Stormy Daniels and the Surreal Reality

[TheDeamon]

Wayward, you missed the key point of the revelation.  Trump's payment came from his personal funds, not campaign resources, which pretty much eliminates any possible violation here.  There's nothing illegal about paying someone to enter into an NDA, even the campaign could have done it, they'd just have had to make filings about it.  If Trump used his personal funds, there's only a poor argument that this was a campaign expense - especially given his past practices and celebrity status.

In fact, if this was the basis of the FBI's raid on Michael Cohen, this may completely invalidate its validity, as there would be no crime and every thing seized could be off the table.

Which isn't to mention, last I heard, campaign finance laws have never capped the contributions the person running for office can contribute to their own campaign fund. So even if Trump paying out of his own pocket somehow qualified as a "campaign expense" it circles back to he paid for it personally, and he is allowed to contribute an infinite amount of money into his own political campaign.

The only "complication" in all this was his Lawyer paid Stormy, then Trump paid the Lawyer. Which means any investigation in regards to this would be in regards to the process involved in Trump providing reimbursement to his lawyer, and if anything with respect to that violated a law somehow.

[D.W.]

The mysteries of campaign finance laws are beyond me, but unless it turns out Trump is that damn broke that he had to make the pay-off with other people's money, I don't see how that's the issue.   

[Wayward Son]

Of course, if Trump did know about the payment, then he did not report the campaign expense, which is also illegal.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But if he's saying that it's his personal funds, does that make a difference?

NOBLE: Well, it makes a difference in the sense that, if it was his personal funds, it was an individual campaign contribution. If it came from another company or if it did come from the Trump Organization, it was a prohibited contribution. And we don't know what the source could have been. The source could have been another company, could have been another individual. We just don't know. And one of the purposes of the campaign finance laws to allow us to know where the campaigns are getting financed.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Let's talk a little bit about this idea of it being 11 days before the election. Why is that so important?

NOBLE: It suggests that the election was on their mind. Now, she allegedly had the affair about 10 years before. There was a potential article that was going to come out in 2011. But they did not enter the agreement until right before the election. And that is evidence that the purpose of this was for the purpose of influencing the election.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And if that is the case, why is that problematic?

NOBLE: If it's for the purpose of influencing the election, the federal campaign finance laws come into play. So that's where you have the violation of the contribution limits by whoever paid for this - and that you also have the campaign's failure to report this. Everything a campaign does for the election is supposed to be reported and is subject to limits. And that includes even things like this, even though they are things that may be salacious, that people don't want to know about. They are supposed to be reported if they're for the purpose of the campaign.

(Emphasis mine.)

[Seriati]

Intent to influence the election = in-kind campaign contribution.

There's literally no way to establish that where you have a celebrity that has a practice of paying for NDAs that predates his campaign.  In fact, it's almost certain that the opposite conclusion would be held.

This can not be an "in-kind campaign contribution" if it's not a campaign contribution, ergo if Trump repaid this as an expense, or even as a general draw down versus a standard retainer, it pretty much moots the point.  By the way, this is exactly why Rudi disclosed it, because it completely invalidates the premise.

To get to a contrary place is NOT an easy legal argument.  I grant you it can be made, but then you're back to my prior questions above, about how the Congressional settlements are not "campaign contributions," how favorable insider media write ups are not illegal campaign contributions, heck how FB assisting the Obama campaign is not an illegal campaign contribution. 

I get it, you guys are looking for a crime for Trump to be guilty of, no matter how implausible, but this isn't likely to be it.

Loan from Michael Cohen to the campaign required filings (he was paid back in installments over time).

Legal services and expenses are routinely billed after the expense is incurred, this is not a "loan."   By this interpretation every campaign in history has violated the campaign finance laws by failing to report the services they received and later paid for as "campaign contributions."

So no, this doesn't clear the air.

No it doesn't clear the air.  This raises the likliehood that Trump lied, but that's not illegal, and even there its entirely possible he wasn't aware of the details if this was a common enough occurrence.  I mean if Cohen had settlement authority of up to $250k, for example, which is not unheard of, then its entirely possible this is fully legal and no one lied about it.

What this does is virtually destroy a criminal charge of a campaign finance violation.

[Seriati]

Wayward, that presumes this is a campaign contribution, which this revelation most certainly undermines as a legitimate conclusion.  Basic rule of debate requires that you explain away a major flaw before you carry on as if your assumption is true.

[TheDrake]

This whole line of inquiry is stupid. So if he weren't campaigning, does Trump do anything differently?

