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Merged So what's next for Trump?

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Swammerdami said:
DrZoidberg said:
bilby said:
DrZoidberg said:
I understand that Trump has been accused of paying hush money to Stormy Daniels. What I don't understand is what law has been allegedly broken?
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Not if the money was an effective donation to the Trump campaign, but not declared as a donation under electoral laws, it's not.

Nor if it was fraudulently entered in any accounts to avoid paying relevant taxes.
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Ok. So it's complete bullshit. So I'm assuming Trump will come out of this stronger?
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In the Swedish language does "criminal but difficult to prove" translate as "complete bullshit"? I thought Google Translate was better than that.

Anyway, I see that T**** has been indicted on "more than 30" criminal charges. That suggests that they've gone beyond the illegal hush-slush accounting.

I'm not sure what outcome to hope for. This prosecution may STRENGTHEN Trump, but is that a bad thing? The GOP will nominate either Mephistopheles or Trump in 2024. Electing either would be disastrous for the USA, but the stupider, more disgusting candidate will be easier to defeat in November.
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From a European perspective I think this "scandal" reads like this. Trump is awesome and fucks porn stars. Democrats are pathetic moralists who can't deal with a guy enjoying life a little.

This entire indictment makes USA look bad.
 
DrZoidberg said:
From a European perspective I think this "scandal" reads like this. Trump is awesome and fucks porn stars. Democrats are pathetic moralists who can't deal with a guy enjoying life a little.
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He can get all the pussy he wants but if he's running for office, voters have a right to know who they are voting for. So it is illegal to pay to keep someone quite. And the candidate should never ever pay a porn star to keep her mouth shut.
 
TV and credit cards said:
DrZoidberg said:
From a European perspective I think this "scandal" reads like this. Trump is awesome and fucks porn stars. Democrats are pathetic moralists who can't deal with a guy enjoying life a little.
Click to expand...

He can get all the pussy he wants but if he's running for office, voters have a right to know who they are voting for. So it is illegal to pay to keep someone quite. And the candidate should never ever pay a porn star to keep her mouth shut.
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It was NOT illegal to pay for silence. The alleged crime was the way the hush money was accounted for. If it was to help Trump's electoral campaign -- (but how could they PROVE that?) -- then it needed to be reported as campaign revenue/spending. In that sense Dr Z is right: The hush-slush charge is a difficult-to-prove technicality, almost "bullshit" on the criminal scale.

But what's with the "indicted on more than 30 counts"? Surely the Stormy hush-slush wasn't extrapolated to 30 separate charges?
 
I was hoping that one of the more serious charges, like the law he broke in Georgia, would come first. But, I've also read that this inditement could make it a lot easier for some of the other charges to be made. Time will tell. I have no legal background, so I'm only going by what I've read.
 
bigfield said:
DrZoidberg said:
From a European perspective I think this "scandal" reads like this. Trump is awesome and fucks porn stars. Democrats are pathetic moralists who can't deal with a guy enjoying life a little.
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Come on now, Europeans aren't that stupid.
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I'm a European and I'm that "stupid". So, yes, we are.
 
DrZoidberg said:
I understand that Trump has been accused of paying hush money to Stormy Daniels.
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It's not that he paid hush money, it's that he took (or ordered the taking of) money from a fund, from the Trump Organization which is a taxed legal entity set up for a specific purpose, not including hush money...and those funds are taxed and it is recorded what those expenses are in such a way that capital gains are taxed. If there are lies to the govt about what expenses are legitimate business expenses, that is fraud, which is the allegation.

So the fund was Trump Organization business entity and the fraud was that this was a business legal expense for the Trump Organization, but it wasn't. It was a personal expense. This is part of a larger systematic fraud perpetrated by the Trump Organization. Recall they would also inflate prices of real estate properties to investors but then deflate the value of the properties for tax purposes. So on top of those shenanigans, the business entity was also allegedly being used for personal expenses, but declaring legal expenses and thus not being taxed for that portion. Big tax fraud in total of which the hush money was only a small part...

But it probably isn't only Stormy Daniels. He also paid other people hush money, too, and committed more fraud when taking the money from other sources than his personal accounts. For example, he allegedly used his rich boy ties to the National Enquirer owner to divert money to playboy model Karen McDougal to also keep her quiet.


DrZoidberg said:
What I don't understand is what law has been allegedly broken?

