when they become candidates and eliminating problems is not necessarily illegal. As always, I am all in favor of running with that issue if prosecutors want to. BIG FUN THERE! Cohen might present some other evidence as party of his slash and burn campaign, and if the facts change, then they change. Right now, Lanny's stupid arse argument that something is a crime just because Cohen was offered a deal to plead to it, is bullshit.
You see, anytime you start making sense then you are a Canadian or a foreigner or a shill - if you are not a dumbfuck Trump supporter who swallows every lie that man vomits then there must be something wrong with you.
Trump-hating Democrats who pursue impeachment will be punished by the American voter By Willis Krumholz | Fox News Facebook Twitter Flipboard Comments Print Email Trump: I feel very badly for Paul Manafort President Trump comments on guilty verdict for his former campaign manager, says verdict has nothing to do with Russian collusion. President Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen’s guilty pleas Tuesday are unlikely to result in criminal charges against the president. But the pleas admitting to campaign finance violations could be used by Democrats to try to impeach the president, should they win control of the U.S. House in November. Cohen said in his guilty pleas in U.S. District Court in New York City that he had failed to pay taxes on his taxi business and misrepresented his assets in a loan application. Cohen also pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws when he arranged for hush-money payments shortly before the 2016 presidential election to two women who claimed they had extramarital affairs with Trump. The president has denied having these affairs. Cohen will be sentenced later this year. His plea deal may help him avoid a sentence of over 60 years in prison. A jury could potentially find the payments to the women to be a violation of campaign finance laws, because the money paid to them was meant to aid Trump politically, and was above and beyond the contribution-limit for donating to a candidate’s campaign. It wouldn’t be illegal for Trump to make these payments, but Cohen claims that Trump ordered him to orchestrate the payments, which could be a crime. Cohen said he arranged the payments of $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels (whose real name is Stephanie Clifford) and $150,000 to former Playboy model Karen McDougal “in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office” – Donald Trump. Because of that, even though Cohen’s plea didn’t include a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, many are speculating that in an effort to reduce his prison sentence Cohen will cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller to go after the president. But Mueller is investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections and allegations that Trump or his campaign conspired with the Russians to defeat Hillary Clinton. No one is alleging Russia had anything to do with the payments made to Daniels or McDougal. Of course, the Cohen guilty plea received heavy coverage in the media. The stock market dropped after-hours. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who sees collusion under every rock and around every corner, said the development added to the president’s “legal jeopardy.” The anti-Trump “resistance” – people who wake up every day hoping that the president will be removed from office – found a moment of happiness. The happiness won’t last long. This controversy is ultimately a political matter – even if prosecutors conclude Cohen is telling the truth, Justice Department guidelines say a sitting president can’t be indicted. If Democrats want to remove President Trump from office, the proper avenue is impeachment. But Trump-hating Democrats who pursue impeachment will be punished by the American voter – the more Middle America learns the facts of the Cohen case, the worse the president’s opponents will look. Go back to square one. Once the allegations about the payments to Daniels and McDougal were publicized in media reports, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York – at the behest of Mueller – got a search warrant for Cohen’s office, home and hotel room where he was temporarily staying. FBI agents raided the locations in April. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing Mueller’s Russia investigation, signed off on the raids. The shocking thing is that the Justice Department got a judge to approve the raids, despite attorney-client privilege that should have protected communications between Cohen and his client, Donald Trump. That’s a big problem. In the president’s words, it is “Inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyer’s office (early in the morning) – almost unheard of.” He’s exactly right. The Justice Department, however, claimed that it was protecting attorney-client privilege because its people were sifting through Cohen’s documents and determining what was privileged and what was not. That is reprehensible. In the words of attorney and law professor Alan Dershowitz, “the very fact that this material is seen or read by a government official constitutes a core violation (of the Sixth Amendment). It would be the same if the government surreptitiously recorded a confession of a penitent to a priest, or a description of symptoms by a patient to a doctor, or a