Just like Clinton, however, he's stuck his foot in it up to his hips with his repeated denials followed by the eventual Truth. Makes you look guilty as hell. Had he simply come out and said, "Yes Stormy was paid off by my attorney/handler, whom I reimbursed in full, to squash negative PR - just like I've done on a regular basis for years." Then there's not much to talk about. But no, first it was "I never heard of this woman. I had no idea that she was paid hush money. She's in violation of the agreement that I deny having ever seen."

[D.W.]

The only 2 scenarios that make any sense to me (and I concede that it is very likely there is a 3rd actual scenario that will never make sense to anyone but Trump) is that A) he did something illegal here and he's trying to cover it and now we see the game of, what lesser things must he confess to to avoid the "big" issue he needs to keep hidden?  OR B) He's afraid of his wife or the repercussions of having his marriage implode with the national spotlight on him.

[TheDeamon]

Of course, if Trump did know about the payment, then he did not report the campaign expense, which is also illegal.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But if he's saying that it's his personal funds, does that make a difference?

NOBLE: Well, it makes a difference in the sense that, if it was his personal funds, it was an individual campaign contribution. If it came from another company or if it did come from the Trump Organization, it was a prohibited contribution. And we don't know what the source could have been. The source could have been another company, could have been another individual. We just don't know. And one of the purposes of the campaign finance laws to allow us to know where the campaigns are getting financed.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Let's talk a little bit about this idea of it being 11 days before the election. Why is that so important?

NOBLE: It suggests that the election was on their mind. Now, she allegedly had the affair about 10 years before. There was a potential article that was going to come out in 2011. But they did not enter the agreement until right before the election. And that is evidence that the purpose of this was for the purpose of influencing the election.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And if that is the case, why is that problematic?

NOBLE: If it's for the purpose of influencing the election, the federal campaign finance laws come into play. So that's where you have the violation of the contribution limits by whoever paid for this - and that you also have the campaign's failure to report this. Everything a campaign does for the election is supposed to be reported and is subject to limits. And that includes even things like this, even though they are things that may be salacious, that people don't want to know about. They are supposed to be reported if they're for the purpose of the campaign.

(Emphasis mine.)

Entrapment probably comes into play.

The relationship with Stormy, whatever form it took, happened 10 years previous, and didn't "become an issue" for the Trump campaign until the weeks immediately before the election. Once Stormy started to make it an issue, the Trump legal team addressed it.

So do we need to file charges against Stormy for attempting to influence the outcome of an election because she sat on information for 10 years before making noises about going public with it?

EDIT: To be fair and unbiased on this. You cannot Accuse the Trump team of "trying to influence the election" on this issue because "Trump knew about if for 10 years" without likewaise making the same accusation relevant to Stormy as well, as she likewise "knew about it for 10 years and did nothing."

[D.W.]

On the other other hand...
Letting some scummy celebrity entrepreneur hide an affair/relationship/encounter from his wife is one thing.  Seeing that man become POTUS?  Something else entirely.  Granted the possibility of increased financial gains seems more likely than any form of civic duty; but who knows?

[Fenring]

This whole line of inquiry is stupid. So if he weren't campaigning, does Trump do anything differently?

Just like Clinton, however, he's stuck his foot in it up to his hips with his repeated denials followed by the eventual Truth. Makes you look guilty as hell. Had he simply come out and said, "Yes Stormy was paid off by my attorney/handler, whom I reimbursed in full, to squash negative PR - just like I've done on a regular basis for years." Then there's not much to talk about. But no, first it was "I never heard of this woman. I had no idea that she was paid hush money. She's in violation of the agreement that I deny having ever seen."

What would be the logic of Trump coming out and saying "Why yes! I just paid hush money to a porn star so that she wouldn't boast about OUR TORRID LOVE AFFAIR!!!" Admitting it would basically mean they wasted the money. If it's not illegal to lie about it then it sort of jives with wanting it under the carpet that he should deny it happened. Denying it...is exactly why you'd pay hush money in the first place. Duh.

I thought the issue here was perhaps some illegal conduct on the part of his lawyer. But if this is just about trying to 'catch' him having spent personal hush money for his campaign then my opinion of these attempts to sink Trump is getting even lower than it was before. I mean, it does sort of resonate as good old karmic payback from the Democrats from when Bill was basically dragged through the mud for cheating on his wife. So it feels like that's all this is; Trump having a finger pointed publicly at an affair he had. "Ha ha! Cheater!" That's ok, I guess, as a random tactic in trying to make him look bad but if that's all it is then it's going to amount to nothing because I think the public's image of him was already below "affair level" before this. If he killed a guy or something that would be a new level. But payouts, affairs, and general scuminess? That's old news.

