Depends on the details. My husband and I have a home equity line of credit and we both had to sign the paperwork to apply for it . But he could write a check on that line of credit for $130K tomorrow without my knowledge. I’m not saying Cohen’s wife didn’t know, just that her signature on the line of credit doesn’t tell you anything about her knowledge.
That was my understanding. In other words, it’s not that he is alleged to have payed Stormy Daniels hush money. It’s that he’s alleged to have done so with campaign funds rather than his personal money.
nitpick: The alleged pressure on Mrs. Cohen was from the US Attorney’s office, not the NY DA.
Chronos is right. That is evidence. That’s not the same as saying there is enough evidence for a conviction, but it is evidence.
Question for @Elendil_s_Heir @Procrustus, @Moriarty, @Aspenglow and @Doreen: is there a standard for charging decisions for prosecutors in the US (federal or state)?
In Canada, the prosecutor doesn’t have to believe that the evidence proves a crime beyond a reasonable doubt (that’s for the judge and jury), but does have to be personally satisfied that there is a reasonable chance for conviction.
If that standard applied in the Mrs Cohen situation, does that mean that it can be assumed that the federal prosecutor was satisfied that there was a reasonable likelihood of conviction?
I am not a lawyer , but the American Bar Association standard is
a) A prosecutor should seek or file criminal charges only if the prosecutor reasonably believes that the charges are supported by probable cause, that admissible evidence will be sufficient to support conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, and that the decision to charge is in the interests of justice.
I just want to reemphasize the point @RickJay made, which seems to have been largely blown past: why are we taking Cohen at his word for any of this? The man is a lying liar who lies. His credibility is less than zero. If he says something, not only is it not evidence that it’s true, it’s actually evidence that it’s false.
Until there’s an indictment, I don’t know what “this matter” is.
Now, if Bragg had arrested Trump a couple weeks after beginning his term as DA, I might wonder if he was rushing to get ahead of the line. But Bragg has been in office for fourteen months, and nobody else is indicting or arresting DJT.
Also, Trump has been out of office more than two years. No other jurisdiction has indicted him.
While it may be that Trump has committed more important crimes than Bragg will charge, the fact that TFG hasn’t been charged to date suggests to me the evidence that would convince a jury is elusive.
Am I sure of myself in this post? Not quite, because I don’t know how long comparable investigations go on before indictment. But I do think there is something to the proverb “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
We’re still within the statue of limitations for the alleged crimes and there’s zero legal precedence for a state charging a sitting POTUS with a crime. As a purely practical matter it would be like trying a defendent in absentia who’s still free to visit the jurisdiction and interfere with the trial in wildly unpredictable ways with the vourt impotent to combat. As for a delay in prosecution after the defendent leaving off? Even properly investigating a sitting POTUS carries unique difficulties and any sane prosecutor is likely going to want to bend over backwards to be as though as possible before going down in history as the first one to try.
What Cohen said:
I had a home equity line of credit for $500,000 for our apartment at Trump Park Avenue. We owned the property almost outright, and we had no real need for the line of credit, but it made sense to have access to a good amount of cash in the event of an emergency; especially at a ridiculously low interest rate.
In the end, as you’ll discover, I was forced to plead guilty to a count of lying to the bank about what I was going to do with this money, but that was a fantasy of the federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York. I didn’t lie for the simplest reason: the bank never asked what I wanted the money for.
Then during legal negotiations:
Petrillo said. “On Monday.” He paused, to let that sink in. “If you refuse, on Monday they are going to file an eighty-five-page indictment,” Petrillo said “They are going to drag you out of your apartment on national television. They are also going to indict Laura.”
Brings to mind the DA in Boston who offered Aaron Schwarz the choice of plead guilty and get 6 months, or fight it and they will ask for 35 years. He chose suicide.
Again, not sure why anyone should believe a single thing Cohen, a confessed liar, says absent independent corroborating evidence.
