Perspectives; Thoughts; Comments; Opinions; Discussions

Posts tagged ‘Stormy Daniels’

Trump Indictment Launches Era Of Police-State Politics in America

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | MARCH 31, 2023

Donald Trump boards his plane — America has entered the era of ‘show me the man and I’ll show you the crime’ politics.

Author Margot Cleveland profile

MARGOT CLEVELAND

A Manhattan grand jury has indicted former President Donald Trump, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office confirmed following late-Thursday media leaks. While the indictment remains under seal, one thing seems certain: America has now entered the era of “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” politics.

The Democrat district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, breathed new life into the infamous boast of Joseph Stalin’s secret police chief, Lavrentiy Beria, when the Manhattan prosecutor targeted the former president in connection to a 2016 payment made to Stormy Daniels. Bragg’s decision to push for an indictment against Trump, presumably for falsifying business records, promises to herald in a new political age — one in which local prosecutors will target partisan enemies, big and small, making a mockery of the criminal justice system in the process.

The fact that news of the charges leaked to the left’s favorite scribes at The New York Times, while the indictment remained still under seal, punctuates perfectly the Sovietesque times in which we live: The legacy media may not be state-run, but they peddle propaganda, nonetheless.

Guesswork

Until the indictment is unsealed, any discussion of the charges requires some guesswork, and with sources late Thursday reportedly telling CNN the grand jury charged Trump with more than 30 counts, the prognostication is much more difficult. But from earlier reports, it appears the D.A.’s criminal case against Trump revolves around Sections 175.05 and 175.10 of the New York penal code.

Both sections define the state crime of “falsifying business records,” with Section 175.05 providing “a person is guilty of falsifying business records in the second degree when, with the intent to defraud, he makes or causes a false entry in the business records of an enterprise.” Section 175.10 converts the “second degree” misdemeanor to a felony if the person falsified business records with the “intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission” of another crime.

The factual theory for charging the former president with falsifying business records seems to rest on “Trump allegedly causing the Trump Organization to falsely report payments made to Michael Cohen in 2017 as ‘legal expenses,’ when the money instead reimbursed (and then some) Cohen for the $130,000 payment he made to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election to keep the porn star from publicly claiming she had sex a decade earlier.” The Trump Organization then reportedly paid Cohen $35,000 a month for “legal services” in 2017, while Cohen never provided any legal work for the business.

Legal pundits believe the indictment will ratchet up the alleged falsifying of “legal expenses” offense to a felony by charging Trump with lying about the payments to Cohen to conceal a violation of federal election law. Cohen has already admitted to paying off Daniels to advance Trump’s electoral chances, and he appears poised to be a star witness against Trump. Another possibility, however, is that the Manhattan D.A.’s indictment accuses Trump of falsifying the organization’s “legal expenses” to aid in tax fraud.

The U.S. attorney has already declined to charge Trump with federal election law violations, making any attempt by Bragg to tie the federal offense to the state charge of falsifying business records reek of political payback.

Bragg’s expected use of Trump’s physical absence from New York — ironically because he was serving as commander-in-chief in D.C. — to sidestep the five-year statute of limitations that applies to a felony of falsifying business records, will also add to the stench of the case. And a public that watched Trump hounded since he first announced his candidacy for president isn’t likely to focus on the legal technicalities of the statute of limitations. Rather, the average American will consider the delayed charging of Trump to be a desperate ploy to concoct a crime.

Trump himself was quick to advance this theory, opening his press release by calling the indictment “political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history.” “From the time I came down the golden escalator at Trump Tower,” the former president continued, the “Radical Left Democrats … have been engaged in a Witch-Hunt to destroy the Make America Great Again movement.”

“You remember it just like I do,” Trump stressed, ticking off the attacks: “Russia, Russia, Russia; the Mueller Hoax; Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine; Impeachment Hoax 1; Impeachment Hoax 2; the illegal and unconstitutional Mar-a-Lago raid; and now this.”

30-Count Craziness

Trump will reportedly appear in a Manhattan court on Tuesday for his arraignment. Whether the indictment is unsealed before then is unknown. But the leaks continue, including, as noted above, news that the grand jury reportedly charged Trump with more than 30 criminal counts.

Unless Bragg has uncovered something much beyond the details already reported about the Daniels payment, the Manhattan prosecutor will have only made matters worse by pushing for an indictment of the former president on more than 30 criminal counts. Given the lack of leaks about anything new, the most likely scenario is that the grand jury got to 30-plus counts by charging Trump with separate counts for each of the monthly payments made to Cohen in 2017. Then, the grand jury could add additional counts for each month Trump allegedly made the payment to “aid or conceal the commission” of another crime.

With this approach, it isn’t hard to see how easily the grand jury could convert one hush-money payment into some 30 crimes. And while the left and the Never Trump right might see a lengthy indictment as further proof of Trump’s malfeasance, if the indictment contains no new details, the piling on to reach the reported 33 counts against the former president doesn’t make Trump look more guilty — it makes Bragg look more like Beria.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Democrats’ Banana-Republic Persecution Of Donald Trump Must Meet A Republican Response

BY: TOM CRIST | MARCH 22, 2023

TOM CRIST

American media has bombarded us daily from all directions to make sure we know that Donald Trump indirectly paid a woman to shut her mouth as she and her now-convict lawyer, Michael Avenatti, shook him down for money.

In New York, false financial accounting can be a low-level misdemeanor, but it’s rarely prosecuted. Now Alvin Bragg, a municipal prosecutor, is trying to make a name for himself by charging former President Trump with that crime.