[TheDeamon]

On the other other hand...
Letting some scummy celebrity entrepreneur hide an affair/relationship/encounter from his wife is one thing.  Seeing that man become POTUS?  Something else entirely.  Granted the possibility of increased financial gains seems more likely than any form of civic duty; but who knows?

I would agree.

But you cannot have it both ways.

IF Trump's legal team "buying her silence" is "an attempt to influence the election." Then her (threat of) speaking out also is "an attempt to influence the election." Which in turn means we need to assign a dollar value to her (potentially) having spoken out about it(in time to influence said election), and it then needs to be attributed somewhere as "a political campaign contribution."

After all, your whole basis of argument is that the event in question happened 10 years previous. Right? The knife cuts both ways on this.

[D.W.]

Wouldn't that end up like one of those adds from a group "not associated with the X campaign", yet obviously an attack add targeting a candidate?  I suppose you'd still have to assign a value to it.  And if it was just a single individual, she may have exceeded allowable amounts. 

Mostly, I think the whole issue is stupid.  And agree that lying about hush money, as long as you aren't under oath, should be expected, until such a point that everyone knows it's a lie.  Maybe it's just morbid curiosity at this point from the president's detractors.  Where IS that line, where his supporters can't help but concede the president lied?

It wasn't my argument about it being 10 years ago.  I was just attempting to explain why that time frame is irreverent.  The circumstances, not the time past made the information relevant/valuable/more-damaging.

[DonaldD]

IF Trump's legal team "buying her silence" is "an attempt to influence the election." Then her (threat of) speaking out also is "an attempt to influence the election." Which in turn means we need to assign a dollar value to her (potentially) having spoken out about it(in time to influence said election), and it then needs to be attributed somewhere as "a political campaign contribution."

I think this misses the point being made, that actual money was paid by one side, whereas the other side did not spend any money.  I don't remember anyone ever suggesting that there should be a campaign dollar value associated with voicing an opinion or making a statement of fact... although I have heard that campaign dollars should be treated as if they were equivalent to voicing an opinion...

[TheDeamon]

It wasn't my argument about it being 10 years ago.  I was just attempting to explain why that time frame is irreverent.  The circumstances, not the time past made the information relevant/valuable/more-damaging.

The circumstances did arguably "make it relevant to the campaign" but as I said, if it is "relevant" to shut her up, her speaking out also would be "relevant" as well. (Hence why it could have damaged his election campaign)

That she sat on it for 10-ish years and waited until October 2016 speaks more to her seeking to either blackmail Trump into giving up a wad of cash, or to "Influence the election."

Obviously, she has since been "enlightened" that both her lawyers and herself could potentially make a lot more money by shredding the NDA(which they've essentially done), and going out to pursue further actions against Trump at this point. (And maybe get some paid Anti-Trump speaking engagements as well. After all, it seems those speaker fees seem to be able to run upwards of a quarter Mil per speech if you "hit the big time." Which I understand is about how much she settled for initially.)

[Wayward Son]

Wayward, that presumes this is a campaign contribution, which this revelation most certainly undermines as a legitimate conclusion.  Basic rule of debate requires that you explain away a major flaw before you carry on as if your assumption is true.

I don't see how "this revelation most certainly undermines" it "as a legitimate conclusion" when the excerpt starts with the question, "If he's saying it's his personal funds, does that make a difference." 

If the purpose of paying off Stormy was to prevent her story from affecting the campaign, then it is a campaign contribution, regardless of whether it comes from Donald, Michael, or my great aunt Matilda.  And all contributions are legally required to be reported.

The relationship with Stormy, whatever form it took, happened 10 years previous, and didn't "become an issue" for the Trump campaign until the weeks immediately before the election. Once Stormy started to make it an issue, the Trump legal team addressed it.

The fact that his alleged relationship with Stormy didn't "become an issue" until the weeks immediately before the election is just another indication that this was a campaign contribution, not a personal expense.

So do we need to file charges against Stormy for attempting to influence the outcome of an election because she sat on information for 10 years before making noises about going public with it?

And Stormy did not "sit on the information for 10 years."  According to the timeline in Wikipedia, Stormy discussed the affair back in 2011.  So the payment was not to prevent the knowledge of the alleged affair from becoming public, but to prevent her from discussing it just before the election.

Besides, there is nothing illegal about an American citizen trying to influence an election.  It is campaign contributions that must be reported.

Since she didn't say anything, there was nothing to report.

[scifibum]

There's literally no way to establish that where you have a celebrity that has a practice of paying for NDAs that predates his campaign.  In fact, it's almost certain that the opposite conclusion would be held.

In theory there certainly is a way to establish this, such as if the people involved made statements that the purpose of the payoff was to influence the outcome of the election.  Giuliani has now suggested this was the case.  Who knows what else lurks on Cohen's seized devices? If coupled with an admission that they want to keep this off the campaign books, you even get a crime-fraud exception.