discussion of their sex life between a husband and wife. The government simply has no right to this material.” The Justice Department’s excuse for this behavior is the little-used “crime-fraud exception” to the rule of attorney-client privilege. The theory is that Cohen’s payments had constituted a crime co-committed by Cohen and Trump, which would negate any attorney-client privilege between them on this matter. The problem with this fudge is that President Trump has still not been credibly implicated in a campaign finance violation. Trump has already admitted, through his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, to compensating Cohen for his payment to Stormy Daniels – though Trump says he did not know about the payment until after it was made. As for the payment to McDougal, American Media Inc. (AMI), the parent company of the National Enquirer, made the payment, not Michael Cohen. And it is unclear if Cohen ever actually compensated AMI for its payment. And what if everything Cohen stated in his guilty plea is true? Remember former North Carolina Democratic U.S. Sen. John Edwards? Donors paid $1 million to Edwards’ mistress to keep quiet just before the 2008 Democrat presidential primaries when Edwards was a candidate. Federal prosecutors charged Edwards with campaign finance violations but he was acquitted, largely because the contributions didn’t go directly to his campaign, though Edwards also argued that the payment was meant to hide his extramarital affair from his dying wife. There’s even a name for this sad business – the “mistress loophole.” There are other problems with the Cohen case that are less concrete but should still be mentioned. Cohen is smarmy, but smarmy or not, he has an incentive to cooperate with prosecutors to get the lightest punishment possible for his crimes. If Cohen doesn’t cooperate, or maybe even “compose,” he faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison. The fact that Cohen’s lawyer is Clinton-confidant Lanny Davis, and that the judge in the case is Kimba Wood – who was almost Bill Clinton’s attorney general – might raise a few eyebrows as well. To many Americans, it seems that men like Cohen, former Trump presidential campaign chairman Paul Manafort (who was convicted of tax evasion and bank fraud charges Tuesday), and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn (who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI on highly suspect grounds) have been targeted for prosecution simply because of their association with Donald Trump. We now live in a country where pundits on the left explicitly hope that people working for President Trump will be prosecuted. In other words, they argue that the selective use of justice is a good thing if it is directed against conservatives or supporters of the president. That is chilling. Without a concerted effort from the American people to condemn such political prosecutions, things will only get worse.
A Lone Holdout Juror Actually Made It More Likely That Paul Manafort Will Go to Jail Even if Trump Pardons Him https://slate.com/news-and-politics...rdons-him-thanks-to-a-lone-holdout-juror.html On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump had recentlydiscussed with his lawyers the prospect of issuing a pardon for Paul Manafort. The former Trump campaign chairman, who was convicted earlier this week on charges of bank fraud and tax fraud, remains under scrutiny by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for his work on the 2016 campaign and his connections to Russia. In considering a pardon, Trump could be seeking to pre-empt a cooperation deal with another former top lieutenant after Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign-related offenses this week and promised through an attorney to cooperate with the Mueller probe. A pardon would backfire, though, because Manafort would still face numerous state charges and his federal convictions this week would now be admissible in some of those states. Moreover, Trump would only be strengthening the criminal obstruction and the impeachment cases against him. Last November, I explained how Mueller’s team seemed to be strategizing a way to outmaneuver Trump’s pardons when they initially brought charges against Manafort. Prosecutors appeared to be holding back some charges for states to bring, just in case Trump pardoned Manafort. Presidential pardons only address federal crimes, which means Manafort could face state charges for the same acts. Federal double jeopardy law would not be an issue here. The doctrine of dual sovereignty allows the federal and state governments to prosecute the same crimes. The problem is that many states broaden double jeopardy protections to prevent the bringing of state charges after a federal prosecution. I’ve explained in Slate that New York and Pennsylvania have such a rule. It turns out that Virginia and California do, too. But because of some likely combination of prosecutorial skill and luck, Manafort still faces prosecutions in those states, plus perhaps Illinois and others. Let’s first focus on just the crimes for which Manafort has already been tried. This week, he was convicted of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud, and one count of failing to report a foreign bank account. In New York and Virginia, where he held residences, double jeopardy laws prevent him from being charged for the exact same crimes. But state tax