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?? "Michael Cohen pleads guilty to lying to Congress"
yes for tax fraud, but no for lying to congress. And yes to campaign finance violations.
www.politico.com
ok yea, that came a few months later. But part of the initial charges were campaign finance violations from payments in 2016.?? "Michael Cohen pleads guilty to lying to Congress"
Michael Cohen pleads guilty to lying to Congress
Trump's ex-lawyer admitted to making false statements in 2017 to a Senate intelligence committee about a plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.
Your guess sucks, because falsifying the business records won't cover up perjury, nor an excessive campaign contribution.Cohen's crimes directed at the bequest of individual#1....that Cohen was charged and convicted of and served some time in a cell a few years back involving campaign finance laws, trump was un-indicted Individual #1
The falsifying business records was to cover up Cohen's crimes, is my best guess.....
This isn't America. This is the 1930s Soviet Union. It is a show-trial that Stalin would be proud of.
And like then, when millions applauded, we have you, and you know who you are, applauding this.
The former president is not charged with a conspiracy to steal the 2016 election — but the jury might think he is.If former president Donald Trump seems even more cantankerous in his Manhattan courthouse press conferences than in those he has held at other Democratic lawfare venues, it is undoubtedly because of his unique insight into what is being done to him there. As a young mogul, Trump learned hardball litigation at the feet of Roy Cohn, a rogue master of the game. Cohn’s No. 1 rule was: “Don’t tell me what the law is. Tell me who the judge is.”In the ongoing criminal trial, elected progressive Democratic DA Alvin Bragg doesn’t have much of a case. But he has the judge, and that is all he needs.Judge Juan Merchan is orchestrating Trump’s conviction of a crime that is not actually charged in the indictment: conspiracy to violate FECA (the Federal Election Campaign Act — specifically, its spending limits). That should not be possible in the United States, where the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment mandates that an accused may only be tried for a felony offense if it has been outlined with specificity in an indictment, approved by a grand jury that has found probable cause for that offense....Yet, Judge Merchan has swallowed whole Bragg’s theory that he can enforce FECA. The judge not only ruled pre-trial that Bragg could prove the uncharged federal crime; he has abetted Bragg’s prosecutors in their framing of the case for the jury as a “criminal conspiracy,” notwithstanding that no conspiracy is actually charged in the indictment — under either federal or state law. And although the trial has been under way for just a week, Merchan has already made key rulings patently designed to convince the jury that Trump’s complicity in a conspiracy to violate FECA has already been established....Even though prosecutors are not supposed to use Cohen’s guilty pleas to argue that Trump is guilty of campaign crimes, that is exactly what they are doing — and Merchan is letting them do it. In the prosecution’s opening statement, for example, in the context of explaining to the jury that Cohen, Pecker, and Trump had committed a “conspiracy” of “election fraud. Pure and simple,” Colangelo elaborated:This is breathtakingly mendacious. Colangelo was not properly admonishing the jury that Cohen is a witness of dubious credibility. He was signaling to them that the NDA payments to McDougal and Daniels — for which he had just blamed Trump in an extensive narrative — were crimes for which Cohen “went to jail.” In reality, Cohen was sentenced to prison because of his lucrative fraud crimes, not the FECA charges. The SDNY never charged Trump, and it almost certainly wouldn’t have charged Cohen if he hadn’t agreed to plead guilty....If this weren’t so cynical it might be amusing. Merchan let prosecutors make this argument right after pre-trial instructions, in which he explained to the jury:This is true. Pecker is not an expert in federal campaign law — he shouldn’t be allowed to testify about it. And what he may have been thinking — or, even more of a stretch, what AMI’s general counsel may have been thinking — about whether it would have been legal for AMI to take reimbursement from Cohen and Trump is irrelevant. It is not admissible evidence of Trump’s state of mind, let alone Trump’s guilt on the uncharged conspiracy allegation. Nonetheless, Merchan let prosecutors intimate to the jury that a knowledgeable lawyer had told Pecker it would be illegal for AMI to be compensated by Cohen and Trump for the money paid to McDougal. The judge has to know that’s improper.In calling Pecker as their first witness, prosecutors had him testify that federal law is violated by expenditures made for the purpose of influencing an election....
How Judge Merchan Is Orchestrating Trump’s Conviction | National Review
The former president is not charged with a conspiracy to steal the 2016 election — but the jury might think he is.www.nationalreview.com
Wrong.. The Public is as much the jury as those 'peer's'.Thankfully you aren't on the jury
thefederalist.com
It was. Does not matter at all that you don't think so.Wrong.. The Public is as much the jury as those 'peer's'.
Anyone with a sense of logic can see this was a setup.
At no time throughout the trial was a crime proved against TRump.
Pretty sure it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt. A great day for America. How does it feel to lose yet again?Wrong.. The Public is as much the jury as those 'peer's'.
Anyone with a sense of logic can see this was a setup.
At no time throughout the trial was a crime proved against TRump.
Anyone with a functioning brain can see this was a setup.Wrong.. The Public is as much the jury as those 'peer's'.
Anyone with a sense of logic can see this was a setup.