I get it, you guys are looking for a crime for Trump to be guilty of, no matter how implausible, but this isn't likely to be it.

Indeed, we're watching closely, and Trump's constant telegraphing that he's worried about what the investigations will find helps hold our attention.

Note that I didn't make a claim about how likely it was that Trump would be guilty of a crime here. I was responding to your claim that if Trump used his own funds then the possibility of violations was pretty much eliminated. However the funds were accounted for, if the intent to influence the election can be established it's still arguably in violation of campaign finance laws since it wasn't reported. I'll grant that Trump's (no doubt extensive) history of paying off people with dirt on him will help his argument on THIS particular hush operation.

Loan from Michael Cohen to the campaign required filings (he was paid back in installments over time).

Legal services and expenses are routinely billed after the expense is incurred, this is not a "loan."   By this interpretation every campaign in history has violated the campaign finance laws by failing to report the services they received and later paid for as "campaign contributions."

You're off track. If it was a campaign expenditure then it had to be reported, whether it was a "loan" or a "service" or an "expense". The question is whether it was a campaign expenditure, which depends on facts that we don't know (but investigators might know). Certainly Giuliani has suggested that it was by asking us to imagine if [Clifford's story] had come out during the final debate, in order to understand Cohen's motivations at the time.

[Wayward Son]

The Washington Post spells it out.

We still have the same question: What was the purpose of this,” Noble said when we spoke by phone Wednesday evening. We’ve noted in the past that the question of whether the payment was meant to aid Trump’s candidacy is central to campaign finance considerations — and that it’s hard to argue that this payment wasn’t related to the campaign.

“If the purpose of this was to stop [Daniels] from hurting the campaign,” Noble continued, “then what you have is Cohen made a loan to the campaign. And it was an excessive loan because lending the campaign money is a contribution. It was an excessive contribution until it’s repaid...”

Trump, Noble said, could make contributions of any size to his own campaign. (Giuliani alluded to this, too.) But the campaign can’t just take loans of any size from anyone without reporting them as long as Trump pays them back later. If that were legal, there would be no point in having campaign finance laws: Candidates could accept giant loans, not report them, and pay them back after the election. (The Wall Street Journal reports that the repayment occurred after the campaign.) By not reporting a loan from Cohen meant to aid Trump’s election, the campaign would have violated the law. Had Cohen not been repaid, the violation was his own, as an agent of the campaign making a contribution to it of that size...

What’s more, even if the loan didn’t have anything to do with the campaign — again, a questionable premise — Trump may have had to report the loan on his ethics forms as a federal officeholder.

In an interview with The Post’s Robert Costa, Giuliani went further.

“The repayments took place over a period of time, probably in 2017, probably all paid back by the end of 2017,” Giuliani said. “That and probably a few other situations that might have been considered campaign expenses.” Here he’s trying to say that the Daniels payment was different from campaign expenses — but he also admits that Cohen lent the campaign money in the form of expenses that Trump later repaid. Cohen isn’t listed in the campaign’s contribution or expenditure disclosures...

“Giuliani suggesting it was funneled through the firm as legal fees,” Noble said, “is evidence of an intent to hide the source, which could make it knowing and willful, which is criminal.” There could also be tax violations, he added...

If Cohen lent Trump $130,000 by making the payment to Daniels so that her story wouldn’t come out before the election, that loan would have had to have been reported.

And it would have been reported before Election Day.

[DonaldD]

Certainly Giuliani has suggested that it was by asking us to imagine if...

Did Giuliani actually suggest that?? Ummm... wow.

[scifibum]

When asked why Cohen paid Daniels the money, Giuliani said Cohen made the allegations against Trump go away, saying "he did his job."

“Imagine if that came out on Oct. 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton?" Giuliani asked.

"Cohen made it go away," he added. "He did his job."

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/386035-giuliani-imagine-if-that-came-out-in-the-middle-of-the-last

[TheDrake]

No matter how you slice it, the "declaration of contributions" is so ticky-tack considering that the campaign spent over 600 Million dollars. It's rounding error.

I guess he should have established a GrabEm Super PAC and just laundered the money trail. He should know how to do that, he can just ask his Russian banker friends.

[Fenring]

Note that I didn't make a claim about how likely it was that Trump would be guilty of a crime here. I was responding to your claim that if Trump used his own funds then the possibility of violations was pretty much eliminated. However the funds were accounted for, if the intent to influence the election can be established it's still arguably in violation of campaign finance laws since it wasn't reported.