This is the equivalent of a nationally televised jaywalking arrest to humiliate a person due solely to personal hate. George Soros, Bragg’s benefactor, must be grinning from ear to ear.

Hillary Clinton Got Off For a Worse Deed

Trump’s former lawyer accounted for the payment as consulting or attorney’s fees. Allegedly, so did President Trump, and $130,000 changed hands.

For perspective, Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee paid $1 million for the infamous fictional “Steele dossier.” They paid for this using one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent lawyers, Marc Elias, as a cutout to hide who was paying for this opposition research that falsely claimed Trump was colluding with Russia.

They then laundered the dossier through various contacts to try to destroy Trump and get Clinton elected president. Those people officially accounted for the $1 million dossier expense as “legal fees.” So, one side paid people to lie. The other paid someone not to lie, or at least not to speak.

Clinton lives in New York, the state in which Trump is likely to be charged over a $130,000 payment. She has not been charged for the $1 million payment. Do these events really sound vastly different to you?

Bragg hopes to spin that unserious charge into a federal campaign finance violation. Meanwhile, the dossier fraud, which affected two presidential elections and two presidential impeachments, was settled with a $113,000 fine.

Bragg’s Case Is a Mess

City prosecutors cannot charge people with federal crimes. Only feds can charge federal crimes, not some city prosecutor. Bragg has allegedly met with the Secret Service about how they will react to a New York City police officer approaching President Trump with handcuffs (if they can find one who will do it). Bragg is way over his head and wading into deep political waters.

New York Attorney General Tish James ran for office almost exclusively on a “get Trump” platform. She hated the man and promised to find a crime he committed, rather than responding to a crime and looking for a perpetrator. After years of not finding anything, she did not charge Trump with any crimes. Same state. Same New York laws. More investigative tools. Yet she passed on the opportunity to arrest a president.

The U.S. Department of Justice investigated the same alleged crime and also chose not to prosecute. Every prosecutor in the state above Bragg’s office passed on this one knowing they could not prove President Trump committed a crime. Or they realized that no serious person could charge Trump and not also indict Democrats.

Bragg is the same Manhattan DA who has publicly decriminalized crimes in the name of wokeness. This alleged prosecutor will ignore criminal violence and release people on their own recognizance after a stern talking to for beating someone half to death or attacking police. But he wants to charge Trump for this garbage after every one of his superiors has declined to do so. Why? Incompetence? Tunnel vision? Irrational hate? Why choose?

Democrats’ Hate Could Prompt a Constitutional Crisis

Many Democrats want Trump arrested for anything. They want to see him in cuffs more than they want their own kids to be happy and healthy. They have been searching for someone stupid or reckless enough to “perp walk” the man for the cameras. They might very well have found him. If Bragg does it over this fluff, it will prove to be a poor career choice for him and could have much broader implications that are rungs above his pay grade.

Some Dems even want conservatives to riot if a cop cuffs Trump, just like a lack of security made it easy for people to barge into the Capitol through open doors just to be charged and arrested. They might get their wish. And it is likely a trap. If it happens and people protest, see whether New York City will give them all “room to vent” like city officials gave lefty rioters for months. Hopefully, any protests will be peaceful. I will not be involved in any of it.

A lot of people continue to be surprised at these events and have truly had enough of the second set of rules for conservatives. If the hard left keeps pushing this kind of thing, it will eventually be deeply sorry.

Feds raided Trump’s house with a tactical team over papers a librarian wanted. Oddly, CNN was present and ran the story on a loop. Joe Biden dropped 50 years of classified documents all over the country and the feds let his personal lawyers (who lacked security clearances) sort them before giving them to the government at their leisure.

They investigate Trump from all sides. They give Biden a pass on everything. The feds investigated Trump’s sons and son-in-law for any irregularity. Yet Hunter Biden, a man in a long line of alleged Biden bag men, lives in a $40,000-per-month Malibu beach house and sells splatter paintings to anonymous purchasers for exorbitant amounts.

Wildly Unequal Legal Treatment

Everyone is supposed to just sit back and accept the different treatment and think it is okay and normal. This is far from normal—it is a thumb in the eye of half the American population.

Even apparently peaceful Jan. 6, 2021 protestors have been in pre-trial detention for two years. Black Lives Matter and Antifa got carte blanch to riot and burn courthouses with impunity with at least tacit support from the White House and open support from the vice president, who encouraged people to donate money to bail the rioters out of jail.

Firebomb a pro-life crisis pregnancy center and take credit for it, and Biden’s inept AG will give you a pass. Pray in front of an abortion clinic and you will be charged with a list of felonies. This is not sustainable. People, in large numbers, will eventually stop taking it.

The Acceleration of Dangerous Trends

In accordance with their oaths, prosecutors are not supposed to charge people with crimes they cannot prove, since doing so can ruin people’s lives even if they are eventually acquitted. The citizenry remembers the charge, not the acquittal.

Likewise, presidents are not supposed to issue executive orders they know will be overturned as unlawful, just for political gain and show. Both have been happening for the last two years at a clip never before encountered. Team Biden is daring half the country. Stand up, but do not take the bait.

Many think Bragg will charge Trump soon because he can. These people might not be ready for the fallout they will provoke. And by that, I do not mean violence. I mean turnabout.

Republicans may politically finally address Democratic Party lawfare, taking an eye for an eye. Some have recently shown backbone their predecessors lacked. Their voters will increasingly elect officials who promise to do so. Trump himself was a harbinger of this.

