Obviously, it’s not against the law to lie on Twitter. It’s not against the law for a sitting president to lie in a press conference, or in an interview to Fox News, or whatever else. Donald Trump is not under oath when he speaks or tweets publicly. His lies only “count” in a legal sense if and when he lies in a sworn statement, in a deposition or in a criminal or civil investigation or court proceeding. But I have to think that Scramblin’ Don shouldn’t have morning tantrums in which he explicitly tries to justify his white-collar crimes. It seems like Michael Cohen’s sentencing yesterday really got to Ol’ Baby Fists. And this is what we got:
I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law. It is called “advice of counsel,” and a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made. That is why they get paid. Despite that many campaign finance lawyers have strongly……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2018
….stated that I did nothing wrong with respect to campaign finance laws, if they even apply, because this was not campaign finance. Cohen was guilty on many charges unrelated to me, but he plead to two campaign charges which were not criminal and of which he probably was not…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2018
….guilty even on a civil basis. Those charges were just agreed to by him in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence, which he did-including the fact that his family was temporarily let off the hook. As a lawyer, Michael has great liability to me!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2018
Despite our pleas to not allow Trumpism to become the new normal, I can already predict the avalanche of shrugs coming from the Republican Party today. The leader of their party is on Twitter, openly discussing whether or not he broke the law by ordering the payout to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal – HIS MISTRESSES – just before the election. And besides that, Trump’s legal argument is all over the place – I think he’s just saying that it’s all Cohen’s fault, and Cohen was acting in a vacuum, with no direction from Trump whatsoever. Which… is not true, and won’t hold up in court. I’d love to hear from any lawyer-commenters on this. I have a feeling that Bob Mueller has gently arched one brow as he read these tweets.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
Yup, the narrative is that Cohen alone is to blame, Trump is an innocent victim. I heard it yesterday via a GOP congressman. I can’t. Not with Trump, not with his supporters and enablers. We need this insanity to end once and for all.
so, his personal lawyer is guilty, his former campaign chairman is guilty, his former NSA advisor is guilty, his CFO of the Trump org is singing, the CEO of the National Enquirer is singing…
but he’s COMPLETELY INNOCENT.
“…but he plead to two campaign charges which were not criminal.” I guess one can plead guilty to charges that are “not criminal” now. What kind of covfefe word salad is this?
I know, right? When I got to that part of this nonsense, I swear I could hear several of my brain cells screaming in agony as they died from the burning levels of stupid.
If you have to “plea” to something that means it involves criminal court. You do not “plea” in civil. You reach a “settlement” in civil court. Ugh this turd.
Yup if Cohen broke the law it’s his own fault because he was the lawyer not Trump. He should have just declined to do it if it was illegal. I’m guessing that is the new argument. I’m also guessing Trump didn’t write that.
absolutely not, there are far too many coherent sentences in that series of tweets to have it be written by Trump, minus the great liability bit at the end. We see you, Don. We all know you can’t get out a thought on Twitter without it being a rambling mess of covfefe.
Nagini was tweeting at the same time so I suspect it was her. She makes far fewer grammatical errors but she’s a blithering idiot so a better constructed Trumpian sentence that still makes no sense by real world rules
The first tip-off he didn’t write it is that “counsel” is correctly spelled… for the first time in my recollection.
This. It’s the little things, isn’t it?
Looks like it was hard to find a glove to fit those tiny hands
LOL!
Actually my first thought about the gloved hand was that he’s reaching out to strangle someone!
I figured he was buying bigger gloves to hide how small his hands are?
Are we buying that Trump wrote these reasonably coherent, well-spelled and correctly capped tweets himself?
Nope.
Nagini was tweeting at the same time. I suspect she often pretends to be Orange Voldy. While the grammar is better, the tweets are still devoid of facts and logic.
Of all of Trump and Co activities I think campaign irregularities are the weakest link
and not the narrative Mueller is perusing. While these charges were probably helpful in obtaining Cohens cooperation, the collusion
and obstruction charges are what Trump should be most fearful of…
Collusion is not a crime. It’s also the word Trump wants everyone to focus on. Obstruction of justice is a crime; as are: money-laundering; fraud; perjury; suborning perjury; election tampering; extortion; conspiracy to commit a crime; hacking; tax evasion; and espionage. Those are what Mueller is looking for.