But...this is such small potatoes. Even if you knew with 100% certainty that this was the case and he had failed to log it as a contribution (of his own), do you personally feel like that's something that should be pursued with a vengeance? To me it sounds like the political equivalent of jaywalking. We're talking about an era where it's been suggested that Hillary literally took all of the DNC's finances and diverted them to her campaign, and where it's being argued that Trump was illegally colluding with Russia, and here we are trying to catch him on having undeclared money spent on hushing up an affair? In Europe they would laugh at people who care about this kind of thing. The difference in scope between what happens in politics in general and this is so staggering that it almost feels like a drunken fantasy that Trump would somehow be buried by a triviality like this. I'm not saying it's good or that he's innocent of wrongdoing in any sense, but as an attempt to basically oust the President this is a really weak approach.

[Crunch]

This is interesting. Stormy Daniels has told the world tgat she’s not the one paying for her lawyer. Someone else is covering her legal costs. Who?

So exactly who is paying Michael Avenatti? And is he a lawyer, an opposition researcher, a journalist, or a campaign operative?
He wants to make the discussion all about where Michael Cohen, President Trump's personal attorney, got his money but, to have clean hands, Avenatti needs to come forward with exactly who is financing his operation, who his sources were for detailed banking information, and whether he really is an attorney solely representing Stormy Daniels or just using her as cover to wage a political operation.

From the beginning, this has been fishy. Daniels's previous lawyer advised her to stick to her agreements. In contrast, Avenatti okayed her violating with impunity her non-disclosure agreement on "60 Minutes" despite a binding arbitration judgment against her. She acknowledged on Twitter that she is not paying for her lawyer. So who is? And did he indemnify her against all multimillion-dollar penalties?

It took a long time and even a court battle to find out that the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid for the Fusion GPS dossier, a fact that was disclosed only after the damage was done, as former British spy and the dossier's compiler, Christopher Steele, had already created a vast echo chamber as though the material he was peddling had been verified in some way, which of course, it never was. Now Avenatti is being allowed to repeat this same process, mixing truths with half truths and evading accountability.

Stormy Daniels has to pay Trump the money back plus more (I think) if she breaches. Her first lawyer told her not to breach. This one says "Yeah, breach."  This only makes sense as legal advice if he was willing to personally cover her losses for breaching, or if there was some deep-pocket backer willing to do so.

But it can’t be Avenatti. He’s in hock for $5+ million in federal taxes. That guy doesn’t have the cash to cover Stormy’s looming payback.

Avenatti has averaged slightly more tgan one appearance a day on CNN the last 55 days or so, he can’t have very many clients paying him right now. Who’s funding this crapshow?

By the way, you know who else was in the habit of confusing their target Michael Cohen with other Michael Cohens, just as Avenatti has? FusionGPS.

This week, Avenatti released to the media a report detailing consulting payments to Cohen, and much of it, despite a few errors, has been verified. AT&T, Novartis, et al.

But this release of a “report” by Avenatti also raises the question of where and how did he get this detailed financial information because he didn’t find it on Google. This is the kind of information that would have been known only by the Treasury Department, his banks or by prosecutors, raising some serious questions about what kind of operation Avenatti is running.

A “report” , you mean like a dossier? 

Avenatti has been given a free, unfettered media perch on TV to spread his stuff without the networks forcing him to meet any disclosure requirements, saying that he is Daniels’s attorney when someone else entirely is paying for this operation is not true disclosure that allows the viewer to evaluate the source and potential conflicts. He is now being given deference as though he is a journalist interested in protecting unverified sources while he makes headline-grabbing pronouncements. Lawyers need to disclose the source of their evidence.

Just like the faux Russia collusion story drafted by Hillary Clinton and pushed by her minions in government and the media, this whole thing appears to be an op by deep state factions.

I'm not saying it's good or that he's innocent of wrongdoing in any sense, but as an attempt to basically oust the President this is a really weak approach.

This is not designed to oust him, merely hurt him and reduce his approval rating so that impeachment can go forward.

[velcro]

Just had to comment on this:

Well it's an odd attack vector, the guy ran on being a super alpha.  How does a porn star and playboy model suing to be able to talk about having sex with him work against that image?

They want to talk because they want to be paid for their stories.  Trump was a balding, overweight, boorish 60 year old multimillionaire claiming to be a billionaire.  Is the reason they are suing that they want to tell everyone how lucky they were to be able to sleep with him?  That seems to be what the quote is implying. And it is almost certainly wrong.  Why say it?

[TheDrake]

Sigh, Avenatti is most definitely not personally owing any $5 million in taxes. He was an investor in a company that does, a position that he liquidated. I'm not even going to bother with the rest of the rant, conspiracy theories, and speculation.

