Michael Cohen's Congressional testimony

[The Big Dog]

When you say "the deep state" I wonder of that is anything like "the incredibly vast conspiracy":

yep

 

[dudalb]

Conspiracy Theory Section That Way,TBD.

 

[smartcooky]

It seems the Big Dog needs to take some remedial English reading classes. 2 involves a statement Cohen made about himself, not about Trump. 6 is a 100% semantic quibble and also involves a statement Cohen made about himself, not about Trump. 5 attempts to address a statement made about Trump, but it fails because what it calls contradictions, aren't contradictions:



Firstly, again, this regards a statement Cohen made about himself, not about Trump. Secondly, this is not a contradiction because Cohen can both understand the need to present Trump with sound legal advice and yet still carry out Trump's orders which countermand or disregard that advice. Trump's actual cabinet is forced to do this on a daily basis as a matter of course because that's what working for Trump is like. Trump's last Defense Secretary actually resigned expressly because he was tired of doing this.



Also not a contradiction, because Trump would still have the final say on what should be done after directing his underlings to formulate an action plan. Trump ordered them to "figure out how to make the payment"; but that's not the same order as "okay, now make the payment", which Trump would also have to personally make afterwards. It could very well be that Weisselberg and Cohen decided it would be best to use some unconnected funding source to make the payments, and Trump decided that source would be Cohen's personal funds.

This is quite self-evident of course to anyone who's not deliberately trolling; but here I am humoring you.

Not only is all this self-evident, it also should have been obvious to Gym Jordan and Mark "some of my best friends are black" Meadows.

There are two other points I'd like to make about their accusation that Cohen committed perjury

1. When Cohen stated that things the SDNY sentencing report said were "not accurate", that was an opinion, a characterisation of what was in that report, not a lie. He clearly disagreed with that part of what the SDNY had to say, and he is entitled to disagree with it, even if he has pled guilty to the charges.

2. When Cohen said he got the job he wanted which was personal lawyer to POTUS, how do we know that this wasn't the job he told others about. Note that of all the people who said Cohen told them he wanted a job at the White House, none of them said which job that was.

 

[WilliamSeger]

I highlighted the fallacious statement for you.

Lol, but that's not the statement you called a "classic ad hominem fallacy" and the one you now highlight isn't one, either, unless you assume there was an implicit conclusion. You need to state what you think that is, so we can see if it's a fallacy by Segnosaur or a straw-man by you. I've noted before that your difficulty in identifying fallacies seems to be faulty analysis of the arguments being presented. I've since come to realize that the fundamental problem seems to be that the whole concept of "logical argument" -- asserting facts and drawing a logical inference from them -- eludes you.

"so who cares who created that Twitter account." If no one cared, why did your hero lie about that too?

Funny you don't ask that question about Cohen and Trump both lying about Trump Tower Moscow, but I don't care about the Twitter account because you've given no reason to think it has anything to do with anything. The Moscow deal, on the other hand, may be the reason Trump kisses Putin's ass: He puts his financial self-interests above our national interests.

protip: there is not a case against trump, and if there were, the fact that this Hillary level lying rat ****** is the witness for the prosecution?

Yeah, gonna put that right down as: Four More Years of MAGA.

You're delusional. With each passing week, the odds that Trump will even be on the ballot are reduced, and if he is, I suggest that before making predictions, you need to take a look at both the 2018 election results and the polling in the states Trump would need to win. We now know how to defeat trumpism -- at the polls.

 

[Cabbage]

Let me give you a super simple example. Say Donald trump got his car fixed on saturday, but Michael Cohen said he got it fixed on friday. the deep state can and will prosecute targets of ratsistance for "lying" about thing that are totally legal in order to co-opt them into doing their sleazy business.

Nice analogy to obscure the fact that many of the lies being prosecuted were material to the Russian investigation...you know, since so many lied about Russian contacts for some reason.

Maybe next time you'll know better than to present an oversimplified analogy (but what can one realistically expect from a simpleton?)

 

[jimbob]

Stewart Rahr is a pharmaceutical billionaire, self-described "king of all fun" and was "the fake bidder" who plunked down $60,000 in 2013 for a portrait of his friend Trump, according to an article clipping provided Wednesday by former Trump attorney Michael Cohen.
"The objective was to ensure that his portrait, which was going to be auctioned last, would go for the highest price of any portrait that afternoon," Cohen said in his opening statement Wednesday to the House Oversight Committee. He also described the bidder as a straw buyer, who makes a purchase on behalf of another person.
The bidder was reimbursed by the charity Trump Foundation.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/27/politics/trump-portrait-buyer/index.html

Trump arranges massive donation to a charity, the Resistance weeps.

Trump uses his charity to reimbursecompensate someone for buying a portrait of Trump.

 

[Dr. Keith]

well, lets back up. You and our correspondents have written this:

"The lie Cohen pleaded guilty to telling was that Trump did nothing wrong."

where are you getting this???

Then we can get back to your questions.

So, half-way through explaining to me that my statement is inaccurate, now you want me to explain to you that it is not inaccurate?

I have to give you credit for recognizing that the path ahead was not going to be easy. Retreat can sometimes be honorable.

The claim stands on its own: The lie Cohen pleaded guilty to telling was that Trump did nothing wrong.

If you'd like to read up on that topic you could start here.

 

[smartcooky]

The desperate flailing away is very funny. Not a single GOP House member defended Trump. All they did was attack Cohen. And they did a pathetic job of it.

Small correction.

Mark "some of my best friends are black" Meadows defended Trump against Cohen's accusations of racism. He did so, by pulling a totally, beyond the pale, racist stunt himself - in The House in front of the whole nation.

Other than the fact the Meadows himself is a confirmed, card-carrying racist, it is beyond all reason why he could ever think a stunt like that was good idea.

