Cohen’s pleas concocted by prosecutors to snare Trump

[Right_in_Virginia]

Cohen’s pleas concocted by prosecutors to snare Trump
The Hill, Dec 10, 2018, Mark Penn

[...]

One can say today that these New York prosecutors, acolytes of fired U.S. District Attorney Preet Bharra, have learned that the “plea’s the thing wherein to catch the king.” First, they went after the man, not the crime, and turned up millions in unpaid taxes and some bank-loan misrepresentations by Cohen. At that point, they convinced him to cave for the sake of his family; the trick was to get him to plead guilty to supposedly two campaign finance “felonies,” and then vaguely implicate the president as directing them (which Trump denies).

Despite promises to the contrary from prosecutors, they threw their star witness off the bus anyway, making him the biggest chump in this drama after he hired attorney Lanny Davis and burned all his bridges with his former client. Once they had the guilty pleas in hand, the prosecutors no longer needed Cohen; they trashed him as a greedy liar and called for substantial jail time.

[...]

What revelation would have had greater impact on transparency in the election — that Democrats had paid a British spy to gather dirt on Trump from Russia, or that Trump had a consensual one-night affair?

Perhaps the biggest difference between oppo research and paying for nondisclosure of an affair is that one is definitely a campaign expense and the other is a personal expense not covered by election law. When prosecutors brought a similar case against former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), they failed to get a conviction and it came out that FEC auditors had determined that the payments from donors to his mistress were not a campaign expense at all.

[...]

I am hard-pressed to believe that the stories of brief encounters with these two women, neither of whom claim any harassment or abuse, would have had any effect on the election in the first place. They would have primarily hurt Trump’s wife and children, and it’s only because of the election and declining media standards that these women had increased marketability for their stories. These are personal expenses that Trump, a frequent target of such schemes, would have likely made anyway.

Step by step, the special counsel and New York prosecutors are showing that they regard Trump protégés as little more than pawns in an all-out effort to remove the president. This is no honest inquiry respecting the will of the people. Never before has an administration, a family and a campaign been treated in this fashion by prosecutors who have created far more crimes than they have found.


More:  https://itk.thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/420523-cohens-pleas-concocted-by-prosecutors-to-snare-trump

[edpc]

Once they had the guilty pleas in hand, the prosecutors no longer needed Cohen; they trashed him as a greedy liar and called for substantial jail time.



Such obvious stupidity. They acquired so many documents in the raid. Cohen’s reaction to it was defeated resignation. Between what they collected and the cooperation from Pecker and Weisselberg, they had Cohen nailed and didn’t need his input.

[Oceander]

The transcripts of the closing arguments in the Edwards trial can be viewed here:  https://perma.cc/6Q2X-LRMM

They’re quite instructive.  They also make it very clear that Edwards was not found guilty because the jury concluded that the payments for his mistress were personal, and not intended to influence the campaign, and/or because Edwards did not have the necessary state of mind. 

They also make it clear that it is not a rule of law that payments to keep a mistress quiet are never campaign-related.  That is a question of fact and means that the payment in one case may be campaign-related, but not in another case. 

They also reveal facts that make Edwards’ case very, very different from Trump’s case.  Whether those differences would be enough to persuade a jury is anybody’s guess. 

[Right_in_Virginia]

The transcripts of the closing arguments in the Edwards trial can be viewed here:  https://perma.cc/6Q2X-LRMM

They’re quite instructive.  They also make it very clear that Edwards was not found guilty because the jury concluded that the payments for his mistress were personal, and not intended to influence the campaign, and/or because Edwards did not have the necessary state of mind. 

They also make it clear that it is not a rule of law that payments to keep a mistress quiet are never campaign-related.  That is a question of fact and means that the payment in one case may be campaign-related, but not in another case. 

They also reveal facts that make Edwards’ case very, very different from Trump’s case.  Whether those differences would be enough to persuade a jury is anybody’s guess.

What are the differences, counselor?

[RoosGirl]

I am hard-pressed to believe that the stories of brief encounters with these two women, neither of whom claim any harassment or abuse, would have had any effect on the election in the first place. They would have primarily hurt Trump’s wife and children

Weren't we told over and over again that she knew what she was getting in to with him because of his history of cheating on his other wives?