Republicans Need to Respond, Good and Hard

If Bragg pulls the proverbial trigger, everyone had better be really sure about his next moves. Bragg and his upstream cronies will not be able to take it back, apologize, call for calm, or put that leftist authoritarian genie back in the bottle.

If they think they are right and their ideas the best, Democrats should square up and try to beat at the polls whomever the Republican candidate is in 2024. Another round of transparent politically driven rigging, especially like this, after the ridiculous failures of their impeachment efforts and Jan. 6 show trials, will light a dangerous fuse for which the American people have lost patience.

Most countries that fail to address unequal treatment start dying from within. Every American should want to avoid that for all our sakes. Bragg staying out of presidential politics and focusing on the skyrocketing violent crime rate in his own backyard would be a welcome next step.

When Republicans take the White House, they should make sure prosecutors at every level have every resource and unclassified document they require to investigate and, if mandated, charge everyone on team leftist. No letting things slide. If the Dems want old-fashioned dirty politics, the other side might finally give it to them good, hard, and thoroughly.

Thomas Crist is a husband, father, lawyer, and political conservative who loves his country and despises all myopic hypocrisy regardless of its source.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Fishing Trip

A.F. BRANCO | on March 22, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-fishing-trip/

Soros-funded D.A. Alvin Brag is ignoring the rising crime in his district to go after President Trump.

DA Alvin Bragg — Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2023.

DONATE to A.F.Branco Cartoons – Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Indicting Trump Will Usher In America’s Banana-Republic Stage

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | MARCH 21, 2023

Author Margot Cleveland profile

MARGOT CLEVELAND

VISIT ON TWITTER@PROFMJCLEVELAND

A Manhattan grand jury appears poised to indict Donald Trump, according to news reports and the former president himself. Here’s what you need to know to understand the chatter about the anticipated criminal charges against Trump—and why the move to indict a former president for the first time in our country’s history will make political prosecutions the new norm in America.

While only the grand jury and prosecutors know for certain what charges against Trump, if any, are being considered, the consensus is that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, a Democrat, is pursuing a criminal case against Trump for allegedly falsifying business records, in violation of Sections 175.05 and 175.10 of the New York Penal Code.

Section 175.05 provides “a person is guilty of falsifying business records in the second degree when, with the intent to defraud, he makes or causes a false entry in the business records of an enterprise.” Falsifying business records in the second degree is a misdemeanor, subject to a two-year statute of limitations.

A violation of Section 175.10, however, is a felony, subject to a five-year statute of limitations. That section defines the offense of falsifying business records in the first degree and provides that if a person falsifies business records with the “intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission” of another crime, the offense is one in the first degree.

The underlying factual theory for charging the former president rests on Trump allegedly causing the Trump Organization to falsely report payments made to Michael Cohen in 2017 as “legal expenses,” when the money instead reimbursed (and then some) Cohen for the $130,000 payment he made to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election to keep the pornography performer from publicly claiming she had sex with Trump a decade earlier. In total, the Trump Organization reported legal expenses of $420,000 paid to Cohen in 2017, at a monthly rate of $35,000. Cohen, however, had provided no legal services for the Trump Organization that year.

To bump what would be a misdemeanor under New York law to a felony, pundits are suggesting the D.A. will argue Trump caused the Trump Organization to falsify its business records to conceal the commission of one or more federal election crimes. The Manhattan prosecutor, however, might also advance the theory that Trump caused the Trump Organization to falsely report the payments with the intent of committing tax fraud.

Even before reaching the merits of the legal theories being bandied about to charge Trump criminally, a public suspicious of the Get-Trump attitude seen over the last seven years will notice the statute of limitations seems to bar Bragg’s prosecution of Trump. But Bragg has two ways to sidestep the two- and five-year statutory time limits.

First, if Bragg charges Trump with a felony, the longer five-year period applies. While more than five years have passed since the Trump Organization last recorded a “legal expense” to Cohen, New York’s former governor, Andrew Cuomo, by executive order extended the statute of limitations for one year (or thereabouts) due to Covid-19. That tolling would make a felony indictment against Trump timely.

Alternatively, because New York law provides that any time a defendant remains “continuously outside” of the state is excluded from the statutory period, an indictment against Trump would be timely. From late January 2017 on, Trump was “continuously outside” New York, first in D.C. and then in Florida, meaning the statute of limitations only ran those few times Trump was in New York. That isn’t even close to the two years necessary for the misdemeanor statute of limitations to expire, much less the five-year period applicable to felony offenses.

So, the statute of limitations won’t likely bar one or more falsifying business records counts. But what about the merits?

Cohen already pleaded guilty to federal charges related to his payments to Stormy Daniels. But to convict Trump on the anticipated state charges, the Manhattan prosecutor would need to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump (1) caused the Trump Organization to falsify its business records (2) “with the intent to defraud.”

From public reporting, it appears Cohen is a star witness for the prosecution, likely testifying Trump directed him to make the payments to silence Daniels and promising reimbursement from the Trump Organization. Whether a paper trail supports Cohen’s testimony is unclear, but without one, it will be Cohen’s word—the word of a convicted felon—crucial to establish the crime.

Cohen’s testimony also already appears under fire. A “former legal advisor to Cohen,” Robert Costello, reportedly testified before the grand jury on Monday, “solely to undermine” Cohen’s credibility.

But prosecutors will need to prove more than that Trump caused the Trump Organization to falsify its business records. They will need to establish he also had the “intent to defraud.” Here, the defense can easily counter that Trump’s intent was to avoid embarrassment to his family caused by what he claims is a lie, rather than to “defraud” anyone.

