Cont: Mueller Investigation pt3

[WilliamSeger]

I find it laughable, but unsurprising, the FOX News is trying to spin this as "not a crime". I find it pitiful that people are falling for it. But again, unsurprising.

What I find laughable is the cognitive dissonance: Cohen was hounded by a malicious "witch hunt" and was coerced into pleading guilty to "not a crime" to reduce his sentence.

 

[BobTheCoward]

What I find laughable is the cognitive dissonance: Cohen was hounded by a malicious "witch hunt" and was coerced into pleading guilty to "not a crime" to reduce his sentence.

I think the biggest issue with that assertion is it is non falsiable.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Trump book keeper granted immunity.

That was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The timing is interesting. Although the news came out only today, Allen Weisselberg testified before a grand jury several weeks ago and has not been called back to testify again. It is also being reported that Weisselberg provided information about Michael Cohen and the payments Cohen made to two women, presumably Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels.

That means prosecutors probably had a second source corroborating Trump's role in the payments several weeks before Cohen pleaded guilty to making those payments and said under oath that he (Cohen) had done so at Trump's direction to help the campaign.

Now that Allen Weisselberg and David Pecker have been granted immunity and Cohen has pleaded guilty, none of the three can use the 5th amendment to avoid testifying about Trump's role in those payments. That information is of interest not only to the Mueller investigation, but also to federal and state investigators in New York.

The attorney general of New York has filed a civil lawsuit accusing the Trump Foundation of making several illegal payments, including payments that would be hard to interpret as anything other than illegal contributions to Trump's election campaign. The Trump Foundation is trying to dissolve itself, but that's being delayed by the lawsuit; the next hearing is scheduled for 11 October.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Yeah, no. Cohen won’t appeal because an appeal would throw his case back to trial. And he agreed to the plea precisely to avoid trial.

If he was appealing on the count that what he did was not a crime, and the Appeal Court agreed, then why would they send it back to trial? If they determined that there was no crime then they would simply dismiss the charges.

 

[lomiller]

Trump supporters in this thread remind me of this

 

[Foolmewunz]

Here I thought the original thread was temporarily shut down for moderation and I didn't realize there was a new thread, what with ten pages of knee-jerk reaction activity.

What a trainwreck of a thread!

Boy, you guys (TBD and Ziggurat, Esq.) should get medals. Not sure if they should be lead or tinfoil, though. >30% of the posts when I checked this morning, bobbing and weaving and pulling **** out of your posteriors, all to support an opinion by Not-Professor Ziggurat that he knows U.S. law better than all the, like, lawyers and stuff involved in the case.

As "running interference" it's not even at the "distraction" level. The headlines are still a-cranking out and the idiot in charge is still the idiot in charge (and still, obviously, an idiot).

Frankly, you guys ought to be sitting in on the briefing for how to spin the firing of Mueller (which is the intent in firing Sessions, after all). Or TBD could be working up clever nicknames to call the doorman - wait'll someone ponies up the money for that story!

For the record, has everyone noted the only actual contention amidst all this faux furor? "Ziggurat doesn't think that the so-called crime that Cohen pled to is actually a crime." Thank you, Ziggurat. Everybody got that? It's the only point made, but our two heroes have invested +/- 140 posts in insisting that the oft-proven-wrong Ziggurat has got this one correct.

It's almost like we're dealing with thin-skinned narcissists.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Here I thought the original thread was temporarily shut down for moderation and I didn't realize there was a new thread, what with ten pages of knee-jerk reaction activity.

What a trainwreck of a thread!

Boy, you guys (TBD and Ziggurat, Esq.) should get medals. Not sure if they should be lead or tinfoil, though. >30% of the posts when I checked this morning, bobbing and weaving and pulling **** out of your posteriors, all to support an opinion by Not-Professor Ziggurat that he knows U.S. law better than all the, like, lawyers and stuff involved in the case.

As "running interference" it's not even at the "distraction" level. The headlines are still a-cranking out and the idiot in charge is still the idiot in charge (and still, obviously, an idiot).

Frankly, you guys ought to be sitting in on the briefing for how to spin the firing of Mueller (which is the intent in firing Sessions, after all). Or TBD could be working up clever nicknames to call the doorman - wait'll someone ponies up the money for that story!

For the record, has everyone noted the only actual contention amidst all this faux furor? "Ziggurat doesn't think that the so-called crime that Cohen pled to is actually a crime." Thank you, Ziggurat. Everybody got that? It's the only point made, but our two heroes have invested +/- 140 posts in insisting that the oft-proven-wrong Ziggurat has got this one correct.

It's almost like we're dealing with thin-skinned narcissists.