[Crunch]

Defending Avenatti?

In a complaint submitted to the California State Bar Association — and cc’d to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle — Bellevue attorney David Nold asserts Avenatti carried out an illegal “pump and dump” scheme through his Washington state-registered Tully’s ownership firm, Global Baristas US, LLC.

Nold’s complaint contends that while Avenatti ran the company, he fleeced nearly $6 million in federal and state tax withholdings — money meant to be held in trust for payment of quarterly taxes — from the paychecks of Tully’s employees.

He’s exactly who you think of when you hear the word “shyster”. He is the poster child for it. He’s got millions, both personally and professionally, in debts that only a weaselly lawyer can avoid paying.

By all means, defend that guy.

While you do that, consider how Stormy found this guy and who’s footing his bill. Doesn’t take much to realize that Avenatti will do anything for a price and 2 interviews a day on CNN.

Who is funding this deal?

[D.W.]

Crunch, what's your "most damning answer" to your own question?

If that turned out to be the case, how does it matter?  Or do you believe that this NDA was to stop a false allegation, as I assume Trump still contends?

[TheDrake]

Who funds any lawyer? Somebody super pissed off at the the other guy, the other lawyer, the other guy who is a lawyer, or the other guys friends and family. Maybe Soros himself is paying him. Would it make anything he says more or less true than if he was spending his own money, working on contingency, or working to gain notoriety that he can turn into book deals, speaking engagements, more porn star clients?

[Fenring]

Who funds any lawyer? Somebody super pissed off at the the other guy, the other lawyer, the other guy who is a lawyer, or the other guys friends and family. Maybe Soros himself is paying him. Would it make anything he says more or less true than if he was spending his own money, working on contingency, or working to gain notoriety that he can turn into book deals, speaking engagements, more porn star clients?

Actually I do think it matters quite a lot who's doing the funding. Something Robert Anton Wilson once said which stuck with me is that the way politics is designed now each party/candidate is guilty of so many actually bad things - that were required of them to get where they got - that the other side can always truthfully point at their guilt and create the partisan wedge. You end up with a scenario where the fact that the accusations are true actually isn't so relevant; of course they're true, there's lots of blame to go around for bad actions. What's more important in the grand scheme is what's the motive of those creating the wedge.

And I think that down here on the ground I'd have a similar mindset. If some guy on the street was being accused of being immoral in some way, the first question I'd probably have isn't "oh yeah? What did he do?" but rather "what's it to you? Why are you trying to have him tarred and feathered?" Now, if the answer is "he just robbed my store!" then we have a real case of a wrong being committed and someone asking for help to right it. But if it's some third party trying to make themselves look good by pointing fingers at 'bad guys' I'm not going to be so interested in entertaining that. The motive matters a lot to me.

It's hard for me to say exactly what I think about the President behaving poorly, and so I don't have a firm stance on whether I'd like to hear about his potential wrongdoings or not. But offhand I do agree with Crunch that I would be leery about a public spectacle being put on by interested parties like Soros. I absolutely have no desire to feed into their schemes.

[Greg Davidson]

omething Robert Anton Wilson once said which stuck with me is that the way politics is designed now each party/candidate is guilty of so many actually bad things - that were required of them to get where they got - that the other side can always truthfully point at their guilt and create the partisan wedge.

What bad thing was President Obama guilty of before his election? And to calibrate your standard of justice, I'd also like to know that if you apply the same standard to yourself, you come out having been "guilty" of fewer "bad things" than Obama.   

[Fenring]

omething Robert Anton Wilson once said which stuck with me is that the way politics is designed now each party/candidate is guilty of so many actually bad things - that were required of them to get where they got - that the other side can always truthfully point at their guilt and create the partisan wedge.

What bad thing was President Obama guilty of before his election? And to calibrate your standard of justice, I'd also like to know that if you apply the same standard to yourself, you come out having been "guilty" of fewer "bad things" than Obama.

