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Cont: Mueller Investigation pt3

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Cain said:
I'm not, and this is where you're full of ****. Is it so difficult to see that you assessed Edwards' legal jeopardy differently than Trump's? At least the bias maintains throughout, and always in the same direction (which is on display in the comments about character).
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Your reading of the thread has been quite shallow. Note this post:

Ziggurat said:
Putting them on the campaign payroll is not in itself the problem. But they have to do the actual work for which they are hired, or you're just embezzling money. Which may have happened in the case of Riel Hunter.
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Edwards was accused of multiple things. One of them is circumventing campaign donation limits by having donors give money to Hunter outside the campaign. That is the legal parallel to Trump and Stormy. But that isn't what I suggested Edwards might be guilty of. I suggested he might have paid Hunter directly with campaign cash without her having done actual work for the campaign. And that IS NOT a parallel to the Trump case.
 
The Big Dog said:
Don't mention it, just like you won't mention how you concluded that it doesn't support the claim.
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Well it is pretty hard to quote something that isn't in the plea agreement, usually by the way the one making the claim supports it, the plea agreement is quite short so I'm sure it won't take you long to provide the text that does support your claim....
 
The Big Dog said:
Of course, the plea agreement
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Doesn't seem to lay out the quid pro quo you imply.

Looks like he plead guilty to lots of stuff, including his tax crimes, in order to avoid further prosecution on lots of stuff, including his tax crimes.
 
Drink the NEW Kool Aid! All natural "The payments were not a crime" flavor. It's very popular with a certain segment of the population.
 
LSSBB said:
And there you go speaking as if you have legal expertise again. Yet you do not. Or do you have citations about what a judge will and will not accept for a plea agreement in a court of law?
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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.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/why-innocent-people-plead-guilty/?insrc=whc
"How prevalent is the phenomenon of innocent people pleading guilty? The few criminologists who have thus far investigated the phenomenon estimate that the overall rate for convicted felons as a whole is between 2 percent and 8 percent."

Oh, and I think the author's credentials should satisfy.
 
jimbob said:
There is also no reasonable doubt that many of the crimes he committed were at Trump's direction.
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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.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/why-innocent-people-plead-guilty/?insrc=whc
"How prevalent is the phenomenon of innocent people pleading guilty? The few criminologists who have thus far investigated the phenomenon estimate that the overall rate for convicted felons as a whole is between 2 percent and 8 percent."

Oh, and I think the author's credentials should satisfy.
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But that is irrelevant to the discussion of this particular case.

There is a sufficient paper trail that is in the public domain, let alone whatever would have come out in a trial.
 
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.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/why-innocent-people-plead-guilty/?insrc=whc
"How prevalent is the phenomenon of innocent people pleading guilty? The few criminologists who have thus far investigated the phenomenon estimate that the overall rate for convicted felons as a whole is between 2 percent and 8 percent."

Oh, and I think the author's credentials should satisfy.
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I see, you are hanging your hat on 2 - 8 %.
 
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.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/why-innocent-people-plead-guilty/?insrc=whc
"How prevalent is the phenomenon of innocent people pleading guilty? The few criminologists who have thus far investigated the phenomenon estimate that the overall rate for convicted felons as a whole is between 2 percent and 8 percent."

Oh, and I think the author's credentials should satisfy.
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I wonder how many of those people have law degrees?

I mean it is not like he was charged with murder and plead down to felony assault. This isn't a common plea deal.

He was charged with a bunch of financial crimes and plead guilty to those crimes and his plea deal only prevents further prosecution on the crimes he plead guilty to. If he is found to have committed other crimes he can be charged with those as well.

ETA: I just noted that Zigg is now parroting an argument by BTC. I never thought I would see the day . . .
 
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jimbob said:
But that is irrelevant to the discussion of this particular case.

There is a sufficient paper trail that is in the public domain, let alone whatever would have come out in a trial.
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It's relevant to the argument put forth that Cohen's plea proves paying Stormy was an illegal campaign expenditure.
 
LSSBB said:
I see, you are hanging your hat on 2 - 8 %.
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Which is also an unfair test. A significant proportion of those would be confessions with no other evidence, as opposed to thousands of documents and emails, and (and this is only a prediction) information that furthers Muller's investigation.
 
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jimbob said:
Which is also an unfair test. A significant proportion of those would be confessions with no other evidence, as opposed to thousands of documents and emails, and (and this is only a prediction) information that furthers Muller's investigation.
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Where does it state it is confessions with no other evidence? I don't have time right now to go through the piece.
 
Dr. Keith said:
I wonder how many of those people have law degrees?
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Pretty much all of them. Remember, that was about judges accepting guilty pleas from people who were not actually guilty.

I mean it is not like he was charged with murder and plead down to felony assault. This isn't a common plea deal.
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You seem confused. Plea bargains aren't only about what crimes are charged. They are often about recommended sentencing, even if the charge remains the same.

The Stormy payment as campaign expenditure charge is minor. The penalty he gets from adding that charge can be more than offset by a reduction in penalties for other charges. For Cohen, the legal accuracy of any particular charge is irrelevant. What matters is minimizing the total punishment he gets. If pleading to something that wasn't a crime reduces his punishment, then of course he's going to do it, and his law degree doesn't pose any sort of impediment to that.
 
Ziggurat said:
Pretty much all of them. Remember, that was about judges accepting guilty pleas from people who were not actually guilty.



You seem confused. Plea bargains aren't only about what crimes are charged. They are often about recommended sentencing, even if the charge remains the same.

The Stormy payment as campaign expenditure charge is minor. The penalty he gets from adding that charge can be more than offset by a reduction in penalties for other charges. For Cohen, the legal accuracy of any particular charge is irrelevant. What matters is minimizing the total punishment he gets. If pleading to something that wasn't a crime reduces his punishment, then of course he's going to do it, and his law degree doesn't pose any sort of impediment to that.
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2-8% chance you are right. And only if there isn't existing evidence proving the government's case.
 
LSSBB said:
I see, you are hanging your hat on 2 - 8 %.
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You say that like the number is low. It isn't. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, the percentage of cases where an innocent person plead guilty have that plea accepted by the judge is quite high. In only a minority of such cases will a judge reject the plea. And in this specific case, the judge would have little reason to reject the plea, since accepting it doesn't do any injustice to Cohen.
 
LSSBB said:
2-8% chance you are right. And only if there isn't existing evidence proving the government's case.
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Actually, there is a 100% chance he is right, if there was a 100% chance that Cohen (and maybe his wife) were going down on the tax charges, and the deal was on the table only if he pleaded to the tax charges AND the other charges
 
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