Should prosecutors nonetheless prove their case, it is only a misdemeanor, unless they can further establish Trump intended “to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission” of another crime. Proving either will be even more challenging.

First, to establish Trump intended to conceal a violation of federal election law, the Manhattan D.A. would need to prove Trump had committed an election-law crime. While Cohen alleged paying off Daniels to advance Trump’s electoral chances, Trump has another justification, namely avoiding any embarrassment for himself and his family, that does not run afoul of federal election law.

Proving Trump intended to commit tax fraud would likely be a difficult case to prove as well, with prosecutors needing to establish Trump’s knowledge of the intricacies of the corporation’s tax filings to show he held the requisite intent.

This inside-the-law analysis reveals an exceedingly weak case, but that is only a fraction of what the public will care about. On top of the questionable charges, the general public will see a man hounded for seven years with false claims of Russia collusion and other supposed crimes. They will see a statute of limitations that on its face appears to have run. And they will see a local prosecutor pushing charges previously rejected by a federal U.S. attorney.

Then there was the public pressure placed on Bragg to indict Trump, best exemplified by the backlash he faced after he apparently backed off charging the former president for crimes supposedly connected to the Trump Organization’s finances. At the time, “two prosecutors quit his office,” and “one of the prosecutors, Mark Pomerantz, wrote a highly critical book that the media has celebrated.”

In short, the public will see a vindictive political prosecution of Trump.

Maybe there will be a time to charge a president or a former president with a crime, but the facts here do not support making that leap. While D.A. Bragg and those pushing for Trump’s indictment may seek cover behind the well-worn American proposition that “no one is above the law,” the corollary is equally important: Our political enemies are not targeted for prosecution.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Arresting Trump: An End-Of-America Watch Party

BY: EDDIE SCARRY | MARCH 20, 2023

Author Eddie Scarry profile

EDDIE SCARRY

VISIT ON TWITTER@ESCARRY

As the saying goes: If even Never Trump Jonah Goldberg doubts your wisdom in bringing criminal charges against the former president, then you know it’s a stupid case.

Nobody actually says that, but it’s one of many indicators that the indictment potentially coming this week from Democrat New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg (yes, that’s his actual name) is so absurd as to make anyone wonder if our justice system really is a joke.

Trump on Saturday announced that he expected to be arrested soon in relation to the very old, very stale, very tiresome allegation that he violated campaign finance laws when he reimbursed his lawyer for a payment made to a porn actress in order to supposedly cover up a past affair. The accusation is that Trump did it to protect his campaign and intentionally neglected to publicly disclose the payment, as would be required by law.

I think Democrats have no interest whatsoever in campaign finance violations and really just enjoy thinking about Trump’s sex life. But even if they really were concerned with the integrity of our convoluted election money regulations, no serious person thinks Bragg has a case. That’s evidenced no less than by the fact that the people who considered pursuing this charge previously eventually dropped it— including Bragg!

While Trump was in office and Bragg was a U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, his office looked at this very case and decided it wasn’t worth pursuing. It’s a horse that has been beaten to death, resuscitated, and beaten again. Then smacked on the rear one more time.

But persecuting Trump has no downside for Democrats chasing fame. And now is as good a time as any. The historic nature of putting a former president in handcuffs as he campaigns for another term is too good for a low-rent prosecutor to pass up.

Not so good for a republic that wants to last another year, let alone 200, but that’s never top of mind for people like Bragg.

Try to wrap your mind around it. The former president, the likely Republican presidential nominee in 2024, might be seen on live national television cuffed, placed in the back of a squad car, and taken to a police station for his mug shot. All this over campaign paperwork that would any other time be resolved with a corrected filing and, perhaps, a penalty fee.

And that’s only if you presume Trump is guilty. Rational people think he might have tried hiding an affair, but that it’s absolutely possible it was for other reasons. (I wonder if anyone has ever in American history tried hiding an affair for reasons outside of protecting his prospects to be elected U.S. president. Interesting question, but far from settled!)

If Bragg brings an indictment, that’s one up for him and another one down for faith in America.

Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of “Liberal Misery: How the Hateful Left Sucks Joy Out of Everything and Everyone.”

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Trump Paid Stormy Himself. Congress Paid Its Victims $17 Million out of Treasury. Who’re the Real Criminals?

Reported By Cillian Zeal | December 10, 2018 at 12:16pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/trump-paid-stormy-congress-paid-victims-17-million-treasury-whore-real-criminals/

The one person who seemed to sum up the Democrats’ reaction to Michael Cohen’s guilty plea — and subsequent allegations against President Donald Trump — was Rep. Jerry Nadler. There’s long been speculation that the New York Democrat is considering impeachment hearings against Trump and anyone around him regardless of what the evidence might entail. A report from the day after the midterms had the powerful ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee ranting on a train about impeaching Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. He also talked about going “all in” on Russia.

Well, Russia might not work out, but how about Cohen? On TV this weekend, Nadler talked in grave terms about Cohen’s claim that Trump directed him to pay Stormy Daniels as part of a non-disclosure agreement and paid him back. This would, according to Nadler, be a sufficient reason to remove Trump from office.

“They would be impeachable offenses. Whether they’re important enough to justify an impeachment is a different question,” Nadler said in an appearance on CNN.

“Certainly, they’re impeachable offenses, because, even though they were committed before the president became president, they were committed in the service of fraudulently obtaining the office.”

This is hardly a surprise; from Day One, Nadler has called Trump “not legitimate” as a president. But the media is lapping it up. They seem to forget two things.

One, campaign finance issues — and it’s questionable as to whether this falls under the aegis of campaign finance — are generally settled without impeachment proceedings, mostly because they aren’t important enough to justify an impeachment.