But Michael Cohen did not plead guilty to “lying to the bank about what he was going to do with this money.”
In plain terms, he lied to a financial institution to get credit: It’s bank fraud.
The fraud’s roots began in 2010 when Cohen took out a bank loan worth $6.4 million, using his taxi medallions as collateral. A year later, he obtained an additional $6 million line of credit, again using the medallions as collateral. He later increased the line of credit to $14 million, bringing the total amount of loans to $20 million. That same year, he sought a mortgage on his Park Avenue condo, but only disclosed the smaller $6.4 million loan on his application.
When Cohen attempted to get another mortgage - this one for a summer home worth $8.5 million - the loans began to catch up with him. During the mortgage application process, the bank found out about the original $14 million line of credit that Cohen had not disclosed. Caught, Cohen lied, saying that he had not used the line of credit and that he would close it immediately. Instead, he had already rolled the line of credit into another loan.
At the end of 2015, Cohen went back to the bank that had given him the mortgage on his condo - and had lied to about his available credit - and asked for a home equity line of credit. He again understated his debt so that the bank would give him the loan. Lying on a bank application - even once - is against the law.
Given this, you know, blatant lie about what he was convicted for, I see no reason to believe him about the 85 page indictment and threat to his wife.
Thoughts?
I have no idea what he actual admitted to as part of his plea deal (elocution?) but that would have been under oath, and he already had a deal, so why lie? Are we surprised a Trump lawyer was also a skeezy wheeler-dealer for himself before he worked for Trump?
Why would he downplay his crimes in interviews after his conviction? To make himself look like less of a shitweasel.
Why would he lie about the tactics the DA used to pressure him into a plea deal? To make himself look like less of a shitweasel.
Why would you or anyone else repeat his lies? That’s the real question.
I see a few posters referring to the U.S. attorney as DA. If we’re going to be clear on the thread title, let’s also be clear on the prosecutor’s title, too.
Because nobody authoritative has contradicted what he said. So, we at least consider the possibility some of it is true. He’s been convicted, he elocuted his crimes… One of which involved making a payment to someone for either (a) keeping the boss’s marriage peaceful or (b) payout to prevent bad news on behalf of a political campaign.
Which returns me back to my basic point, right at the beginning - the charges have not been tested in court because whatever the reason, Cohen pled guilty. There was no trial. So we shall see the merits of the case only if and when the universe starts unfolding as it should. Unless Individual 1 also chooses to plead guilty also.
Note that in his book, Cohen says he got stuck fronting the money because Weisselberg weaseled out during discussions about the situation. Weisselberg is under an plea deal and required to be truthful - can be called to testify. If he fails to live up to his deal, I presume it is void and he can then be sentenced to even more time. Or charged with perjury, depending what he says.
As we saw with the last witness to the Grand Jury who spoke to the press afterwards, the Trump defense team’s argument is that Cohen did it all on his own initiative, decided to come up with his own $130,000 which for some reason got billed back in installments as legal work.
Depends whose version you find more credible, I guess.
What he apparently said was
In the end, as you’ll discover, I was forced to plead guilty to a count of lying to the bank about what I was going to do with this money, but that was a fantasy of the federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York. I didn’t lie for the simplest reason: the bank never asked what I wanted the money for.
And that is absolutely not true. It is not illegal to simply lie to the bank about what you are going to do with the money and therefore he could not have pleaded guilty to that. One can only plead guilty to something that is a crime - it’s possible to plead guilty to something you haven’t done, but you can’t plead guilty to lying to the bank unless there was something illegal about the lie. Such as lying about your income or your debt to get the loan the bank would not have issued if it knew the truth. Or maybe even lying about the purpose if the bank wouldn’t have approved the loan if the true purpose was known - but according to Cohen, the bank never asked the purpose so lying about the purpose could never have been a crime. He’s lying about something in that quote - either he pleaded guilty to some other lie or the bank did ask him what he was going to do with the money or at the very least , he acknowledged in his allocution that he lied to the bank and the bank gave him credit based on the lie.
