Why Alvin and not the Feds? Or, why Cohen and not Individual 1?

[CowboyTed]

You are just stupid.

Billie,

You seem to be taking it hard...

Trumpy Bear is a Criminal... I know you find this tough but you were taken in by the Big Con...
Please tell us you didn't send him money...

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Trump makes a desperate attempt to downplay illegal payments to women

NDAs are legal.

 

[WorldWatcher]

NDAs are legal.

NDA's are legal. Paying for NDA's is legal.

FPOTUS#45 isn't charged with paying for an NDA, he's charged with felonious falsification of business records attempting to hide the payments used for the NDA.

WW

 

[Billiejeens]

If there was no crime the case would have been thrown out.

THE GRAND JURY OF THE COUNTY OF NEW YORK, by this indictment, accuses the defendant of the crime of FALSIFYING BUSINESS RECORDS IN THE FIRSTDEGREE, in violation of Penal Law §175.10, committed as follows: The defendant, in the County of New York and elsewhere, on or about February 14, 2017,with intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof, made and caused a false entry in the business records of an enterprise, to wit, an invoice from Michael Cohen dated February 14, 2017, marked as a record of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, and kept and maintained by the Trump Organization.

SECOND COUNT:

AND THE GRAND JURY AFORESAID, by this indictment, further accuses the defendant of the crime of FALSIFYING BUSINESS RECORDS IN THE FIRST DEGREE, in violation of Penal Law §175.10, committed as follows: The defendant, in the County of New York and elsewhere, on or about February 14, 2017,with intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof, made and caused a false entry in the business records of an enterprise, to wit, an entry in the Detail General Ledger for the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, bearing voucher number842457, and kept and maintained by the Trump Organization.

"If there was no crime the case would have been thrown out."

My fervent wish would be that simpletons such as yourself could step out of your Cult long enough to read something that stupid and think - God Damn that was fucking stupid on my part.

 

[Billiejeens]

Billie,

You seem to be taking it hard...

Trumpy Bear is a Criminal... I know you find this tough but you were taken in by the Big Con...
Please tell us you didn't send him money...

Real world -

There could be a case made for a corporation accounting error, repeated 33 times due to the voluminous amount of paperwork required.
That's the worst-case scenario.
Maybe a small fine.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

NDA's are legal. Paying for NDA's is legal.

FPOTUS#45 isn't charged with paying for an NDA, he's charged with felonious falsification of business records attempting to hide the payments used for the NDA.

WW

How is the payment supposed to be posted in the business record?

 

[WorldWatcher]

How is the payment supposed to be posted in the business record?

Paying a porn star to protect the campaign isn't a business expense. Therefore:

#1 FPOTUS#45 draws a $130,000 certified check (or executes an electronic transfer) from his personal account. Not attempting to involve the "business organization" at all.

#2 However, he routed it through the Trump Organization, therefore the organization should not have logged it as a "business expense" since business expenses are tax deductible. The Trump Organization could still have cut the check, they would have just recorded it as a "non tax deductible expense".

WW

 

[Billiejeens]

Real world -

There could be a case made for a corporation accounting error, repeated 33 times due to the voluminous amount of paperwork required.
That's the worst-case scenario.
Maybe a small fine.

Also -

At max. this would be a misdemeanor that Bragg has elevated to a felony, which is only possible if it is inextricably tied to a 2nd crime which Bragg has not enumerated.

Yesterday's dismissal of jurors does prove that President Trump cannot get a fair trial in NYC and is absolute grounds for a change of venue - which of course won't happen and is reversable upon appeal.

 

[Billiejeens]

Paying a porn star to protect the campaign isn't a business expense. Therefore:

#1 FPOTUS#45 draws a $130,000 certified check (or executes an electronic transfer) from his personal account. Not attempting to involve the "business organization" at all.

#2 However, he routed it through the Trump Organization, therefore the organization should not have logged it as a "business expense" since business expenses are tax deductible. The Trump Organization could still have cut the check, they would have just recorded it as a "non tax deductible expense".

WW

In that scenario, you would have to prove that the one and only reason to pay was to protect the campaign and that there is no other viable reason to be included, which is ludicrous.

 

[marvin martian]

Because after all.......

Trump makes a desperate attempt to downplay illegal payments to women

President Donald Trump began his week by trying to downplay illegal hush payments to women made late in the 2016 presidential campaign — ones that federal prosecutors now say he directed and coordinated — as a mere “simple private transaction.”
Trump makes a desperate attempt to downplay illegal payments to women

However............

Inside Barr’s Effort to Undermine Prosecutors in N.Y.

Shortly after he became attorney general last year, William P. Barr set out to challenge a signature criminal case that touched President Trump’s inner circle directly, and even the president’s own actions: the prosecution of Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s longtime fixer.

The debate between Mr. Barr and the federal prosecutors who brought the case against Mr. Cohen was one of the first signs of a tense relationship that culminated last weekend in the abrupt ouster of Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney in Manhattan. It also foreshadowed Mr. Barr’s intervention in the prosecutions of other associates of Mr. Trump.

By the time Mr. Barr was sworn into office in February, Mr. Cohen, who had paid hush money to an adult film star who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump, had already pleaded guilty and was set to begin a three-year prison sentence, all of which embarrassed and angered the president.