Add conspiracy against the United States. Manafort got slapped with that one for his work with Ukraine and Russia. Bigly needs that added on too.
So much for hiring the best people, eh, Individual-1?
Once again I say: lawyers generally don’t advise clients to break the law. It’s bad for business.
Also, if this was just Michael Cohen acting in a vacuum then why is AMI corroborating his story?
Does he forget there are recordings of him and Cohen discussing he was going to pay off his mistresses to get them to stay quiet?
These every morning twitter freakouts and meltdowns are making is so obvious he’s scared and panicking. Tick tock, Donnie!
He’s not denying it happened. This is important to remember. The argument is this:
1. It wasn’t illegal.
2. If it was illegal, it wasn’t a big deal and it was just a civil thing like Obama.
3. If it wasn’t just a Civil thing and was actually criminal, it was all Cohen’s fault for advising me to do it.
4. But it’s not really Criminal and Cohen is just trying to make me look bad and protect his family .
5. I’m the victim of a shi*ty lawyer and he owes me for being so bad.
Nowhere in there is “I didn’t do it.” It’s all, “It ain’t my fault”
You forgot #6 Hillary’s emails.
Trump (or his surrogate Ivanka) is also forgetting that the FBI raided Cohen’s offices and related places and have every scrap of paper and recording that was deemed not subject to attorney-client privilege – which was practically everything. Cohen admitted to it all because he had to do so, he knew they had the evidence. He could hold back only on things the raid may not have captured.
If Trump weren’t so well known for changing his story every two minutes and stiffing his lawyers, maybe Cohen wouldn’t have recorded him. Other lawyers made sure to visit Trump only in pairs because Trump was such a liar about what was agreed.
Ivanka is a world-class liar also. Saw a clip where she was touting her concerns about family leave and related “women’s issues” and she looked straight into the camera and claimed that Hillary Clinton was not paying attention to women’s issues, that there was nothing on Hillary’s website about it. That was not only a lie, but a huge lie. Hillary has been working on women’s issues for all her career. Back in the 1990s, despite Republican opposition to any health care insurance reform, she managed to get some relief for low-income women and their children. Such issues have always been important to her. She was working on them when Ivanka was still playing with dolls. And Ivanka would have known this if she had even glanced at Hillary’s web site or listened a tiny bit when hanging out with Chelsea Clinton while they were still friends.
Why these Trumps consistently lie about things that are so easily checked, about which we have both written and audiovisual records, is simply beyond me.
He’s such a fool. Michael Cohen taped EVERYTHING. I’m sure there’s hours of tape of Trump implicating himself in a variety of crimes. Not to mention there are hand written notes from Trump directing the payments.
So, if Cohen acted illegally then he acted illegally, and he cant use the excuse that he was doing it because Trump told him to do so. But, the fact that Trump told him to do something illegal, and cohen actually did the illegal act, doesn’t let Trump off the hook either. You cant use someone else to commit a crime and expect that to be enough to get you off the hook.
Yes, I seem to recall that people who have hired others to kill pesky people in their lives have often discovered that they’re guilty of the crime also even if they weren’t present when the deed was done.
God I so hope Emperor ZeroCheeto gets his comeuppance. Please, please, pretty please.
As a lawyer, I can’t tell you how many times I get asked by clients to “bend” the law. It’s my job to counsel them and not participate in breaking the law. If they don’t accept my counsel, then I fire them as a client. An attorney usually doesn’t go rogue and act without the knowledge of the client.
But if the client has the memory span of a gnat and directs a dirty lawyer to go dirty but has no memory of it the next minute, is he still guilty? F*k yeah he is!
Miller’s gently arched brow lmao
however by this point I doubt anything Trump does can elicit a response from Mueller. He’s beyond desensitized by now.
I’m waiting for Mueller’s Public response
in the form of indictments, subpoenas, and reports basically confirming Trumps worst fears.
If AMI and Trump Org CEO Weisellberg corroborate Cohen’s testimony by filling in the gaps, you’ll be Chicken L’Orange.
Michael Cohen got a reduced sentence for spilling. YTF isn’t 45 in shackles right now? It’s been like a day. How much longer do we have to wait?
girl I’m with you!!
January third 🙃
Seven minutes between first and second tweet, fourteen minutes between second and third tweet. WTF? Moron.
