Aug 22, 2018 at 9:51 PM | tomo

If in doubt, blame the Russians.

If only the accusers could be more specific as to which colour or flavour. The corruption is systemic, but the assumption that all Russian corruption has a common interest (apart from selfish greed) is naive.

So, Trump's ex campaign manager is a convicted tax and bank fraudster, and his personal lawyer a tax evader who agreed to illegal requests to stuff with gold the mouths of a pornstar and model.

A great judge of character, just great, everyone says so.
Aug 21, 2018 at 10:31 PM | Unregistered CommenterPhil Clarke

Where is the illegality?

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/08/trump_has_not_violated_campaign_finance_laws_and_heres_why.html

Michael Cohen Plea Agreement – Six Counts Valid, One Count Possibly Invalid, One Count Ridiculous – Guess Where The Media Focus…

While we are on the subject of illegality...

Obama’s Campaign Paid $972,000 To Law Firm That Secretly Paid Fusion GPS In 2016

gosh.... Russians eh?
Aug 22, 2018 at 9:51 PM | Registered Commentertomo

Wow!

Stormy Daniels is the de facto head of the Democrat Party. Her name appears more times on Google News than Google Video, and the links are equally tawdry, but her political ambitions are nothing new. In 2009, Stormy Daniels performed in a dozen pornographic films and explored a run for Senate as a Democrat from Alabama. Since then, Stormy has further blurred the lines between the world's two oldest professions. President Trump has trolled Democrats into turning a lying porn star into their political avatar. Keep it up, and Donald Trump will surely do again to them as he did to Stormy a dozen years ago.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/30290/stormy-daniels-de-facto-head-democrat-party-michael-j-knowles

Sorry if I'm thread-bombing.

The Democrat Party has devolved from bleeding-heart liberals who wore their hearts on their sleeve to raging leftists who wear their genitals on their head

"So, Trump's ex campaign manager is a convicted tax and bank fraudster, and his personal lawyer a tax evader who agreed to illegal requests to stuff with gold the mouths of a pornstar and model.

A great judge of character, just great, everyone says so."
Aug 21, 2018 at 10:31 PM Phil Clarke

Where is the illegality?

How to miss the point of a post

I see, the lawyer Cohen needlessly confessed to a non-offence. Got that.

As an connoisseur of irony, I am loving this. A president's personal lawyer showing 'a pattern of lies and dishonesty'. A lawyer to a candidate who labelled his opponent crooked and promised to 'drain the swamp', and whose campaign manager now faces a possible life in jail for more fraud and dishonesty.

To suggest that this doesn’t amount to a felonious act also doesn’t pass the smell test. The president is now, in effect, an unindicted co-conspirator on charges already prosecuted by the government as a criminal matter against Cohen. Why should a lighter standard apply to Trump, since he’s the one at whose direction Cohen claims to have carried out the payments?

Lock 'em up!

Heh.

Oh and "The Candidate" definitely knew absolutely nothing about any payments (all "fake news") then knew about them, but absolutely only after the events (witchhunt), to knowing about the payments and paid them out of his own funds (but did not declare them either). Furthermore, his personal lawyer who knew his innermost secrets and acted on his behalf for years (and was known as his fixer) is a very bad lawyer and is lying to get clemency (no evidence supplied). Things are getting slightly tangled. Nixon redux. The saga continues.

Focus Tomo, Focus.
Trump is being further exposed as an inveterate and proven liar, and as a person of particularly poor judgment when choosing close associates. These facts were apparent even before he was elected.

Think how successful he could have been, personally, and for the United States, if he were not 'an inveterate and proven liar' and a 'person of particularly poor judgement'.
======================================

Mueller has charged more than a dozen Russian individuals and companies in connection with fake social media campaigns, inter alia. He indicted a <A href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/us/politics/mueller-indictment-russian-intelligence-hacking.html">dozen Russian military personnel in connection with email hacking, he has charged
Konstantin Kilimnik, a suspected Russian spy with obstruction of justice. The guilty pleas he has secured include Flynn and George Papadopoulos, who both lied to federal officials about their communications with Russian officials.