But Mr. Barr spent weeks in the spring of 2019 questioning the prosecutors over their decision to charge Mr. Cohen with violating campaign finance laws, according to people briefed on the matter.
Inside Barr’s Effort to Undermine Prosecutors in N.Y. (Published 2020)

Eventually, Billy the Bagman pushed to have the charges against Cohen dropped. From Berman's book..........."While Cohen had pleaded guilty, our office continued to pursue investigations related to other possible campaign finance violations. When Barr took over in Feb. of 2019, he not only tried to kill the ongoing investigations but...incredibly...suggested that Cohen's conviction on campaign finance charges be reversed."

Why?

Because Individual 1 was implicated in the same illegal campaign finance violations Cohen had plead guilty to.

Book: The DOJ almost implicated Trump more directly in a crime

It was a shocking enough document as it was. Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, had pleaded guilty to illegally concealing hush money paid to two women who were accusing Trump of extramarital affairs. The 2018 charging document implicated Trump, named as “Individual-1,” notably by saying he attended a meeting about how he might quash any negative stories about his relationships.

And it might have implicated Trump even further, then-U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman now says — were it not for the kind of politically tinged meddling that he says was endemic in the Trump Justice Department.

The New York Times last week briefly noted that Berman’s new book alleges that a Justice Department official tried to get references to Trump removed from the Cohen charging document. And now that the book is out, we have Berman’s fuller account of the events.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...-almost-implicated-trump-more-directly-crime/

Much has been made by people like me about how ugly things could get with respect to the DoJ should Trump be re-elected. In part based on what kind of retribution he has promised against those involved in trying to bring him to justice. But also because of his track record of using the DoJ, one could say weaponizing it, for his own benefit or against his perceived enemies. Like this...........

‘Really shocking': Trump’s meddling in Stone case stuns Washington

President Donald Trump’s post-impeachment acquittal behavior is casting a chill in Washington, with Attorney General William Barr emerging as a key ally in the president’s quest for vengeance against the law enforcement and national security establishment that initiated the Russia and Ukraine investigations.

In perhaps the most tumultuous day yet for the Justice Department under Trump, four top prosecutors withdrew on Tuesday from a case involving the president’s longtime friend Roger Stone after senior department officials overrode their sentencing recommendation—a backpedaling that DOJ veterans and legal experts suspect was influenced by Trump’s own displeasure with the prosecutors’ judgment.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/12/trump-roger-stone-justice-department-114684

Past, as they say, is prologue.

How were these payments "illegal"?

 

[WorldWatcher]

In that scenario, you would have to prove that the one and only reason to pay was to protect the campaign and that there is no other viable reason to be included, which is ludicrous.

My post said nothing about the campaign.

WW

 

[Billiejeens]

My post said nothing about the campaign.

WW

Other than this -
Paying a porn star to protect the campaign isn't a business expense.

 

[WorldWatcher]

Other than this -
Paying a porn star to protect the campaign isn't a business expense.

Correct, it's a personal expense not a tax-deductible business expense.

That is NOT saying he's charged with campaign finance violations, he isn't, he's charged with falsification of business records. The question I responded to was how to log the business expense.

WW

 

[Lesh]

So why did he pay her?

And more importantly why did this all go down right before the election when it had happened years before…

 

[Lesh]

"If there was no crime the case would have been thrown out."

My fervent wish would be that simpletons such as yourself could step out of your Cult long enough to read something that stupid and think - God Damn that was fucking stupid on my part.

If you do something that is legal and then illegally avoid taxes on the money that paid for it… you have committed a crime

 

[Billiejeens]

If you do something that is legal and then illegally avoid taxes on the money that paid for it… you have committed a crime

Oh nice, another simpleton.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Paying a porn star to protect the campaign isn't a business expense. Therefore:

#1 FPOTUS#45 draws a $130,000 certified check (or executes an electronic transfer) from his personal account. Not attempting to involve the "business organization" at all.

#2 However, he routed it through the Trump Organization, therefore the organization should not have logged it as a "business expense" since business expenses are tax deductible. The Trump Organization could still have cut the check, they would have just recorded it as a "non tax deductible expense".

WW

Paying a porn star to protect the campaign isn't a business expense.

Paying a porn star isn't a campaign contribution.

the organization should not have logged it as a "business expense" since business expenses are tax deductible.

NDAs are tax deductible. The recipient has to pay tax on that income.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

If you do something that is legal and then illegally avoid taxes on the money that paid for it… you have committed a crime

Legal fees are tax deductible.
NDA payments are tax deductible.

 

[WorldWatcher]

Paying a porn star to protect the campaign isn't a business expense.

Paying a porn star isn't a campaign contribution.

When it's done to further the campaign, yes it is.

the organization should not have logged it as a "business expense" since business expenses are tax deductible.

NDAs are tax deductible. The recipient has to pay tax on that income.

Only partially correct.

Such payments can be a legal business expense when the NDA or "settlement" is related to the business function.

For example, an employee charges sexual harassment against a supervisor during work hours or at a business related event. The business decide to deal with the case with a payout and NDA. In such instances there is a relationship between the business environment and the conduct necessitating the NDA/Settlement.

However, there is no relationship in boinking a porn star in Vegas will attending a golf tournament and New York Real Estate. As such that is a personal expense, not a business expense.

WW

 

[Billiejeens]

When it's done to further the campaign, yes it is.



Only partially correct.

Such payments can be a legal business expense when the NDA or "settlement" is related to the business function.

For example, an employee charges sexual harassment against a supervisor during work hours or at a business related event. The business decide to deal with the case with a payout and NDA. In such instances there is a relationship between the business environment and the conduct necessitating the NDA/Settlement.

However, there is no relationship in boinking a porn star in Vegas will attending a golf tournament and New York Real Estate. As such that is a personal expense, not a business expense.

WW

That is a poor interpretation.