I didn’t see the logic in your cite. I saw an accusation, but the cite compared the accusation to the one against John Edwards, and he wasn’t found guilty.
Regards,
Shodan
Campaign finance law requires that a person breaking the law know that their behavior is illegal. No politician, before Edwards, had ever been accused under the law resulting from a third party payment of the nature of that made by Bunny Mellon to Edward’s mistress. Therefore it was far easier to argue credibly that the candidate did not meet the requirement of knowing that his behavior was illegal. But only the first person so charged can make that argument because knowledge of the Edwards case makes that argument far less credible, especially when you’re arranging for the payment to be made via a cutout.
You know, I could respect a Repub who said, “Sure, Trump is an incompetent liar. I support him to the extent that his being there helps me support my constituents’ preferences better than Hillary would have. But I’m sure as hell going to work as hard as I can to have SOMEONE who is minimally competent and somewhat less dishonest run against him in 2020.”
Anything sort of that makes a Repub elected official an enabler at best - more likely flat out disingenuous.
My fantasy has long been for both parties to split. The moderates in both parties could work together to run things, while the extremists on both ends could try to build coalitions for specific issues.
Most people, when accused or questioned about doing something they shouldn’t be doing will deny it and lie about it. Later, when the proofs are presented, they will often admit to the offense (and implicate others, if appropriate) in order to minimise punishment. Sometimes, there is heartfelt regret. I don’t have a cite for these claims other than being a parent and spending 30+ years as a law enforcement officer. Should Cohen be trusted absolutely? Of course not. Should one assume that everything he is now saying is a lie? No. Take what he is saying now and compare it with other known facts. Are his statements consistent with what is known from other sources? It seems the Republicans don’t want to address the the specifics and are spending all their time attacking his credibility. I didn’t see or hear much of yesterdays circus but two lines stuck in my mind. One was Cohen saying, (paraphrased) ‘Don’t believe me. Look at the documents and decide for yourself.’ To me, that’s a good reply to someone who is calling you a liar. The other was by one of the Dem members who said (to Cohen) something to the effect of ’ My colleagues across the aisle aren’t worried that you’re lying. They’re worried that you’re telling the truth.’ Bingo.
The reason I don’t listen to much was that I couldn’t stomach the speech giving. Are there not rules or is it tradition to have the members spout off about anything without asking a question? IMHO it ought to be like court where an objection can be made. “Is there a question in there somewhere?” Wishful thinking, I know. Pompous asses on both sides but, based on my limited viewing/listening, the Republicans seemed to clearly avoid asking meaningful questions to a greater extent.
Uh, that was answering the serious question, the silly one was about Trump being convicted already, that was just a red herring. The point stands, Cohen is the small fry that was convicted. That the long arm of the law has not reached Trump yet is a given.
Arguing the guy can’t be believed because he admitted “I was lying when I said the President was innocent when your team lobbed all those softball questions at me last year” is an odd position to take for people supposedly interested in the truth, but what do I know?
The Trumpist replies are amazing. I swear if Trump is indicted on 20 charges and found guilty on 19, then the Trumpists here (and elsewhere) will be crowing about how they were right that the evidence against Trump wasn’t enough to convict all along.
The DJ 3000 is never wrong.
Thinking about it a bit more, I wish that someone had asked Cohen if he knew what the earliest dates were at which he was under investigation.
If it had been asked that way, he’d have had to answer “which investigation?”
There have apparently always been investigations of one kind or another of the Trump Organization. And of course Cohen had his own business interests which inspired law-enforcement attention, too.
A day later, what I’m remembering most is Cohen’s remarks about ongoing investigations in the Southern District of New York. We know that Trump has been trying to derail those, via getting his US Attorney pick, Geoffrey Berman, to un-recuse himself and start doing his ‘protect Trump’ duties.
But that hasn’t happened. And think of all Cohen could be telling them, and all they could be doing with the information…
So Edwards wasn’t convicted, therefore Trump should know that it was illegal? That also lacks in logic.
Regards,
Shodan
The crime exists, he wasn’t found guilty of it. By your reasoning, he should not even have been tried, since the crime did not exist. If he had been accused of leprechaun abuse, you would have a point.