The second is, well, how does Congress have any room to talk?

Yes, $17 million of taxpayer money has been spent on settling, among other things, sexual harassment claims in Congress, and we pretty much don’t know anything about the cases. As CNN noted, the names of those involved are withheld not only from the public but also from party leadership.

“A source in House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office told CNN that Ryan is not made aware of the details of harassment settlements. That source also said that the top Democrat and Republican on the House administration committee review proposed settlements and both must approve the payments,” the network reported in November 2017.

“Similarly, a source in Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office told CNN that Pelosi also is not made aware of those details, and that they are confined to the parties of the settlement and the leaders of the administration committee.”

This is essentially the cozy system that the establishment has set up so that it doesn’t have to face repercussions from sexual harassment lawsuits, discrimination suits and the like. There are also other rebarbative elements of how the system is set up, too long to detail here but enraging in their own right.

But this is perfectly legal.

Trump, meanwhile, paid a much smaller sum to women who allege he had consensual sex with him in order to obtain an NDA. Because of the methodology of obtaining it and the question of whether or not it should have been included in campaign finance reports, we’re now talking impeachment. Apparently, Nadler isn’t going all-in on Russia, he’s going all-in on Stormy. I guess it’s easier.

So, yes, Nadler can continue to claim that “the president was at the center of a massive fraud — several massive frauds against the American people.” That doesn’t actually mean anything. If we scrutinized the campaign ledgers of everyone in high office for any sort of problem, we’d probably have to extirpate at least half of them from their position.

Now, here’s the thing: I haven’t seen the Mueller report. Neither has Nadler. For all I know, Trump is implicated in a panoply of heinous crimes and his ties with Russia were way more extensive than we thought. Or it could be a very big nothingburger, albeit a nothingburger dressed up like a very appetizing somethingburger and advertised incessantly in the media like it was the Arch Deluxe circa 1992.

I still have my money on the latter, and I think Nadler does too. He heavily qualified whether the alleged campaign finance violations rose to the level of impeachability.

“You don’t necessarily launch an impeachment against the president because he committed an impeachable offense,” he said. “There are several things you have to look at.”

“One, were impeachable offenses committed, how many, et cetera. Secondly, how important were they? Do they rise to the gravity where you should undertake an impeachment? An impeachment is an attempt to effect or overturn the result of the last election and should do it only for very serious situations. That’s the question.”

My guess is that Nadler finds they were very important, committed with great frequency and rise to the gravity where one should undertake an impeachment — an impeachment which would overturn the result of the last election, which elected a president Nadler has already declared as “not legitimate.”

The rest of us might look at the report and realize this has nothing on what Congress has been doing for years. Whether that makes it right is an entirely different question, but the contrast will still make a huge difference in terms of how Americans view any attempts at impeachment.

After all, Trump used his own money to pay for an NDA through a liaison, which would generally garner a minor fine at most if you even concede it was a campaign-related expense. Congress used $17 million of your money to pay for its mistakes, some of which involved sexual harassment. They took every possible step to make sure you didn’t know about it. And they made it all perfectly legal.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Cillian Zeal

Contributor, Commentary

Summary
More Info Recent Posts

Writing under a pseudonym, Cillian Zeal is a conservative writer who is currently living abroad in a country that doesn’t value free speech. Exercising it there under his given name could put him in danger.

@CillianZeal

Facebook

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Ex-FEC Chair Indicates Trump Using Own Money to Pay Off Stormy Was Not Violation

Reported By Lisa Payne-Naeger | August 22, 2018 at

10:37am

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/fec-chair-trump-not-violation/

Liberals across the nation are squirming in their seats with glee at the latest news that President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, struck a plea deal with prosecutors that involved violating campaign finance laws related to a payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Not so fast.

As conservative talk radio star Mark Levin made clear Tuesday, through an interview with a former Federal Elections Commission chairman, the Cohen plea bargain is not exactly the slam dunk against Trump that it’s being portrayed by the mainstream media.

Cohen agreed to plead guilty to eight criminal counts of tax evasion (five counts), making a false statement to a financial institution (one count), and campaign finance violations (two counts), according to The Wall Street Journal.

It’s the campaign finance charges that have liberals going bananas. But Cohen only pleaded to them, Levin said, to avoid prosecution on even more charges.

“Prosecutors and Cohen cut a deal. It’s a plea bargain,” Levin said, according to Conservative Review. “It’s not a precedent. … They obviously had more on Michael Cohen, or Michael Cohen wouldn’t have cut a deal.”

More to the point, Levin said, Cohen’s guilty plea to campaign finance charges don’t mean there was an actual violation of the law.

And it wasn’t just Levin. Bradley Smith, a Clinton-appointed member of FEC from 2000 to 2005 and its chairman in 2004, agreed.

Early in the interview with Levin, in response to a hypothetical situation Levin described, Bradley said a payment such as the one involving Cohen, which related to behavior that took place prior to a potential candidate’s political campaign, “should not be” considered a campaign violation

In the interview, Smith — the former chairman of the FEC, remember — makes the point over and over again that just the fact that an expenditure might help a candidate’s public image does not make every penny a candidate spends a matter of campaign finance law.

The whole interview is worth listening to, but the heart of Levin’s questioning comes about the 2:45 mark.

“The argument seems to be and it hasn’t changed is that if I spend money to make myself look better or to take away negative issues in my private life, my business life, my employment life, and use my own money, that somehow that is a campaign contribution, correct?”

Advertisement – story continues below

Smith agrees, “Right.”