All articles I read start with the assumption that the reader gets this. I don't.

Wasn't she just paid for service rendered? That, to me, seems perfectly reasonable
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No, she was paid not to say anything about it but it came from a source that legally could not pay that and it was recorded as something legit. It would be like if Bill Clinton paid Monica Lewinsky hundreds of thousands of dollars to shut up, but the money came out of an election fund. And when they reported expenses of the campaign fund to the government, they lied that it was for travel expenses to Dubai. So, it's defrauding the government, not to mention the alleged continuous lie and coverups of the whole thing later on, probably a lie or two under oath or to federal agents.

It might be true that the Stormy Daniels hush money fraud is a small issue, but it's part of a larger pattern of many other fraud issues. It doesn't make sense to look at each issue individually and say, "Oh come on. That's not a big deal. Let it go," because when you do that, you throw away millions upon millions of dollars in fraud collectively across all the issues. You let the Big Liar continue to defraud the public and lie about it.
 
TV and credit cards said:
DrZoidberg said:
From a European perspective I think this "scandal" reads like this. Trump is awesome and fucks porn stars. Democrats are pathetic moralists who can't deal with a guy enjoying life a little.
Click to expand...

He can get all the pussy he wants but if he's running for office, voters have a right to know who they are voting for. So it is illegal to pay to keep someone quite. And the candidate should never ever pay a porn star to keep her mouth shut.
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USA is even more uptight than Europe is about sex. We all need to lie in the bed we have made for ourselves. USA has created a culture where it's not ok for men of power to use that power to sleep around. But obviously they all do. Why else have power? If it needs to be kept quiet it makes perfect sense that he will have to pay hush money. That seems perfectly legit to me. No matter the legal status.

I think Trump is the one who looks good here. The Democrats (or whoever is pressing charges him) looks hysterical. It also looks politically motivated. So no matter who is accusing him this falls onto the Democrats. And it doesn't make them look good.

And since it's the Republicans that is the political party of the Evangelical Christians, the Republicans risk becoming the party of both the fundie moralistic hardliners as well as fun loving libertines. While the Democrats are turning into the party for people who are acing PC pronoun usage. Is that what's going on?
 
It’s not about fucking porn stars. And not about covering it up. Those things are legal.
but it’s illegal to fail to report the hush money as “legal fees”. That’s a misdemeanor. If the misdemeanor is committed in furtherance of a political campaign , it becomes a felony.
Dr Z‘s moralizing about the prudish democrats is diametrically WRONG.
 
Swammerdami said:
TV and credit cards said:
DrZoidberg said:
From a European perspective I think this "scandal" reads like this. Trump is awesome and fucks porn stars. Democrats are pathetic moralists who can't deal with a guy enjoying life a little.
Click to expand...

He can get all the pussy he wants but if he's running for office, voters have a right to know who they are voting for. So it is illegal to pay to keep someone quite. And the candidate should never ever pay a porn star to keep her mouth shut.
Click to expand...

It was NOT illegal to pay for silence. The alleged crime was the way the hush money was accounted for. If it was to help Trump's electoral campaign -- (but how could they PROVE that?) -- then it needed to be reported as campaign revenue/spending. In that sense Dr Z is right: The hush-slush charge is a difficult-to-prove technicality, almost "bullshit" on the criminal scale.

But what's with the "indicted on more than 30 counts"? Surely the Stormy hush-slush wasn't extrapolated to 30 separate charges?
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It can’t be that hard to prove since they already proved the illegality of it in Michael Cohen’s case and put him behind bars for it. Now they just need to prove that Trump was a co-conspirator. They may also now have financial evidence because of the Weisselberg (sp?) investigation.
 
Furthermore, the “porn star” aspect is a bit of a red herring, though it does sell the story better. The crime here is yet another rich person cheating the system.

Had Trump just been willing to properly account for it financially there’d be no crime.
 
Shadowy Man said:
Swammerdami said:
TV and credit cards said:
DrZoidberg said:
From a European perspective I think this "scandal" reads like this. Trump is awesome and fucks porn stars. Democrats are pathetic moralists who can't deal with a guy enjoying life a little.
Click to expand...

He can get all the pussy he wants but if he's running for office, voters have a right to know who they are voting for. So it is illegal to pay to keep someone quite. And the candidate should never ever pay a porn star to keep her mouth shut.
Click to expand...