However, I can understand why no-one in GOP warned him. Its a party that is mostly comprised of, and dominated by, old white grey-haired men. There simply isn't the breadth of diversity there for the chances of someone with enough courage to understand what a mistake it would be.

 

[The Big Dog]

"Attempts to address but fails" is not the same as "addresses".

Have you ever made a single good-faith response to anyone in your entire time of membership on this forum?

Yeah, I saw that 'attempts to address... but fails' weasel words, I didn't think y'all were serious because you moved the goalposts right out of the damn stadium.

the claim: "none of the semantic quibbles in this letter calls into question any statements Cohen made about Donald Trump."

the rebuttal: "Points 2, 5 and 6 directly relates to Cohen's lies about the President."

 

[cantonear1968]

yep

Oh my!

Well, since you now believe this Incredibly Vast Conspiracy put Lloyde England on the highway outside the Pentagon, as someone pointed out, this isn't the appropriate thread for further discussion.

I'd be happy to continue your defense of CIT in the appropriate thread.

(TBD went full CIT! )

 

[a_unique_person]

Rule of So! Fantastic. I will put aside the obvious groveling defense of admitted multiple felon Michael Cohen to note:



Michael Cohen pled guilty because Michael Cohen and his wife committed multiple tax fraud felonies that had nothing to do with Cohen's clients. Cohen rolled on his clients to keep his wife out of jail



That folks is why the rule of so exists.

So you think that Trump is completely innocent.

 

[The Big Dog]

So, half-way through explaining to me that my statement is inaccurate, now you want me to explain to you that it is not inaccurate?

I have to give you credit for recognizing that the path ahead was not going to be easy. Retreat can sometimes be honorable.

The claim stands on its own: The lie Cohen pleaded guilty to telling was that Trump did nothing wrong.

If you'd like to read up on that topic you could start here.

Looks at the article, it does not in the slightest support what you claim it says, and i have linked the actual legal documents that i assumed you as a lawyer would have been interested in, but I guess not. Sucking the WaPo teat. legaltastic.

Cool, I knew that there was no way in the world you were going to support your claim that it was in any way accurate. It is fine.

Now where were we? Oh right going through the actual legal documents, right?

 

[TragicMonkey]

So you think that Trump is completely innocent.

Not only is Trump completely innocent, he's not guilty of being innocent! He's guilty of being so innocent it's criminal! I tell you, best innocence ever, people are saying.

 

[The Big Dog]

Oh my!

Well, since you now believe this Incredibly Vast Conspiracy put Lloyde England on the highway outside the Pentagon, as someone pointed out, this isn't the appropriate thread for further discussion.

I'd be happy to continue your defense of CIT in the appropriate thread.

(TBD went full CIT! )

Uh, not sure y'all are reading the discussion correctly. protip; the reference to "the incredibly vast conspiracy" was sarcastic, now with that crumb, lets see if you can figure out where the path leads you....

 

[The Big Dog]

So you think that Trump is completely innocent.

good example

 

[WilliamSeger]

Looks at the article, it does not in the slightest support what you claim it says, and i have linked the actual legal documents that i assumed you as a lawyer would have been interested in, but I guess not. Sucking the WaPo teat. legaltastic.

Cool, I knew that there was no way in the world you were going to support your claim that it was in any way accurate. It is fine.

Now where were we? Oh right going through the actual legal documents, right?

Dog, Trump and Cohen clearly did something very "wrong": They lied about a deal they were cooking with Russia right at the time when people are asking why Russians wanted Trump for president and why Trump is kissing Putin's ass. You want to say "nothing illegal" when you have no idea whatsoever what part of the deal might have been illegal -- that's why we have investigations that Trump and Cohen attempted to impede -- and the fact that it was "legal" doesn't change the fact that at the very least, Trump was seriously compromised: The Russians knew he was lying.

 

[cantonear1968]

Uh, not sure y'all are reading the discussion correctly. protip; the reference to "the incredibly vast conspiracy" was sarcastic, now with that crumb, lets see if you can figure out where the path leads you....

Reading it fine. You just equated "deep state" to "incredibly vast conspiracy".

So is "deep state" sarcastic too?

I really don't think we're in the right thread. But you were the one who brought up "deep state" in reference to Cohen.

 

[GlennB]

[Churchillian voice]

"Never before, in the history of human debate, were so many trolled so royally by so few"

[/Churchillian voice]

Where, in this case, 'so few' = 1

 

[WilliamSeger]

Not only is Trump completely innocent, he's not guilty of being innocent! He's guilty of being so innocent it's criminal! I tell you, best innocence ever, people are saying.

He's the most innocent person you've ever met -- the most innocent president in history -- that he can tell you.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Looks at the article, it does not in the slightest support what you claim it says,

Odd. Maybe some quotes would help:

“I was aware of Individual 1’s repeated disavowals of commercial and political ties between himself and Russia, his repeated statements that investigations of such ties were politically motivated and without evidence, and that any contact with Russian nationals by Individual 1’s campaign or the Trump Organization had all terminated before the Iowa Caucus, which was on February 1 of 2016,” Cohen told the judge.

To hew closely to Trump’s public denials of such connections, Cohen said he knowingly gave false answers in 2017 to the Senate and House intelligence committees.

“I made these misstatements to be consistent with Individual 1’s political messaging and out of loyalty to Individual 1,” he told the packed courtroom in Lower Manhattan.

The lie Cohen pleaded guilty to telling was that Trump did nothing wrong.

Here is a hint: The thing Trump did wrong was lie publicly about the Trump Moscow Project.

When Trump heard Cohen lying about the Trump Moscow Project, who did he call first? Was it the FBI or a particular congressman? Was Trump the first person to tell Mueller that Cohen was lying to Congress?