And here is a transcript - Page 11 describes count six as
THE COURT: Do you understand, sir, that Count Six of
the information charges you with making false statements to a
financial institution in connection with a credit decision from
at least in or about February 2015 up to and including in or
about April 2016 in violation of Title 18 of the United States
Code, Section 1014. Do you understand that?
and the prosecution described the elements (p13) as
With respect to Count Six, the false statements to a
bank, there are four elements:
First, that the defendant made a false statement to a
lending institution;
Second, that the lending institution had its deposits
federally insured;
Third, that the defendant knew that the statements he
made were false;
Fourth, that the defendant made these statements for
the purpose of influencing in any way the action of that
lending institution such as to influence a loan application.
and Cohen said this
As to Count Six, on or about February of 2016, in
order to be approved for a HELOC, a home equity line of credit,
I reviewed an application form that did not accurately describe
the full extent of my liabilities. I did not correct the
inaccurate information on the form. I signed it knowing that
it would be submitted to the bank as part of their HELOC
application process. The bank was federally insured and is
located in Manhattan.
Then there was some back and forth with the judge about " omitted vs false" which would not have happened if the judge was allowing him to say "I lied to the bank about what I was going to use the money for. " The judge specifically clarified that it was not an accidental omission as follows
THE COURT: And you omitted those statements, did you
not, for the purpose of influencing action by a financial
institution?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes, your Honor.
Probable cause is the standard for the prosecutor to decide whether or not to charge, as has been noted above.
Bragg had earlier pretty much folded his tent and two seasoned prosecutors left his office back when he indicated he wouldn’t be charging Trump. It surprised me at the time - a highly-motivated young Dem DA in a city which loathes Trump didn’t want to prosecute him? Hmm. Now he’s going forward, and ugh, I’m worried that he won’t even be able to make the reported charge(s) stick.
None of that all relates to the question of the OP which centers on the payments to Ms. Daniels.
Yes he was convicted on multiple counts for multiple unrelated offenses, most of which have nothing to do with the campaign finance issue - simply neglecting to report income. This mentions that one of the charges relate to a bank application where his wife had also confirmed their net worth, hence the ability to charge her. (Plus she signed her tax returns, presumably requiring her to agree to their joint tax statement) No indication she was involved in his shady deals or even knew of them. Indeed, he says he got the money from that particular line of credit for the payoff because his wife would not notice, as opposed to their regular banking account.
The OP’s question was about the campaign finance violations, and that those were some of the charges he pled guilty to. As I repeat - those have not been tested in court.
BTW, Geoffrey Berman mentions in his book his surprise that Cohen “suddenly decided to plead guilty” shortly before the case was to go to trial. Berman had done work for Trump campaign, so kept an arms’ length from the Cohen investigation details. However, that he was surprised at Cohen’s sudden change on mind is another indication that something happened to change Cohen’s mind. Threat to indict his wife is a logical possibility.
Fun question - when someone is given a hush money payment - how is it supposed to be accounted for? Gift? “For services rendered”? What are the tax implications for the giver and receiver?
A legitimate payment to not disclose something is taxable income. Probably need a for 1099 in a case like this.
here’s one take on it
It is not determinative, but I would consider whether Essential Consultants LLC had issued Stormy a Form 1099. Arguably, it was not required to do so if it did not view the payment to her as having been made from a trade or business. On the other hand, I don’t want to even think about having to do that return, although I would be very surprised if it turned out that nobody had deducted the $130,000.
I think this is the correct appraoch:
Martin Sheil, who retired as a branch chief of the IRS Criminal Investigation division, explained that Cohen was required to have filed a Form 1099-Misc for his payment and obtained a Federal Employment Identification Number for the shell company he used to process the payment