Mueller’s terms of reference enabled him to investigate any other crimes that arose in the course of his work. To borrow a phrase from the NYT As soon as he and his lawyers started sniffing around, the stench of Mr. Manafort’s illegality was overpowering.

Perhaps Mueller should have simply given Cohen and Manafort free passes, 'cos they weren't Rooskies?

Extraordinary implication, that.

Tomo. You know full well. The vice President. However you get ahead of yourself, i'm not advocating anything (it's not my country), I'm just commenting on the news as it plays out, not finding excuses or distractions.

Hope you haven't fallen for Trump's self-promoting BS, there Kim

His largely illusory 'personal success' derives entirely from the help he was given by his wealthy father and family, who helped him with political contacts and financial assistance in setting up his property and casino business.

Indeed, when one of Donald's casinos was struggling to meet debt payments, Father Fred Trump stepped in and sent an intermediary to purchase $3.5 million in chips. There was never any intention to gamble - the chips were simply put in a bag and removed, effectively an interest-free (and illegal) loan.

Even so, when the economy slowed in the early 1990s The Trump Organization and its subsidiaries owed $9 billion, and Crooked Donald was personally liable for nearly $1 billion. He only got a bank bailout by passing the hat around his siblings and borrowing money against his upcoming inheritance (Father Fred was suffering from Alzheimers by now).

In 2015, Fortune magazine reported that Trump had grown his net worth by 300% to £4bn since 1987. However the S&P index rose 1,336% in the same period. That's right, if he had invested his money in a simple index-tracker and taken early retirement he would have outperformed himself fourfold.

So much for the superhuman businessman. It's all hype.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1991/01/29/from-father-fred-to-the-donald-cashing-in-chips-off-the-old-block/40928ac7-ce98-46b8-b257-b6a5893461fb/?utm_term=.d5f137e7da4d

http://fortune.com/2015/08/20/donald-trump-index-funds/?#

Oh, and PS the guy who actually wrote 'The Art of the Deal' now says that if he wrote it today, he would entitle it ...

'The Sociopath'.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/donald-trumps-ghostwriter-tells-all

Tomo - I try and 'know' things for which I have seen some actual evidence.

I repeat, 'evidence'?

For those asking 'where is the illegality?' (Seriously?) here is a nice summary from Trevor Potter of the Campaign Legal Center.

"Michael Cohen admitted today that he made or facilitated hush money payments to women in coordination with the Trump campaign to keep them silent about affairs they had with Trump. Cohen admitted to making a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels for the benefit of and in coordination with the Trump campaign, and appears to have done so at the behest of Trump himself, which constitutes an excessive and unreported in-kind contribution to the Trump campaign. It also appears that the Trump campaign itself violated the law by accepting this contribution in excess of legal limits and failing to report it.”

“If Trump himself knowingly and willfully violated the law, or engaged in or directed a conspiracy to do so, he too could be facing criminal penalties. Even if his violation is not knowing and willful however, the campaign could be subject to civil penalties, such as fines.”

“In a separate charge, Cohen pled guilty to causing American Media Inc. (AMI), the parent company of the National Enquirer, to make an illegal coordinated $150,000 payment by the publisher of the National Enquirer to silence former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Cohen admitted that the payment was part of an agreement entered into by AMI to influence the 2016 Presidential election by using corporate resources to prevent rumors about Trump’s affairs from becoming public by paying off women who were threatening to go public."

https://campaignlegal.org/press-releases/trevor-potter-reaction-michael-cohen-pleading-guilty-campaign-finance-violations

Fewer than 100,000 votes won Trump the presidency. It is not that much of a stretch that had the American people known of the allegations of extra marital affairs that margin might have been reduced or even reversed altogether. Certainly the idea that he won fair and square is now as dead and buried as the idea that the Mueller campaign is a 'rigged witch hunt.'

Pass the popcorn.