I agree that the general principle as he stated it is more about the party lines than about individuals. So while it could be argued (although I know you disagree to an extent) that both parties have done bad things, have faults, and answer to questionable interest groups, it wouldn't follow from that to make the fallacy of division and assume that literally every individual in each group possesses the precise properties of the group in general. For instance if we take the generality that the GOP caters to the NRA, it doesn't automatically follow that if you name a particular senator that they cater to the NRA. So if you take Obama as an example of someone who doesn't seem objectionable in the way I suggest (and you may be right) it's sort of tangential to the issue that the right can still point at the left when convenient to do so and correctly accuse them of various bad things. Cherry picking is certainly part of the game here. So if Obama is clean as a whistle that's ok, because under his auspices the right had Hillary to pillory. If Bernie Sanders was above reproach, that's ok because the DNC cheated in their primaries. You get the idea. You don't need every person to be guilty, just enough of them and at the right time that you have constant ammo to feed to 'your side' to get them riled up, and "the truth" is always technically on your side even though your motives are anything but pure. In the end my point isn't that every politician is GUILTY (thankfully I don't think this is the case) but rather that the system currently verges towards increased partisan divide and that this is in the interest of both parties to maintain. Or at least they think so for now. So when we hear a "true story" about a person who did a bad thing and the witch-hunt ensues, I'm not one of those gratified that the witch got burned and all is now right in the world. If the people advocating for the burning (to use a historical-type example) are those who would inherit the witch's farm, I will be deeply suspicious of the motives of the accusation, to the point where even if I see a bubbling cauldron and a familiar I'll take a second look just in case it's not a cat making soup.

[Crunch]

Crunch, what's your "most damning answer" to your own question?

If that turned out to be the case, how does it matter?  Or do you believe that this NDA was to stop a false allegation, as I assume Trump still contends?

I don’t know about most damning but most likely is the DNC and Hillary Clinton (although as we’ve learned there’s no material difference between those two). It’s well documented that Hillary intended to delegitimize the election and overturn the results by fueling impeachment efforts. The goal with Stormy is to reduce Trump’s approval rating sufficiently to provide cover for those that would vote to impeach.

Most damning, it’s the Russians. In a time when the media and the left(again, no material difference) hysterically sees Russians around every corner, it could be Russians.

Maybe Soros.

Someone is paying Avenatti, someone with an interest that aligns with deep state never-trumpers. Given the impacts, I think we have a right to know who’s footing the bill to destabilize the US government. Stormy says it’s not her, she’s not paying.

[TheDrake]

Avenattis response to questions of funding:

“Once again (for at least the 20th time)–ALL fees and expenses of this case have either been funded by our client, Ms. Stephanie Clifford, or by donations from our crowdjustice.com page,” Avenatti wrote in a statement he linked to a tweet through Dropbox.

I don't have a hard time believing that there are enough small donors who hate Trump out there to contribute $500,000.

Crowdfund site

article

[Crunch]

I don’t have a hard time believing it’s anonymous and/or “fake”  donors from anywhere in the world.

Is it so hard a stretch under these circumstances to think Avenatti is doing his usual deceptions and the money is coming through fronts from the DNC, Clinton, russian bots or whatever?

It’s actually easier to believe the funds come this way, it makes more sense than 10’s of thousands of Americans rushing to the defense of a stripper/pornstar who was consensually spanked by Trump a decade ago.

[D.W.]

He road the wave of tabloid celebrity gawking into office.  Why is it implausible he could ride a similar wave back out? 

[TheDrake]

There are more than just 7 shadowy NeverTrumpers. There's a whole movement of people who would spend 10 bucks to feel like they are jabbing a thumb in Trump's eye. You can start with everyone who voted for Hillary. I don't know why those guys would put up the money if they can fire up their base by getting them to put some kind of skin in the game.

I'm not sure why you find it unlikely that some of the millions of people who have signed online petitions to impeach Trump wouldn't kick in a few bucks, or more likely that the bulk of donations are not legitimate. There always exists the possibility that the people you suspect could be funding the effort, but I doubt they would use a crowd fund to disguise their efforts when they have perfectly functional other ways to do so.

Unless you think that the vast majority of Americans love Trump, and evidence to the contrary is all manufactured polls, professional paid protesters, and media spin.

[Wayward Son]

Come on, Crunch.  Don't tell me you wouldn't have ponied up $10 to help get Obama impeached?

[Seriati]

So to be clear you are advocating that he is being funded as a political matter to oppose Trump?  Would that make contributions to him reportable under our election laws and require him to register as some kind of PAC?

Crowd funding a lawyer to publically oppose Trump, or to pursue a claim on behalf of a client for the purposes of political damage would be even more directly related to politics that what you guys claimed was an election law violation by Trump to have settled the claim without reporting it.  Wouldn't it?  Or is this another place where laws don't apply to the "good guys"?

[TheDrake]

Since you put a generic "you guys" out there, I'll just distance myself if anyone missed my stance that going after this as a campaign financial reporting issue is ridiculous.

It is an interesting question as to what falls under political disclosure rules. According to WaPo:

While federal election law limits the amount of money individuals can donate to campaigns, political action committees and national political party committees, no such rules apply for donations for legal cases, like the Daniels case. In theory, someone could donate as much money as they wanted as many times and they want, which can’t be done with political donations.