Levin confirms, “Which is it’s not.”

And Smith again validates, “That’s right, it’s not.”

Clearly, no matter Cohen might have agreed to to avoid other forms of prosecution, the alleged “campaign finance violation” is incredibly weak.

Then Levin, a constitutional lawyer who served in the Reagan Justice Department, went deeper to ask how much weight Cohen’s conviction would carry in future legal proceedings.

Smith’s answer, basically, was not much.

Levin asked: “Does this have judicial precedent? Stare decisis? Is it controlling in any way on any future case in that respect?”

Advertisement – story continues below

“No, it’s not the same as if you had a judgment from the court,” he said. “Defining this as a campaign expenditure. It’s a plea bargain. People plea bargain for lots of reasons and one of the big reasons is that they plea bargain down to lesser charge to get a lesser penalty for pleading to something. …

“Sometimes they plea bargain to one charge because the penalty for that is less than the other thing they would be charged with. There are lots of reasons why people plea bargain, but bottom line is just as you said, it’s not judicial precedent that you can cite in court to prove the law of a case.”

The interview is loaded with reasons why the liberal media’s evident delight in Tuesday’s Cohen plea deal is as misplaced as all the media’s previous certainties that whatever the latest scandal was, it was going to be the one to bring Trump down.

Is it good news for the president that his former attorney has pleaded guilty to eight counts of criminal behavior? Obviously not.

But is it the legal crisis that Chuck Todd at MSNBC and the rest of the liberal media are pretending it is?

A guy who used to be in charge of the Federal Elections Commission doesn’t think so.

And he knows a little more about it than Chuck Todd.

Until such time as liberals come up with something of substance for to go after the present administration, it’s my opinion that there is probably a lot of really important news on which to focus.

And while we turn our attentions there, we can also enjoy a better economy, higher employment numbers and hopefully celebrate an upcoming confirmation of a constitutional conservative to the Supreme Court.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Lisa Payne-Naeger

Contributor, Commentary

Summary

An enthusiastic grassroots Tea Party activist, Lisa Payne-Naeger has spent the better part of the last decade lobbying for educational and family issues in her state legislature, and as a keyboard warrior hoping to help along the revolution that empowers the people to retake control of their, out-of-control, government.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Libs Use Cohen to Push Guilt by Association, But Forget 5 Obama Pals Who Were 10x Worse

Reported By Lisa Payne-Naeger | August 22, 2018 at

2:37pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/guilt-association-obama-guys-worse/

It didn’t take long for liberal spin to conjure up the specter of guilt by association as the media tried to build a case for impeachment of President Donald Trump due to the latest developments in the Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort cases.

On Tuesday Michael Cohen, the president’s former attorney, pleaded guilty to eight charges of felony fraud and campaign finance law violations. In doing so, he also implicated the president, who he claims directed him to pay off porn star Stormy Daniels as well as a former Playboy model to buy their silence for alleged sexual encounters.

That alone would have made liberals happy. But the anti-Trump crowd was also crowing that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was convicted on the same day of eight charges of tax and bank fraud brought by special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his investigation of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

A lot of nonsense takes place on social media, but sometimes bits of wisdom shine through. These particular comments put the spotlight on liberal hypocrisy that has no problem with smearing Trump with guilt by association, but was mysteriously blind when it came to former President Barack Obama.

Liberal memories are short when it comes to liberal sins, but author and conservative Twitter user Thomas Wictor reminds us all that guilt by association was — or should have been — a much bigger issue in the Obama administration.

He listed at least five egregious instances where guilt by association could be argued in relation to Barack Obama, and he starts with Obama associate Tony Rezko.

“(3) Obama fundraiser and member of his U.S. Senate campaign finance committee Tony Rezko. Sentenced to over ten years for public and private corruption. Served four.”

“(4) Obama fundraiser Courtney Dupree. Convicted of bank fraud.”

“(5) Obama bundler Willie Shepherd. Pleaded guilty to third-degree assault on his wife in exchange for dropping negligent child-abuse charges.”

“(6) Rod Blagojevich, Illinois governor. Doing 14 years in the federal pen for trying to sell Obama’s vacated seat.”

And he caps it off with this closing tweet.

To be fair, longtime Barack Obama buddy Bill Ayers was never implicated in murder during his spree as a bomber for the domestic terrorist group the Weather Underground.

It’s also worth pointing out that Ayers’ girlfriend at the time, Diana Oughton, died in 1970 when a nail bomb she was helping to build exploded in a house in Grennwich Village. A Vanity Fair article from 2015 claims Ayers and his Weather Underground terrorists never intended to hurt people, but it’s safe to wonder if they were worried about who would be on the receiving end of those nails flying through the air with deadly, explosive force.

The Daily Caller points out some clarifying factors on the the guilt-by-association accusations against Trump.

In the Manafort case, even though Manafort spent a short time with the Trump campaign to work specifically on the Republican National Convention, the media will fail to mention he was “fired over questions of his work as a lobbyist for foreign governments years earlier,” and all charges were related to actions of Manafort long before he ever joined Trump’s presidential run.

As The Daily Caller put it: “It’s guilt by association coupled with omission of relevant facts to paint the president as somehow associated with a guilty person’s actions.”

As far as Cohen is concerned, and as conservative radio host Mark Levin has pointed out, the charges of payoffs to two women for alleged sexual encounters are still not proven to be illegal. It is not not illegal for to pay for non-disclosure agreements in politics or any other sphere of the law.

Liberals have once again cast stones from their own glass houses. They should really think twice before they invent false scenarios.