Ivanka probably needed to get dad’s approval of her draft and he’a a slow reader.
Trump didnt write those tweets, it’s just not his style of tweeting
Lying on Twitter is not a crime but repeatedly lying on Twitter proves a pattern of malicious deceit that can help prove intent. The same for obstruction of justice via Twitter.
So much lying, misdirecting, and rumor-mongering. But you know, Elizabeth Warren’s DNA test showed that she was truthful in stating that a 6x Great Grandparent was a first nations American and the GOP still mocks her.
Does anyone really believe RNC Deputy Finance Chair Broidy is really the father, for which he paid paid $1.6m to a Playmate to have the abortion procedure? Because I’m pretty sure that was just a “favor” to Donald. Broidy works in the “favor” business, to get access for his clients to POTUS. $1.6m is a drop in the bucket for him.
It was her grandmother’s grandmother who was Native, and the test was consistent with that. The big range given is typical for such small percentages (about 3% for 1/32 Native as she is).
Even if the test had not detected markers confirming Native ancestry, it would not be proof that she wasn’t. Those tests are best for picking up reasonable percentages of European ancestry because the databases are bigger for that.
You can get quite different results from different tests for the very low percentages because of the inherent uncertainties but also because not even all known markers may be passed on to a specific individual. So they should be used in conjunction with other sources, such as family stories, as just another possible clue. But since people generally know who their grandmothers are, the family stories were always on quite solid ground. It wasn’t like claiming to be descended from a king who lived hundreds of years ago. When Warren was a child, she knew people who actually had known her Native ancestor.
Besides all the family corroboration, her father’s family was bothered enough about her mother being part Native that they opposed the marriage.
The whole ridiculous idea that she was falsely claiming Native ancestry was started by one guy while she was running for office (I think the Senate), simply as a way to smear her. There was never any truth to the guy’s claims. It was just another one of those baseless conspiracy theories that Trump likes to latch onto when it suits his purpose, like Corsi’s birther nonsense about Obama that Trump took and ran with.
I think Stormy wasn’t a mistress and wasn’t having an affair with Trump, as is commonly stated. He was an unplanned one-night stand, Stormy didn’t even come prepared with her latex-free condoms (allergy) but thought they would be going out to dinner. She was interested in business/publicity opportunities but figured out by the second encounter that he was not. She did not have sex with him the second time.
The other one qualifies for both categories, though. Their relationship continued for quite a while, at least 8 months if I remember correctly. She actually liked the guy.
Anyway, the issue isn’t Trump’s unfaithfulness to his wife. Those campaign finance laws are important enough that people do get put in prison for violating them and political careers can be derailed by them. Where you get money and for what and why and proper disclosure are important issues when dealing with political campaigns. The alternative is to have the kind of chaos and “who cares?” atmosphere that Trump wants. The laws were enacted because enough people didn’t want that anymore.
Cohen lied to the bank on Trump’s behalf about why he wanted the money (since cash-poor Trump didn’t just pull it out of his pocket), and that’s bank fraud and in these days of drug money and money laundering, banks take it very seriously. Neither Cohen nor Trump properly disclosed it all as a donation to the campaign, even though both knew very well that the purpose was campaign-related. They buried reimbursement in vague legal fees for 12 months (since Trump isn’t really a billionaire or even a millionaire). Wonder if Trump’s re-election campaign donations, which he began to receive right away after inauguration, reimbursed Cohen.
I think if they had done it very differently, they would not be in such trouble and still could have negotiated silence from the women. But instead, they both acted like the crooks they are.
Those campaign rules are hundreds of pages for corporations, and they are highly specific about ANY kind of contribution. I have to read the entire guideline each time it’s updated (it’s only been updated twice in 12 years), as there are many facets to the law. It’s far more than “corporations can give $X and individuals up to $X”. Granting use of a conference room, or publicity via your company newsletter or web site are just a couple of examples of “campaigning” that has a value.
I think this is going to be part one (with money laundering and possibly tax evasion next) of untangling a giant financial web of 30-plus years.
I think you’re exactly right about the two women. Stormy was interested in appearing on the reality show. Karen seemed smitten and was flying around the country to meet up with him (per her interview).
“Temporarily”?? Is that a threat he is making to the Cohen family?
It is a typical Trump threat—ominous, but without anything to back him up. Narcissists love to do this, makes them feel powerful even when they’re not.