fraud is a distinct crime, one which he almost certainly also committed. When one fraudulently hides income from the federal government, one has to hide that same income fraudulently in state tax returns in order to avoid incriminating inconsistencies. Virginia’s double jeopardy statute bars secondary state prosecutions for committing “the same act” in “violation of both a state and a federal statute.” Filing a state tax return, though, is a separate act from filing a federal return. So filing an unlawful state tax return in Virginia would be separate, prosecutable act from Manafort’s federal filing, one that cannot be pardoned by Trump. The Virginia tax law further covers fraud, and a Virginia return that replicated his federal one would contain the same fraudulent material as his federal return. Further devastating for Manafort’s pardon hopes, according to Virginia rules of evidence, past convictions can be admissible: “Such evidence is admissible if it tends to prove any relevant fact pertaining to the offense charged, such as where it is relevant to show motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, accident, or if they are part of a common scheme or plan.” So in a Virginia trial against Manafort for tax fraud, these many federal convictions would be admissible and devastating. Manafort also faces New York state tax fraud liability with no double jeopardy protection. New York has a double jeopardy law, but it won’t help Manafort in another tax case. Leona Helmsley, the hotel magnate known as the “Queen of Mean,” had benefited from the double jeopardy ruleto escape state tax prosecution. In 2011, New York fixed the rule to allow state tax fraud prosecutions to follow a federal prosecution. Now Manafort could face New York tax fraud charges, even after a federal pardon. Manafort was also tried on bank fraud relating to New York and California banks. Both states have double jeopardy statutes that seem to create a potential pardon protection. But there was a hung jury on the conspiracy bank fraud charge for the California bank. California’s double jeopardy law states: “No person can be subjected to a second prosecution for a public offense for which he has once been prosecuted and convicted or acquitted.” That obviously excludes mistrials. So, California could prosecute the separate act of conspiracy bank fraud, because Manafort has never been prosecuted and convicted or acquitted of that charge. There was also a hung jury on the four bank fraud charges for his dealings with the Federal Savings Bank in Illinois. The state’s double jeopardy law also allows a second state prosecution after a mistrial. It is ironic that the one hold-out juror who caused a mistrial on some charges opened up Manafort to state retrials. If Trump pardons Manafort on the charges from this month’s federal case alone, then he would still face prosecution in three very blue states (New York, Illinois, and California) and one increasingly blue-ish state (Virginia). Those are four jury pools that would potentially be altogether worse for Manafort. If, in this month’s trial, Manafort could only persuade one juror out of 12 on about half of these charges, his chances would seem pretty low at running the table in four more trials in Manhattan, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Northern Virginia. And we haven’t even discussed the charges in the second federal trial next month and whatever additional state criminal liability Manafort might face that has not been charged at the federal level. And Mueller still might be strategically holding off on other charges. It’s also unlikely that a Trump pardon would at least get Manafort out of jail temporarily while awaiting state trials. Judge Amy Berman Jackson in D.C. took Manafort’s jury tampering so seriously that she revoked his bail. One of those state judges would probably deny bail, too, even if Manafort is pardoned for this alleged tampering. And that would put Manafort in state jail, not “Club Fed.” That’s another reason Manafort might not want a federal pardon: he might prefer federal prison over any state prison. It’s also important to note that the Supreme Court has taken up a case called Gamble v. United Statesin which it could rule on double jeopardy and federal-state dual sovereignty for next term. This case could directly impact the Trump investigation if Manafort is pardoned. There are many reasons the Senate should delay confirming Judge Brett Kavanaugh. But there is no way Kavanaugh should be confirmed while he may be the deciding vote on a case directly impacting double jeopardy law and the Trump investigation. Ultimately, a Trump pardon wouldn’t benefit Manafort in any concrete sense, but it would build a stronger case for impeachment and removal. Such a pardon would only add proof of Trump’s obstruction, providing additional evidence of criminal corrupt intent. Finally, the same principle of state sovereignty to prosecute would apply to any crimes Trump himself may have committed. If Trump is foolish enough to try to pardon himself, there will be no holding back the state prosecutor.
Annnnnd...Trump is still president, there is no proof of Russian collusion, and Manafort doing ten or a thousand years in jail doesn't change that.
Sure, Cap'n, it's all good. Another "win" for Trump. Except why is Trump flailing more and getting increasingly...unhinged? You think maybe he's not getting enough roughage?