Some sharp-minded Twitter members might just throw a litany of facts on their feed that blow their latest spin out of the water.

Lisa Payne-Naeger

Contributor, Commentary

Summary

An enthusiastic grassroots Tea Party activist, Lisa Payne-Naeger has spent the better part of the last decade lobbying for educational and family issues in her state legislature, and as a keyboard warrior hoping to help along the revolution that empowers the people to retake control of their, out-of-control, government.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Media Celebrate Trump Mishandling $280k. Forget Obama Mishandled $88 Million.

Reported By Kara Pendleton | August 22, 2018 at

12:44pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/media-trump-130k-obama-88-million/

Another day, another “we’ve got him now. No, really, we’ve really, truly, madly, deeply got him, now!” series of headlines from the establishment media about President Donald Trump.

This time the focus is on campaign finance.

And once again, voters are left to their own devices to figure out what the truth really is and if there actually is a crime involved. Add to that the way the establishment media addressed the topic when President Barack Obama was involved in similar “scandals,” and you have more evidence as to why the establishment media outlets are so often called “fake news.”

The latest “Get Trump” establishment media feeding frenzy stems from a plea deal made by Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen. On Tuesday, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges against him, including two alleged campaign finance violations. One involved a payment of $130,000 in 2016 from then-candidate Trump to porn star Stormy Daniels. The other involved coordinating a $150,000 payment by the National Enquirer’s publisher to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, according to The Wall Street Journal.

A great breakdown of the situation comes from radio and television personality Mark Levin, who is also a lawyer and worked in the Justice Department during the Reagan administration.

Appearing on “Hannity,” Levin offered his “help” to the “the law professors, the constitutional experts, the criminal defense lawyers, the former prosecutors, and of course the professors” in regards to “what the law is” surrounding the campaign finance issue and Michael Cohen plea deal.

“The general counsel for the Clinton Mob Family, Lanny Davis, he had his client plead to two counts of criminality that don’t exist. These campaign finance violations that they are saying all over TV implicates the president directly.”

“First, let’s back up. It’s a guilty plea. It is a plea bargain between a prosecutor and a criminal. A criminal who doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life in prison. That is not precedent. That applies only to that specific case,” Levin said.

“Nobody cites plea bargains for precedent. That’s number one.

“Number two: Just because a prosecutor says that somebody violated a campaign law, doesn’t make it so. He’s not the judge, he’s not the jury. We didn’t adjudicate anything–it never went to court. That’s number two.

Advertisement – story continues below

“A campaign expenditure, under our federal campaign laws, is an expenditure solely for campaign activity. A candidate who spends his own money, or even corporate money, for an event that occurred not as a result of the campaign, it is not a campaign expenditure.”

Levin then gave some examples, one being a candidate for office having disputes with a vendor and not wanting the negative publicity. In this scenario, the hypothetical candidate instructs his private attorney to just pay the vendors and he (the candidate) will reimburse the attorney.”

Levin adds that this is “perfectly legal” and a “point” made that such an act would “influence an election” was “stupid.”

Earlier this year, Newsweek tackled the “the question of whether longtime Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s $130,000 hush money payment to adult actress Stormy Daniels was an illegal campaign contribution.” Ex-Federal Election Commission Chairman Bradley Smith told Newsweek in March that, “It looks like Trump has made these kinds of payments to people before unrelated to his campaign or as a candidate. It’s hard to show this payment was made solely because he was running for election.”

By way of comparison as to how the media handled a “campaign finance scandal” when it came to Trump’s predecessor, let’s first ask if anyone was aware there even was one.

In one of the few mainstream media reports about it, a U.S. News & World Report headline from 2013 announced, “Obama Campaign Fined Big for Hiding Donors, Keeping Illegal Donations.”

The article went on to note that, “The FEC levied one of its largest fines ever against Obama’s campaign committee, new documents show.” The Federal Election Commission fined his campaign $375,000 for “a failure to disclose or improperly disclosing thousands of contributions to Obama for America during the then-senator’s 2008 presidential run.”

More specifically, citing the FEC, the article stated that “the Obama campaign failed to disclose the sources of 1,300 large donations, which together accounted for nearly $1.9 million. Election Commission rules state campaigns must report donations of $1,000 or more within 20 days of Election Day.”

“Obama for America was also fined for ‘untimely resolution of excessive contributions,’ according to the conciliation agreement, FEC says,” the report continues. “The campaign accepted more than $1.3 million in contributions that came from donors who had already given $46,000 — the maximum allowed by FEC rules. The campaign eventually refunded the excess cash but did not do so within the 60-day window allotted for resolving such cases.

“In addition to failing to report big donors and excess donations in a timely manner, the Obama campaign incorrectly dated the filings dealing with $85 million in funds, the FEC claims. This error appears to have been primarily the result of one transfer to the campaign committee from the Obama Victory Fund, a fundraising group that includes money raised by the Democratic National Committee that is earmarked for the presidential race.”

Do you remember the media having a field-day with the news and screaming for Obama to be impeached?

Was anyone sent to jail over actual mishandling of actual campaign funds? (No Russians were implicated in the commission of those violations of federal election law, either.)

The sharp contrast between the two situations is undeniable.

To anyone with eyes to read, there is a distinct appearance of the establishment media using extreme measures to smear a sitting president and build public pressure for impeachment. Neither of which is the duty of a free press or an honorable Fourth Estate.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Avenatti Accuses The Wrong Michael Cohens Of Making ‘Fraudulent’ Payments

Reported by Chuck Ross | Reporter | 2:14 PM 05/09/2018

URL of the original posting site: http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/09/avenatti-michael-cohen-israel/

Michael Avenatti, porn star Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, released a seven-page dossier on Tuesday containing a list of payments purportedly made to Michael Cohen, the lawyer for President Donald Trump. But there is one problem with the document: two of the allegedly “fraudulent” payments were made to men named Michael Cohen who have no affiliation with Trump.