But what evidence could change your mind to zig's argument?

 

[a_unique_person]

That was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.


That means prosecutors probably had a second source corroborating Trump's role in the payments several weeks before Cohen pleaded guilty to making those payments and said under oath that he (Cohen) had done so at Trump's direction to help the campaign.

Now that Allen Weisselberg and David Pecker have been granted immunity and Cohen has pleaded guilty, none of the three can use the 5th amendment to avoid testifying about Trump's role in those payments. That information is of interest not only to the Mueller investigation, but also to federal and state investigators in New York.

The attorney general of New York has filed a civil lawsuit accusing the Trump Foundation of making several illegal payments, including payments that would be hard to interpret as anything other than illegal contributions to Trump's election campaign. The Trump Foundation is trying to dissolve itself, but that's being delayed by the lawsuit; the next hearing is scheduled for 11 October.

Kind of puts an end to the theory that Cohen plead guilty even though he was innocent. Also seems to indicate that Mueller is playing this prosecution skillfully. Minimal leaks and a continual stream of events to show he has all his ducks in a row.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

... Boy, you guys (TBD and Ziggurat, Esq.) should get medals. Not sure if they should be lead or tinfoil, though. >30% of the posts when I checked this morning, bobbing and weaving and pulling **** out of your posteriors, all to support an opinion by Not-Professor Ziggurat that he knows U.S. law better than all the, like, lawyers and stuff involved in the case.

Reminds me of the hanger-ons that just couldn't let it go that Clinton's security breaches were not prosecutable. But but but, there's a law,

People break workplace laws all the time. I know, my job entails consulting, helping employers to get into compliance before they get fined. No one gets prosecuted unless they are so negligent someone dies and even then only a few get prosecutied. It was not analogous to giving your mistress confidential information for her book or whatever it was general whatshisface did.

Now we have the opposite, it's a Republiker, so clearly that guilty plea was not really about a law broken. Good gawd, seriously people? Republican head of the FBI says Clinton's violation was not prosecutable. Judges and lawyers say Cohen committed a prosecutable crime.

There is no grey area here unless you don't know that Fox News' so called 'experts' pump out propaganda, not actual news.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

But what evidence could [facts would have to change to] change your mind to zig's argument?

ftfy.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Here I thought the original thread was temporarily shut down for moderation and I didn't realize there was a new thread, what with ten pages of knee-jerk reaction activity.

What a trainwreck of a thread!

Boy, you guys (TBD and Ziggurat, Esq.) should get medals. Not sure if they should be lead or tinfoil, though. >30% of the posts when I checked this morning, bobbing and weaving and pulling **** out of your posteriors, all to support an opinion by Not-Professor Ziggurat that he knows U.S. law better than all the, like, lawyers and stuff involved in the case.

As "running interference" it's not even at the "distraction" level. The headlines are still a-cranking out and the idiot in charge is still the idiot in charge (and still, obviously, an idiot).

Frankly, you guys ought to be sitting in on the briefing for how to spin the firing of Mueller (which is the intent in firing Sessions, after all). Or TBD could be working up clever nicknames to call the doorman - wait'll someone ponies up the money for that story!

For the record, has everyone noted the only actual contention amidst all this faux furor? "Ziggurat doesn't think that the so-called crime that Cohen pled to is actually a crime." Thank you, Ziggurat. Everybody got that? It's the only point made, but our two heroes have invested +/- 140 posts in insisting that the oft-proven-wrong Ziggurat has got this one correct. It's almost like we're dealing with thin-skinned narcissists.

No, there is more. All cases are partisan politics or other non-legal reasons, if you need to claim that. There is never a possibility, that we are all equal under the law, because there is never that kind of neutrality.
The law can never be applied universally and in a neutral sense, and that is the case with Trump. Trump can't have broken the law, because if he did, it is a case of the other side being out to get him(politics) and since it is about politics, Trump hasn't broken the law, because it is all politics.

The same applies to HRC of course, but that is not relevant, because she is a democrat.
How we apply a law to a democrat, is always about the neutral law and never about biased politics, so the democrat is guilty.
How we apply a law to a republican, is never about the neutral law and always about biased politics, so the republican is innocent.

The trick is this, everybody is biased and can't use equal under the law, except republicans, because that is how it is.

 

[smartcooky]

If he was appealing on the count that what he did was not a crime, and the Appeal Court agreed, then why would they send it back to trial? If they determined that there was no crime then they would simply dismiss the charges.

Clearly, Zig simply has no understanding of how the Law works

 

[smartcooky]

Kind of puts an end to the theory that Cohen plead guilty even though he was innocent. Also seems to indicate that Mueller is playing this prosecution skillfully. Minimal leaks and a continual stream of events to show he has all his ducks in a row.