It was NOT illegal to pay for silence. The alleged crime was the way the hush money was accounted for. If it was to help Trump's electoral campaign -- (but how could they PROVE that?) -- then it needed to be reported as campaign revenue/spending. In that sense Dr Z is right: The hush-slush charge is a difficult-to-prove technicality, almost "bullshit" on the criminal scale.

But what's with the "indicted on more than 30 counts"? Surely the Stormy hush-slush wasn't extrapolated to 30 separate charges?
Click to expand...
It can’t be that hard to prove since they already proved the illegality of it in Michael Cohen’s case and put him behind bars for it. Now they just need to prove that Trump was a co-conspirator. They may also now have financial evidence because of the Weisselberg (sp?) investigation.
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What I'm going on is that this payment was made while Trump was campaigning. This makes it a campaign contribution in-kind. It contributes to Trump's campaign in that it silences negative information. What needs to be proved is that Individual 1 laundered the payment through Cohen.
 
DrZoidberg said:
bilby said:
DrZoidberg said:
I understand that Trump has been accused of paying hush money to Stormy Daniels. What I don't understand is what law has been allegedly broken?

All articles I read start with the assumption that the reader gets this. I don't.

Wasn't she just paid for service rendered? That, to me, seems perfectly reasonable
Click to expand...
Not if the money was an effective donation to the Trump campaign, but not declared as a donation under electoral laws, it's not.

Nor if it was fraudulently entered in any accounts to avoid paying relevant taxes.

I believe those are the two major issues the prosecutors are pursuing.
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Ok. So it's complete bullshit. So I'm assuming Trump will come out of this stronger?
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No, Trump violated tax laws. There are allegedly 34 accounts included in the indictment, which is thus far, sealed. It is likely that there are a lot more issues with Trump's campaign funds, etc. The Stormy Daniels thing grabbed a lot of headlines and attention. He probably could have slided on much of this if he had paid with his own money. Which he doesn't really have so.... Trump is basically a mobster who is far less competent or moral than the movies usually make mobsters seem.

This is not bullshit. The handwaving, Trump will come out stronger opining from right wingers is bullshit. Trump is about as 'strong' as a used wet off brand paper towel.

He will be indicted on other charges, including attempted election interference and hopefully in inciting the events of Jan 6, 2020, the two of which are far more serious than the NY charges.

Here's a break down of what he did wrong re: NY:
apnews.com

The New York hush-money probe of Donald Trump explained

More than six years after Donald Trump's lawyer paid off a porn star, New York prosecutors appear to be close to deciding whether the former president should face charges in connection with that payoff.
apnews.com apnews.com
WHAT IS THIS CASE ABOUT?

The investigation centers on hush-money payments made in 2016 to two women who alleged that they had extramarital encounters with Trump, who has denied their accounts of his infidelity.

Specifically, District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s team appears to be looking at whether Trump or anyone committed crimes in arranging the payments, or in the way they accounted for them internally at the Trump Organization.

HOW WERE THE PAYMENTS MADE?

Cohen paid porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 through a shell company Cohen set up. He was then reimbursed by Trump, whose company logged the reimbursements as legal expenses.

Earlier in 2016, Cohen also arranged for former Playboy model Karen McDougal to be paid $150,000 by the publisher of the supermarket tabloid the National Enquirer, which squelched her story in a journalistically dubious practice known as “catch-and-kill.”

Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, “grossed up” Cohen’s reimbursement for the Daniels payment for “tax purposes,” according to federal prosecutors who filed criminal charges against the lawyer in connection with the payments in 2018.
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34 counts, that is quite a few. I'm curious how far this runs, as I wouldn't think Daniels' payoff would lead to so many counts.

The thing I don't get with Daniels is that this was one of the least worrisome "Scandals" he had to concern himself about. Yet, this is the one he paid people off on. I ponder if there was a prenup thing with Melania. Regardless, I think I read a while ago, that the fake company front thing was actually bank wire fraud as it was created in order to prevent detection of the payout. What the DA needs is to be able to demonstrate any of this without needing Cohen too much.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
34 counts, that is quite a few. I'm curious how far this runs, as I wouldn't think Daniels' payoff would lead to so many counts.
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34 counts says, to me at least, that there's a lot more going on here than a simple hush money pay off.

I also heard that Bragg has, since he's been in office, brought 117 records falsification charges against others.
 
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