[scifibum]

I am sympathetic to the opinion that it would be ridiculous to try to take Trump down over this particular peccadillo. I don't think it CAN happen. He isn't going to have his party turn on him over this (after all, it's just additional color on things that were already known about his character).

But if it COULD be done, I'd be fine with it. It's not like we can't field presidents who HAVEN'T done this kind of thing.

Avenatti's PR for his case as a political campaign is an interesting angle, but I'm gonna guess he's not billing his client for the TV appearances anyway.

[Pete at Home]

Second, there are huge swaths of liberals or the left who cannot grok how conservative christian values can tolerate this stuff.  Hypocrisy IS the story.  YOU claim X yet you voted for Y, how is this not insane? 

I voted against him, but technically there is some sanity for the self-elected protectors of female virtue to wish him president.  Because as president he's no longer able to run beauty pageants where he controls the lives of stables full of vulnerable young women.


To my atheist friends who oppose Trump on sexual/moral grounds, I ask: "You claim to believe in the separation of church and state; why do you then rail at the right for failing to enforce their religious views in their voting?" Because that too smells like hypocrisy.

Trump seems to be able to keep things in his pants during his presidency, which is more than could be said about ... JFK, WJC, Johnson ... That's not a reason to vote for him, but it is a reason for his detractors to stop being sanctimonious hypocrites and look for more substantive reasons to attack him over.  Oh yeah, and that whole strategy of calling one's enemies stupid inbred hillbilly hypocritical flyover white flour losers ... how did that work out for us in 2016?  Please god let someone atop the 2020 DNC team  come up with a better plan than doubling down in their failed 2016 strategy.

[D.W.]

Welcome back Pete.  Also, I'll have to give more thought on putting someone in office to keep others safe from them...  One of the more amusing ideas I've heard.  You may be onto something there.

[TheDrake]

Maybe we should have another election for anti-leaders and if they get enough votes they have to go live on an island somewhere in quarantine for a term. Best reality show, ever. Haspel can emcee.

[Crunch]

Stormy’s defamation lawsuit against Trump was dismissed today. So egregious was the suit that Daniel’s was also ordered to pay Trump’s legal fees. 

I am literally laughing.   

[Crunch]

Closing the loop on this ...

Celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti was arrested Monday on charges of trying to extort up to $25 million from Nike by threatening to reveal claims of misconduct by company employees.

Avenatti also is charged in a separate federal case in Los Angeles with embezzling a client’s money “in order to pay his own expenses and debts” and those of his law firm and coffee company, and of “defrauding a bank in Mississippi,” prosecutors said.

What a piece of work.

At this point, the only thing missing for Trump is if Obama comes out and admits he *really was* born in Kenya.  LMAO . What year it's been already.

[rightleft22]

that said Stormy’s lawyer a dick doesn't change the payout she got for have sex with Trump
I'm pretty sure that's not disputed.

No that that matters in anyway. Trump isn't supported for his Moral character 

[TheDrake]

Beat me to it. Yeah, Avenatti has dug himself a hole in the world. He's clearly been doing shady stuff all along, which makes it a bad move to shove yourself into the limelight.

He messed with the bigger boys when he decided to take on Nike. Likely he's shaken down lots of smaller firms that paid him "go away" money.

The fact that he's on Trump's lengthy enemies list will no doubt make his supporters rub their hands together and giggle.

[Pete at Home]

Trump may have spiked a poem star and had her sign an NDA. So what?

She's not a victim.
She's not someone who he had some responsibility to protect her innocence. (Like a 21 year old intern)
He didn't perjure himself to cover it up.
It's not public business.
It didn't happen while president.
Calling the right hypocrites over this just suffocates possible discussion.
The right didn't make a fuss about the pinup girl that Clinton poked before he was Pres.

[Wayward Son]

And, remarkably, with this long list of reasons, you missed the single reason Trump is in trouble because of this "indiscretion."

[TheDeamon]

And, remarkably, with this long list of reasons, you missed the single reason Trump is in trouble because of this "indiscretion."

We've covered this previously I do believe, there is letter of the law, and there is spirit of the law. He may have(and probably did) violated the letter, but given the spirit in which that particular law was written, I don't think he actually did anything contrary to it.

The spirit of that law revolved around the purchasing and trading of political favors by third parties to influence a candidate.

I don't think anybody has managed to make a credible claim that Cohen was trying "to buy Trump"(trade political favors) by paying off Stormy Daniels.

[Pete at Home]

that said Stormy’s lawyer a dick doesn't change the payout she got for have sex with Trump
I'm pretty sure that's not disputed.

No that that matters in anyway. Trump isn't supported for his Moral character

Exactly. Much rather have someone who pays his own cash to cover up affairs than someone who starts genocidal wars to cover up affairs.