It was never, ever a viable theory in the first place. The main proponents of that preposterous idea kept themselves ignorant of the actual plea, in which the prosecutors made it clear to the court that they had actual documentary evidence of the crimes that had been committed.

ETA: It now seems clear where that evidence most likely came from, and that the prosecutors got the documentary evidence from Alan Weisselberg some time ago.

 

[jimbob]

It was never, ever a viable theory in the first place. The main proponents of that preposterous idea kept themselves ignorant of the actual plea, in which the prosecutors made it clear to the court that they had actual documentary evidence of the crimes that had been committed.

ETA: It now seems clear where that evidence most likely came from, and that the prosecutors got the documentary evidence from Alan Weisselberg some time ago.

Hell, the poster arguing for the plausibility of the existence of mermaids is only slightly less convincing.

 

[Foolmewunz]

But what evidence could change your mind to zig's argument?

I agree with Zig's argument. He is arguing that he believes that it wasn't a crime. I believe he believes that. I've read the relevant code/rules and I don't believe it. What're we gonna do? Argue for another four hundred posts about what I believe and what Ziggurat believes?

 

[Darat]

If he was appealing on the count that what he did was not a crime, and the Appeal Court agreed, then why would they send it back to trial? If they determined that there was no crime then they would simply dismiss the charges.

Which is why the defence lawyers, the prosecution lawyers and the judge have such a strong incentive to get the legal bits 100% correct. If they've got the legal issues wrong the plea agreement isn't worth the paper it is written on.

The plea agreement states that Cohen won't appeal any sentencing and neither will the prosecution but if the charge is a false charge i.e. not a crime then that would no longer be binding.

Give him 2 years in jail and he might decide sod this I'm not serving time for a non-crime and start an appeal.

 

[jimbob]

I agree with Zig's argument. He is arguing that he believes that it wasn't a crime. I believe he believes that. I've read the relevant code/rules and I don't believe it. What're we gonna do? Argue for another four hundred posts about what I believe and what Ziggurat believes?

Why don't you see if a court could decide between the two views?

Isn't that what courts are supposed to do?

 

[jimbob]

Corpus Delecti demands that if no crime has been committed, then a defendant cannon be convicted of it, nor can he/she plead guilty to it. This is black letter law, and a cornerstone of western jurisprudence.

As you say, making an illegal campaign contribution is an actual crime. The fact that....

1. Michael Cohen (a lawyer) plead guilty to it.
2. Lanny Davis (a lawyer) allowed his client to plead guilty to it.
3. Prosecutor Robert Khuzami (a lawyer) allowed Cohen to plead guilty to it.
4. Judge Kimba Wood (a lawyer) allowed Cohen to plead guilty to it.

... is a cast iron indication that they are all satisfied a crime has, in fact been committed. Dozens of other lawyers all agree, but two Trump sycophants on this forum, you and Ziggurat, both with a combined experience in legal matters that amount to ZERO disagree and insist they are wrong.

As you are so keen on saying... Hooboy!

Corpus Delecti demands that if no crime has been committed, then a defendant cannon be convicted of it, nor can he/she plead guilty to it. This is black letter law, and a cornerstone of western jurisprudence.

It's cute that you think this principle is inviolable. Really, it's just totes adorbs.

Bwahahahahaha!

No. Judges routinely accept guilty pleas from the innocent. And there is really no chance of appeal here.

I can't think of a Western judge accepting a guilty plea to something that they didn't think was a crime.

Can you think of a western judge accepting a guilty plea from an innocent person?

That is not addressing what I said, which was addressing what you have been arguing upthread (see the exchange with Smartcooky)- not the moved goalpoasts.

OF COURSE judges, despite their best efforts, will have accepted guilty pleas from people who are actually innocent. Nobody is disputing that.

However that is quite different from a judge accepting a guilty plea to something when their reading of the law is that no crime has been committed.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Trumpistas have fought a constant retreat action on everything Donald ever since his nomination. Long gone are the times when anyone thought that he "hires only the best people" or could actually "lock her up" or even really "build the wall".

This, too, will past into history as a case where pro-Trump people considered this not a crime, but which will turn out as only the tip of the systematic criminality that is the Trump Organization.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Why don't you see if a court could decide between the two views?

Isn't that what courts are supposed to do?

Good idea. I've got dibs on Giuliani for my defense team. Anyone who can peddle "the truth is not the truth" belongs in this dispute. Maybe Zig can get Clinton - is he not disbarred in some state? We can have him take up "what the meaning of is is".

Franz Kafka as the judge?