Cont: Mueller Investigation pt3

Status
Not open for further replies.
Emily's Cat said:
This kind of seems like a catch-22, which bothers me some. As I understand it, it boils down to Trump paying money for something that is considered a campaign expense... which makes it a campaign violation because he used undeclared contributions for it, and they're considered undeclared contributions because it was a campaign expense, so any money spent on it is by definition campaign money?

If that's the case (and I haven't completely slaughtered this, which is completely likely), then couldn't this have just as easily gone the other way too? Given the nature of the payment being made, if he had paid out of official campaign finances, wouldn't it be just as easy to claim that he had used campaign money for personal expenditures?

I mean, the whole hush-money thing is both campaign related (to avoid negative PR) and personal (it was a personal interaction from prior to his candidacy). Which makes this seem like there's no possible way for this to be done that doesn't leave Trump open to a claim of breaking a campaign law... even though if he weren't a candidate, none of it is at all illegal in any way.

Or have I missed something material in there? I confess I find the situation confusing.
Click to expand...


Yes. First, transparency would have made the payments above board, but politically problematic.

Second, and the one a lot of people seem to be missing entirely, is that Trump in absolutely, positively no way had to make a payment at all.

No thing of value changing hands means no violation of this kind of law.
 
LSSBB said:
Those are the only statistics you cited to support your claim that innocent will plead guilty to a charge. Supply me more statistics to support your claim that no crime exists when one was admitted to.
Click to expand...

You need to learn reading comprehension better. The point of that link was not to show how often innocent people plead guilty. The point of that link was to show that judges will often accept rather than reject guilty pleas from innocent people.

For Cohen, it doesn't matter how many other innocent people plead guilty. The only thing that matters for him is whether he comes out ahead or behind by pleading guilty. I'm sure that Cohen is guilty of at least some of the charges against him, that the prosecution can prove this convincingly, and that Cohen knows that they can do so. In such circumstances, there is potentially much for him to gain by pleading guilty. He may even gain by pleading guilty to something he isn't actually guilty of. Even if he were the first person in the world to ever plead guilty to a crime he didn't commit, that would be enough. The statistics don't matter.

So once again, the only question is whether I'm right that the payment to Stormy wasn't a campaign contribution. And that isn't a statistical question.
 
LSSBB said:
Already discussed above. From what I have read and understand, he would not be guilty of campaign finance violations had he declared the expense.
Click to expand...

I get that it's been said he wouldn't be guilty of a campaign finance violation if he had declared it a campaign expense. What I'm asking is that if he had declared it, couldn't it be argued that it's NOT a campaign expense, and that he had therefore illegally used campaign finances for personal expenditures?

I guess that's where I find it sticky. It seems like paying hush money to keep an affair out of the news could be argued to be a campaign expense, but could also be argued to be a personal expense, depending on one's objective.

What would prevent a prosecutor from charging that it was in actuality an illegal use of campaign finances for personal expenditures?


LSSBB said:
The catch-22 is that he would then have to reveal the affair. But that is the fate of the wicked.
Click to expand...
Well yeah, but I don't give a crap about that. No more so than I give a crap about any other person not married to me cheating on their spouse. I mean, I pass some personal moral judgment regardless, but not enough to bother getting into a discussion about.
 
LSSBB said:
In 2-8% of the cases, per your statistics.
Click to expand...

You obviously don't understand statistics, despite your claim to the contrary. 2-8% is NOT the percentage of false guilty pleas which judges accept.
 
Ziggurat said:
You have that backwards. The argument from incredulity here is the claim that a judge wouldn't accept a false plea. But of course, they would and they do.
Click to expand...

Skepticism is a probability thing. What's interesting to me is when otherwise good skeptics flip a switch and turn off their internal scientist and turn on their internal lawyer, looking for some straws to grasp.

I can't take credit for that terminology. It's been part of skeptical discussion for ages, I've seen it attributed to Paul Tripps and Jonathan Haidt and others. The point is that there's a difference between debate to reveal the truth versus debate to just plain win.