What a wasted opportunity this was. Legislators could have asked meaningful questions, the answers to which would have provided fodder for more hearings and possibly criminal proceedings. Instead, most of them on both sides chose to bloviate and grandstand. One of the few exceptions was AOC, who put aside the pompous speechifying and asked meaningful questions. What a disgusting show.
The criminal proceedings are already underway. The fact that it was all a bit lame is just part of the evidence to that fact.
But note that Cohen is spending days at a time talking to Congress in secret, and weeks of time talking to the SDNY.
The FBI isn’t just going after Trump, they’re also going after Elliott Broidy, Tom Barrack, Deutsche Bank, Ilyas Khrapunov, the Kushner family, Ukrainian mafia, and who knows who all else. If Trump was just committing crimes on his own, they might have decided to pass on investigating a few crimes, and let Congress have some fun going through the other stuff that’s harder to prove. But his operating process usually involves others, so that everyone has someone else to point fingers at if the cops come looking. Trump’s get-out-of-jail card was always, “I was just hired to manage the building once it’s built! I didn’t have anything to do with the development!”
But he touches so many other criminal entities that, most likely, the FBI was already investigating that almost everything Cohen has to talk about is immediately part of some ongoing investigation the minute he mentions who all was part of the plan.
The “Mueller Investigation” and the “SDNY Investigation” is not so much an investigation of Trump as it’s a mega investigation of a whole bunch of criminal enterprises. The Trump presidency is, in some sense, a godsend to the FBI because Trump’s people were all so incompetent and lightweight that they provide a good “in” to harder criminal organizations, who run a tight ship and will kill people for talking.
Trump is going to take down a few dozen major figures.
I figured the real questioning went on yesterday in the closed-door session. I hope that’s what happened!
This was strongly suggested on Lawrence O’Donnell last night. He interviewed Raja Krishnamoorthi (who is on both the Intelligence and Oversight Committees), and while Krishnamoorthi obviously couldn’t go into detail about the Intelligence Committee hearing he did say that the questioning was much more on point.
++. At least one of the D Senators even spent their five minutes listening to themselves repeat what we’d learned on the news a year ago. :smack:
Without AOC, the names of two guys (one named Calamari :rolleyes: ) might not have been entered into the records and been subpoenaed.
"He was lying then; he's probably lying now" is such a popular fallacy among the GOP it should have its own name. Recall that when David Brock revealed that *The Real Anita Hill* was all a lying hatchet-job, the GOP response was "Maybe he's lying now." These ideas do not pass a sniff test.
Anyone unclear about Lying in Trump's world may want to consider DJT's own words. For a while "Michael Cohen is a very honorable man. He won't rat me out." Then when Cohen did the honorable thing, "Cohen has been a liar all his life." I'd have more respect for people bragging about how Trump became Potus despite being a criminal, liar and traitor, than for those who pretend to be unable to grasp the logic of justice system, human nature and common sense.I have a general question about Congressional hearings. Perhaps I should start a GQ thread but I’ll try here first.
Much time was wasted in the Cohen hearing. Almost 50% of the time was deliberately wasted by the GOP, and even some of the time spent by D’s could have been better spent if questions were asked by trained interrogators. I assume that closed hearings, where Congressmen are not playing to the cameras would be much better, but even there is half the time spent fighting the truth?
Is there a rule that almost 50% of the time has to be given to enemies of the people? What if a Committee Chair were to declare that 50% of the time was for the use of his own staff lawyers and the remaining 50% would be evenly split among Congresspeople?
Where has the SDNY been for the last 35 years? None of this shit about Trump or any one of a hundred other grifters in NYC has ever been a secret.
We have a culture of fraud and deception. People who would quickly condemn someone for using physical force and threats to steal money will shrug if you outsmarted some poor dumb shmuck. The stupid are the natural prey of the clever.
The good and generous who are also smart are a blessing to us all, the predator who is clever is an unequaled curse. I suppose we might count our blessings that Il Douche is not as smart as he thinks he is.