Avenatti’s report includes a section listing “possible fraudulent and illegal financial transactions” involving Trump’s lawyer. One of the payments is a $4,250 wire transfer from a Malaysian company, Actuarial Partners, to a bank in Toronto. The other is a $980 transfer from a Kenyan bank to Bank Hapoalim — the largest bank in Israel.

Zainal Kassim, a representative for Actuarial Partners, told The Daily Caller News Foundation Avenatti’s report is a case of mistaken identity. He forwarded an email the falsely accused Michael Cohen sent to Avenatti requesting the lawyer “correct this error forthwith and make it known publicly” there is no connection to Trump’s Michael Cohen.

“You are surely aware of the fact that this is an extremely common name and would request that you take care before involving innocent parries in this sordid affair,” wrote Cohen, who told Avenatti he is an international consultant who was paid by Actuarial Partners for work on a project in Tanzania.

“Actuarial Partners have already received inquiries from the press in this regard, and we would like to see this scurrilous rumour spiked as soon as possible.”

Haaretz, the Israeli news outlet, found another case of mistaken identity in Avenatti’s report.

“Mr. Cohen received one wire transfer in the amount of $980.00 from a Kenyan bank from account holders Netanel Cohen and Stav Hayun to an account in Israel at Bank Hapoalim,” Avenatti wrote.

Haaretz caught up with Netanel Cohen, who acknowledged having a bank account in Kenya and transferring money to a Michael Cohen. But the Michael Cohen in questions is his brother, Netanel told the news outlet. And his brother is not Trump’s lawyer.

“I’ve never heard of Michael Cohen, and I have no connection to this affair,” Netanel told Haaretz.

It is unclear how Avenatti obtained the financial records cited in his report. But various news outlets, including The New York Times, also appear to have viewed the documents. The Treasury Department’s office of the inspector general opened an investigation into whether someone leaked Cohen’s financial documents to Avenatti and the press, it was reported on Wednesday.

It remains a mystery how the financial records of a completely separate Michael Cohen would have ended up in the tranche of documents provided to Avenatti.

Other transfers tied to Michael Cohen, the Trump lawyer, actually did occur. Several companies, including AT&T, Novartis and Columbus Nova, a firm linked to Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, acknowledged paying Cohen’s company, Essential Consultants.

Cohen used that firm to route a $130,000 payment to Daniels in October 2016. Daniels, who claims she had an affair with Trump in 2006, is suing Cohen and the president to get out of a non-disclosure agreement she signed in exchange for the money.

This article has been updated with additional information.

Follow Chuck on

Category:

Law, Political

Tagged with:

Stormy Daniels Running For The Hills After Bill O’Reilly Comes Forward

Reported By Emmanuel | Posted on May 8, 2018

URL of the original posting site: http://threepercenternation.com/2018/05/stormy-daniels-running-for-the-hills-after-bill-oreilly-comes-forward/

Opinion| Bill O’Reilly has never been shy about voicing his opinions, and when it came down to discussing Stormy Daniels and her accusations against President Donald Trump, O’Reilly had a few things to say. He had some very specific suspicions about the porn star’s attack on the President.

We have all been speculating on the true intent of Daniels’ attack on Trump. We found out the truth this past Saturday evening when the porn star made an appearance on known liberal show, “Saturday Night Live.”

As I’m sure you noticed, SNL brought on a laundry list of celebrities who love to hate President Trump in order to bash the Trump administration. Comedian/actor Ben Stiller played the role of President Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen. Far-left winger Alec Baldwin played the role of President Trump, himself. Baldwin was clearly mocking Trump during the entire skit. It wasn’t just the words that were coming out of his mouth that were in a mean-spirited nature. His entire face was caked with orange makeup and his hair looked like someone replaced his toupee with a dust bunny. Hell, even his facial expressions were mocking Trump. Then, for the finale, towards the end of the video, Stormy Daniels made her appearance.

She failed to save the skit, and in fact, Bill O’Reilly pointed out that Daniels revealed what she has been after all along.

From Billoreilly.com:

There is something wrong in this country when a person like Stormy Daniels can go on a national TV program and be applauded by a live audience.

What exactly are these people celebrating?

It doesn’t matter whether you approve of President Trump or not. He’s currently in charge of the country and Ms. Daniels is making his job much harder. And for what? Could it be money? She’s already been paid for her alleged tryst but apparently wants more cash and notoriety. Again, why is that worthy of applause?

Americans knew about Donald Trump’s social resume when the election was held. What we didn’t know was the intensity of the media hatred toward the man. That loathing has emboldened people to attack the President on every level. Is this also something to be applauded? Is this a good thing for America?

O’Reilly is totally right. We all knew about Donald Trump’s history when we elected him. The possibility that he had relations with a porn star ten years ago doesn’t change the way Americans view him.

Category:

Political

Tagged with:

Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

Saboteurs

A.F. Branco | on May 3, 2018 at 7:35 am | https://comicallyincorrect.com/f-branco-cartoon-saboteurs/

It is obvious the Democrats care more about hurting trump than they do about their own country. It’s an all-out effort to sabotage the president and his efforts foreign and domestic.

A.F.Branco Coffee Table Book <—- Order Here!

Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $10 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News” and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.