Even given the 2-8% bayesian odds, the skeptical answer is that within the margins of scientific certainty, Cohen plead guilty to crimes he committed. Why wouldn't we go with that?

And that's assuming 'all things being equal' which they are not. The 2-08% are not comparable baseline circumstances. The odds under different conditions where the defendant actually has representation who can offer alternatives, and where the DA does not have protection of obscurity, I would suggest the odds under those circumstances are practically zero.
 
Emily's Cat said:
I get that it's been said he wouldn't be guilty of a campaign finance violation if he had declared it a campaign expense. What I'm asking is that if he had declared it, couldn't it be argued that it's NOT a campaign expense, and that he had therefore illegally used campaign finances for personal expenditures?
Click to expand...

Yes, it could.

What would prevent a prosecutor from charging that it was in actuality an illegal use of campaign finances for personal expenditures?
Click to expand...

Absolutely nothing.
 
So let me see if I understand this correctly; Cohen plead guilty to crimes he didn't commit, and will go to jail for things he didn't do.

'K :rolleyes:

Man, the pretzel-twisting from you Dolt supporters is becoming comical. Has it occurred that any of you that when a person takes a plea deal for information, that they are NOT the only source of this information?

The prosecution in this case made it very clear that they have EVIDENCE showing that Michael Cohen is not lying and is correct. They stated as much in court. All Cohen's testimony will do is give the documentary evidence context.

Also the very idea that Cohen would plead guilty to something he didn't do is just ludicrous. Read the plea deal transcript (if you have the attention span to read more than 140 characters without losing interest)

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/22/politics/michael-cohen-transcript-plea/

Its packed with juicy detail.... there is a lot more going on here than just Cohen pleading guilty and the judge saying "OK".
 
blutoski said:
Skepticism is a probability thing. What's interesting to me is when otherwise good skeptics flip a switch and turn off their internal scientist and turn on their internal lawyer, looking for some straws to grasp.

I can't take credit for that terminology. It's been part of skeptical discussion for ages, I've seen it attributed to Paul Tripps and Jonathan Haidt and others. The point is that there's a difference between debate to reveal the truth versus debate to just plain win.

Even given the 2-8% bayesian odds, the skeptical answer is that within the margins of scientific certainty, Cohen plead guilty to crimes he committed. Why wouldn't we go with that?

And that's assuming 'all things being equal' which they are not. The 2-08% are not comparable baseline circumstances. The odds under different conditions where the defendant actually has representation who can offer alternatives, and where the DA does not have protection of obscurity, I would suggest the odds under those circumstances are practically zero.
Click to expand...

What are the odds if the prosecutor has him (and his wife) 100% dead to rights on 5 charges, but will ONLY make a deal for him (and his wife) if he pleads to additional charges?

Practically a 100% doncha think? Of course.
 
Several totally legal options existed:

Pay, but transparently (kinda defeats the point of paying to keep the story quiet, though...)

Don't pay, have the story get published

Withdraw as a candidate and pay or not pay.

Yes, a lot of crimes happen because grown ass adults want to have their cake and eat it, too.
 
Arcade22 said:
Apparently Trump thinks that "flipping" or turning states witness in return for significantly more lenient sentences is something terrible and shouldn't be allowed (at least when it negatively effects him because he's been so harmed by those damn flippers).
Click to expand...

Ziggurat said:
You don't need to understand legal theory to know this. You can just look at what actually happens. And what actually happens is that people plead guilty to crimes they don't commit, and judges accept those pleas, all the time.
…...
Click to expand...
Plead guilty to what now?

Ziggurat said:
You have that backwards. The argument from incredulity here is the claim that a judge wouldn't accept a false plea. But of course, they would and they do.
Click to expand...
A false plea to what again?

Even if he were the first person in the world to ever plead guilty to a crime he didn't commit, that would be enough.
Click to expand...
Ah, yes.
 
The Big Dog said:
What are the odds if the prosecutor has him (and his wife) 100% dead to rights on 5 charges, but will ONLY make a deal for him (and his wife) if he pleads to additional charges?

Practically a 100% doncha think? Of course.
Click to expand...

No, I don't think it's 100%. That's the point.