At no time throughout the trial was a crime proved against TRump.
www.rawstory.com
Thank you for one of the most thoughtful posts ever written at USMB, Mr. Excaliber. It is pretty reasonable to say our nation's Constitution defenders should come to the nation's cìtizens' rights to know that all is not well within the parameters of this case, plus it's timing underscores the possibility of jurist engaging in slander from the bench, which deny true justice for a former POTUS. I'm saddened that groveling to increase voter misinformation of vote rearrangement through the Justice Department is poisoning the well of goodness and honesty in the realm of our fathers and mothers sacrifices to make America great since 1776. I would like to be wrong, but this generation of America's current lawmakers are experiencing confusion with every kind of mischief that has been bombarding the Constitution in this historic failing by way of targeting a presidential candidate with countless waves of false narratives and dowdy procedures.More.
Merchan Suppresses Trump’s Non-Prosecution and His Election-Law ExpertOf course, at least equally relevant as the Cohen and Pecker/AMI agreements with the Justice Department and FEC is the fact that the feds decided not to proceed against Trump after thoroughly investigating the matter. This was not because the DOJ and FEC approved of what Trump did; it was because a prosecution would have been futile. The agencies knew that if they’d been challenged, it was unlikely that they could prove the NDA payments technically qualified as campaign expenditures. Plus, as the candidate, Trump was not subject to a spending limit, as were Cohen and AMI.But that apparently doesn’t matter to Merchan.The judge has barred Trump from arguing that he is innocent because he was never charged by the federal authorities that — unlike Bragg — have actual jurisdiction. Merchan reasons that Trump’s non-prosecution is irrelevant because the feds may have dropped the case for reasons having nothing to do with whether Trump was guilty. Maybe so, but then how can Merchan justify admitting Cohen’s guilty plea, as well as Pecker’s/AMI’s non-prosecution and conciliation agreements? They had huge incentives to cut those deals for reasons having nothing to do with whether they were guilty, yet Bragg is being permitted to flaunt their admissions as proof of their guilt — and thus to imply that Trump, too, must be guilty.You may be thinking, “Don’t worry, surely Trump will be able to call an expert witness who can explain campaign-finance law to the jury, including why the payments Bragg is highlighting were not campaign expenditures.” Think again.Trump’s team asked to call Bradley Smith, an expert who served for years on the Federal Election Commission. Smith has written in the pages of National Review about why Trump’s so-called hush-money payments did not violate federal law. But Merchan has ruled that Smith will not be permitted to explain federal campaign-finance principles to the jury. Merchan reasons that such testimony would be improper because it would seek “to instruct the jury on matters of law.” In other words, the judge thinks it’s fine if the jury is instructed on campaign law by David Pecker and Michael Cohen but not by someone who actually understands it.ConclusionAs you consider all of this, try to remember: Trump is not charged in the indictment with a conspiracy to steal the 2016 election by violating federal campaign law. He’s charged with falsifying business records in 2017, months after the 2016 election. As Manhattan DA, Bragg could not have indicted Trump for conspiring to violate federal law. The business-records charges in the indictment relate only to the reimbursement of Cohen for paying Stormy Daniels — they have nothing to do with payments to McDougal and Sajudin that Bragg is touting. Under long-standing legal principles, moreover, Cohen’s guilty plea to federal campaign crimes, and the Pecker/AMI non-prosecution agreements and FEC fine, are not admissible evidence against Trump.Nevertheless, Trump is almost certain to be convicted on the charges in the indictment. Merchan is collaborating with Bragg to frame the case for the jury as a conspiracy to violate campaign laws. He has rigorously denied defense objections to that disingenuous framing. He is admitting legally inadmissible evidence, the only conceivable relevance of which is to brand the legal NDA payments as illegal campaign expenditures. And he has denied the defense the ability (a) to inform the jury that Trump was not prosecuted by the same federal agencies that cut deals with Cohen and Pecker/AMI and (b) to call a qualified expert who can explain that Bragg, who has no authority to enforce federal law, has made up a version of it that runs afoul of actual federal law.In light of how Judge Merchan is putting his thumb on the scale forBragg, I don’t see how Trump has much of a chance.
Really? At the cost of rearranging the Constitution to strengthen false narratives? I don't think so.Pretty sure it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt. A great day for America. How does it feel to lose yet again?
Guilty, traitor. That is a fact that you are unable to accept.Really? At the cost of rearranging the Constitution to strengthen false narratives? I don't think so.
You are a Know Nothing Red Hat. Your speech is laughable.Thank you for one of the most thoughtful posts ever written at USMB, Mr. Excaliber. It is pretty reasonable to say our nation's Constitution defenders should come to the nation's cìtizens' rights to know that all is not well within the parameters of this case, plus it's timing underscores the possibility of jurist engaging in slander from the bench, which deny true justice for a former POTUS. I'm saddened that groveling to increase voter misinformation of vote rearrangement through the Justice Department is poisoning the well of goodness and honesty in the realm of our fathers and mothers sacrifices to make America great since 1776. I would like to be wrong, but this generation of America's current lawmakers are experiencing confusion with every kind of mischief that has been bombarding the Constitution in this historic failing by way of targeting a presidential candidate with countless waves of false narratives and dowdy procedures.
So you approve of politically-decided cases for the Democrat Party's questionable narratives. Got it, Pipsqueak.You are a Know Nothing Red Hat. Your speech is laughable.
Trump broke the law. Why do you have a problem with the US judicial system. Wait I know. It's because you're a traitor.So you approve of politically-decided cases for the Democrat Party's questionable narratives. Got it, Pipsqueak.
