Brian Peacock wrote: ↑Thu Dec 13, 2018 10:57 pm
Forty Two wrote: ↑Wed Dec 12, 2018 9:26 pm
JimC wrote: ↑Wed Dec 12, 2018 8:30 pm
What I simply cannot understand is that Americans (at least Trump supporters) can see nothing wrong with their leader paying regular hush money to prostitutes, whether or not such actions skate below a legal line.
Leadership was once about gravitas, dignity and honourable actions...
They weren't prostitutes.
Leadership was once about the appearance of gravitas, dignity and honorable actions. However, what would one say about John F. Kennedy's dalliances. And, he absolutely paid hush money to women he banged, which were legion.
I don't know, I guess I view paying a woman to keep quiet about an affair to be certainly not "good," in the Sunday School sense of the word. But, it's "meh" in the sense of what powerful people do day to day. Trump got caught. That's the only difference. It's not as if the other possible candidates for President didn't have their own dalliances.
And, this whole thing that Cohen said this was done to help the campaign. So what? Not all expenses that help or are intended to help the campaign are campaign expenditures. Under the "irrespective" test, this kind of expenditure that would exist whether or not there was a campaign, are not campaign contributions. Rich guy celebrity pays off porn star to try to hide it from his wife, family, and the public. Case close. It's that simple. Of course, the prosecutors want to spin it the other way - they're trying to get Trump, and that's the best they have. Only, the best they have is good enough to force Cohen into a plea deal because he himself had a fuck-ton of other crimes that he could not get out of, and he'd be looking at 10+ years in jail. That's the reality.
The whole idea that this is a campaign finance violation on the part of Trump is absurd. And, one of the big red flags folks should look at is that the Federal Election Commission hasn't bothered with it.
Who did you get this lot from? It beggars belief to think that paying two women to keep schtumn just before an election, one of them for the second time, is not directly related to that election.
It probably is directly related to the election. So are a lot of things that are also personal expenses that would exist irrespective of the election. People pay others to keep their mouths shut all the time, and there are many reasons to do so.
The thing is, not everything "directly related to the election" is an illegal campaign finance payment. Under the irrespective test, if the expense would exist irrespective of the election, then (even if it does benefit the election), it is still not a campaign expense.
And, since the payment is NOT ILLEGAL itself, even if you say "that was a campaign expense" then the mistake was not to report it. It's not that the expense should not legally have been undertaken, it's that the expense should have been made with campaign funds and recorded as such. Failure to do that is punished by payment of a fine. It happens all the time. It's not a big deal.
Commission regulations provide a test, called the “irrespective test,” to differentiate legitimate campaign and officeholder expenses from personal expenses. Under the “irrespective test,” personal use is any use of funds in a campaign account of a candidate (or former candidate) to fulfill a commitment, obligation or expense of any person that would exist irrespective of the candidate’s campaign or responsibilities as a federal officeholder.
More simply, if the expense would exist even in the absence of the candidacy or even if the officeholder were not in office, then the personal use ban applies.
https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and ... sonal-use/
So, you can see here - let's call it a proposed campaign expense, and Trump and the campaign sat there and said, well, this expense will benefit the campaign, so let's use campaign funds to pay for the confidentiality agreements. And, let's say they comply with the reporting requirements so that the expenditure is reported as a campaign expense. Media is scrutinizing every penny, so -- Headline on CNN: "Trump Uses Campaign Funds to Pay off Women to Keep Quiet about Sex" -- the article wold go into how Trump was basically embezzling from the campaign to pay off women with hush money, and yet those would be declared personal expenses, not campaign expenses, because the expense (rich guy celebrity businessman paying foff women to save his reputation and protect against embarrassment) was really his own personal expense, and not properly paid with campaign money.
Alternatively, they do what they did here - use his own personal money - not campaign money - to make a legal payment for a confidentiality agreement that has non-campaign reasons for being undertaken.
Which is proper?
Because, if you say how they did was improper, because it was a campaign expense - then what you are saying is that the check should have been written to stormy daniels FROM THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN DIRECTLY - and reported - and then everything would have been just fine. Perfectly legal use of campaign money - to pay off women he fucked to keep their yaps shut.
EDIT - take the scurrilous nature of the confidentiality agreement out of it. Let's say, instead, it was a non-disparagement and confidentiality deal where Trump paid $10,000 to a person in full and final settlement of a lawsuit against Trump - it was breach of contract, where Trump failed to meet his obligations on personal service contract to paint a portrait - Trump said the picture was substandard and didn't pay for the work - the painter sued him - in 2016, to keep the matter from going to trial, Trump settles the case which was a suit for $500,000. On the one hand, he says he would have settled the case anyway, because the $10,000 amount is far less than his legal fees would be, and there wold be no risk of losing, and it would avoid personal and business embarrassment over the matter -- on the other, the settlement helps the campaign because it would keep allegations that Trump dishonestly backed out of a deal to pay for his portrait to be painted - and as such it would help the campaign by avoiding the embarrassment and also it would save the time and energy that associated with appearing in court and such.
Is it a campaign expense? Not if it would be an expense "irrespective of" the existence of the campaign, right? Even though it might benefit the campaign, since it was an expense that existed irrespective of the campaign, the FEC would probably not want Trump using campaign funds to settle that litigation, right? That would be use of campaign funds for what the FEC considers a personal expense.
Don't you see that?
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar
This line of "reasoning" is retarded even by your standards, Cunt.