In a high profile case like this, I expect the judge is expecting to have to explain this type of criticism. Looks like there's a good explanation at hand: the prosecution offered the judge their evidence to convict, and a trial looks like it would waste the peoples' resources.
 
smartcooky said:
So let me see if I understand this correctly; Cohen plead guilty to crimes he didn't commit, and will go to jail for things he didn't do.
Click to expand...

Mmmmm! That is some fine rule of So there!

Cohen was offered the chance to plead to 5 crimes he did do, if he plead to other crimes, and in return him (but not his wife) will go to jail for a far shorter time than if he (and his wife) was convicted after trial on the 5 crimes he did do.

It is called a "plea bargain' for a reason, you dig?
 
smartcooky said:
So let me see if I understand this correctly; Cohen plead guilty to crimes he didn't commit, and will go to jail for things he didn't do.
Click to expand...

I don't think that was what was being said... but I could be wrong. My impression was that Cohen was charged with many things, and that of those things, this one thing (campaign finance violation) is kind of borderline. And that Cohen may have good reason to plead guilty to the campaign finance violation (even if it wasn't actually a violation) if it reduced the penalty for the other crimes he was being charged with - so a game theory solution rather than an evaluation of guilt.

IF that's the case... then Cohen pleading guilty to a campaign finance violation wouldn't necessarily indicate that Trump is guilty of a campaign finance violation. It could certainly be the case, but it's not necessarily so. It could be that when considered separately from Cohen's pile of charges, a case could be made that the payment was NOT a campaign related expense, but was a personal expense, and hence there is no campaign violation.

I don't give that good odds... but that's what I've understood the discussion to be focused on. I don't think anybody has suggested that Cohen is completely innocent.
 
The Big Dog said:
What are the odds if the prosecutor has him (and his wife) 100% dead to rights on 5 charges, but will ONLY make a deal for him (and his wife) if he pleads to additional charges?

Practically a 100% doncha think? Of course.
Click to expand...

Are you inventing scenarios now? 100% covers a lot of scenarios. Including the vanishingly small number per cited statistics where you may be right.
 
The Big Dog said:
Mmmmm! That is some fine rule of So there!

Cohen was offered the chance to plead to 5 crimes he did do, if he plead to other crimes, and in return him (but not his wife) will go to jail for a far shorter time than if he (and his wife) was convicted after trial on the 5 crimes he did do.

It is called a "plea bargain' for a reason, you dig?
Click to expand...

That's circular reasoning, though. We don't know if it was a plea bargain. That's they yarn you're spinning without evidence. So yes, that's a label for the myth you're latched onto, but this isn't Rumpelstiltskin, it's not in and of itself support for the claim.
 
blutoski said:
Even given the 2-8% bayesian odds, the skeptical answer is that within the margins of scientific certainty, Cohen plead guilty to crimes he committed. Why wouldn't we go with that?
Click to expand...

Because he's not a random sample, and we have additional information.

The odds under different conditions where the defendant actually has representation who can offer alternatives, and where the DA does not have protection of obscurity, I would suggest the odds under those circumstances are practically zero.
Click to expand...

No. The DA doesn't need obscurity, his target is unpopular and the charge is at least superficially plausible. And the DA risks nothing in making a plea bargain offer which isn't public unless it gets accepted.

And the quality of Cohen's defense isn't at issue here. If they offer Cohen a plea bargain that's significantly better than he can expect from a trial, then the plea bargain is worth taking. The total punishment is what really matters to Cohen, the exact tally of charges is basically irrelevant. Adding a minor charge that he could win in court isn't worth the loss and higher sentencing on other more serious charges.
 
Delphic Oracle said:
Several totally legal options existed:

Pay, but transparently (kinda defeats the point of paying to keep the story quiet, though...)

Don't pay, have the story get published

Withdraw as a candidate and pay or not pay.

Yes, a lot of crimes happen because grown ass adults want to have their cake and eat it, too.
Click to expand...

Agreed, this wasn't a case of being trapped between a rock and a hard place by the vagaries of fortune. Trump painted himself into a corner by his own actions, he isn't a victim of circumstance.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom