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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2018 16:46:01 GMT -5
This is a very, very, very, very, very, very bad day for Donald Trump. And damn it, I have no time to stop and discuss it tonight. But I figured I might as well start a thread.
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Post by Optimus on Aug 22, 2018 1:36:31 GMT -5
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Post by prozyan on Aug 22, 2018 3:14:19 GMT -5
Manafort's conviction is pretty meh concerning Trump since everything he was charged with and convicted of occurred before his association with Trump.
Cohen on the other hand ..... no bueno.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 22, 2018 7:33:36 GMT -5
So here's my prediction, which I'd put money on if there were a convenient way to do so:
This doesn't affect Trump at all.
He gets some bad press, people yell some more, and he goes on as usual. No charges will be filed against the POTUS, there will be no impeachment, and it will not change his poll ratings much.
So while this should be a big deal, I think the net outcome will be, as rob would say, a "nothingburger."
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2018 7:45:50 GMT -5
I have zero time today, unfortunately. I will just say this: Manafort is not a nothingburger, and Cohen is a disaster for Trump. (Note that Cohen could have gotten 65 years in prison; in return for his plea, he is looking at something like 3 or 4. Why do you think he got that deal?)
I predict it is just the beginning. This card house is coming down.
This is a very big deal. It will not go away.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2018 8:07:56 GMT -5
Will add this -- this isn't a matter of "will Trump's diehard supporters turn their back on him." of course they won't, not until things utterly crash. If someone is still with Trump, they are with him until the ship is nose down and the lifeboats are long gone.
This isn't about polling. It's about Trump's crimes coming home to roost.
Trump is deeply tangled in the webs that brought both Cohen and Manafort down. There are reasons he would not share his tax returns, big reasons. There are reasons Trump is doing his damndest to discredit law enforcement. He. Is. A. Crook.
And in case you forgot, it ain't over. Manafort is facing a second criminal trial. Cohen is cooperating with law enforcement in return for his deal. More trials are coming. This is just the beginning.
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Post by robeiae on Aug 22, 2018 9:25:37 GMT -5
Manafort's conviction is pretty meh concerning Trump since everything he was charged with and convicted of occurred before his association with Trump. Cohen on the other hand ..... no bueno. Right. But I think the Manafort convictions have a lot of other people scrambling right now. I'll wager that the IRS is going to have an influx of revised returns, with people paying taxes on overseas income that they had failed to report.
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Post by markesq on Aug 22, 2018 9:35:43 GMT -5
And as a matter of criminal law, please make no mistake: Cohen said Trump directed him to make payments that violated campaign finance laws. Cohen pled guilty to that crime. That makes the Mango-in-Chief guilty of conspiracy. The man who said he'd take a bullet for the Orange Overload has placed him at a crime scene, as good as hung a set of prison numbers around DJT's neck.
If this becomes a nothingburger, then I'm moving back to England. No, wait, that place is fucked up. Switzerland maybe.
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Post by celawson on Aug 22, 2018 10:20:48 GMT -5
Maybe we should have a thread on England, or at least London. I can't believe the stuff I'm sporadically reading in the news - knife attacks way up, acid attacks by the day, anti-Semitism way up, the Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans stories, car attacks in plain sight of armed police, the list goes on. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/14/car-crashes-barrier-outside-parliament-armed-police-surround/I honestly would not have let my daughter study abroad there. (She chose Italy, thank God, where I mostly have to worry about earthquakes and roads collapsing.) But what the heck is going on over there? Mostly rhetorical, didn't mean to derail.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2018 12:44:08 GMT -5
Damn it, I picked a shitty time to be busy. I can't resist peeking into Twitter for quick news bites, and when I find interesting ones, can't resist sharing:
(Of course, LOTS of people, including conservatives, are saying more strongly and directly that Trump is implicated and needs to be held accountable. But this coming from a measured Republican like Mitt seemed big to me.)
I am telling you, the whole Trumpy house of cards is collapsing on several fronts.
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Post by robeiae on Aug 22, 2018 13:28:03 GMT -5
And as a matter of criminal law, please make no mistake: Cohen said Trump directed him to make payments that violated campaign finance laws. Cohen pled guilty to that crime. That makes the Mango-in-Chief guilty of conspiracy. The man who said he'd take a bullet for the Orange Overload has placed him at a crime scene, as good as hung a set of prison numbers around DJT's neck. If this becomes a nothingburger, then I'm moving back to England. No, wait, that place is fucked up. Switzerland maybe. My problem with the Cohen stuff is that I'm not 100% clear how Cohen actually violated campaign finance laws. Because whether people like it or not, the angle of silencing these women to protect Trump the person is as strong as the one to protect Trump the candidate, provided Trump can show that Cohen was repaid with Trump's personal funds, not campaign funds. I have to think Mueller and company have a lot more on Cohen and they let him plead to this stuff as a part of an as-yet-unrevealed deal, in order to force Trump's hand (which may indeed prove to be Trump's undoing).
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2018 14:39:32 GMT -5
Actually, no -- for two reasons.
First, because Cohen, in his plea, specifically stated that the purpose was to protect Trump the candidate.
Second, even if you discount Cohen's word, it is supported by the timing. Trump apparently felt no need to silence these women for these ancient affairs until just before the election. Until then, he was apparently willing to take the risk his family and the world at large found out about them. That's damning. (And very unlike John Edwards -- there, it was a current affair and his wife was currently suffering from cancer. Those factors put together were what created the doubt about his primary motives in making payments.)
As a lawyer I tell you -- this is damning. Whether the house and senate will do anything, I dunno. But there will be a piper to pay when Trump gets out of office. Unless, of course, President Pence pardons him.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2018 16:49:34 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2018 19:22:03 GMT -5
I am telling you, this is just the beginning.
You know how in the movie Titanic things went on and on and on and on even after the ship hit the iceberg and you just couldn't believe all the stupid and Rose was actually kind of a shitty self-absorbed little twit wasn't she and everyone still kept on partying in tuxedos and no one but Rose and Jack and the Captain seemed to be taking that whole we-hit-an-iceberg thing seriously but then the fifth compartment was breached and water poured into the engine rooms and filled up the corridors and smokestacks started falling and people started panicking and fighting for spots on the lifeboats and the ship broke in half and half sunk and then the half left on the surface turned on its end and then started to plunge straight down?
Yeah, that's where we are right now.
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Post by robeiae on Aug 22, 2018 19:33:04 GMT -5
Actually, no -- for two reasons. First, because Cohen, in his plea, specifically stated that the purpose was to protect Trump the candidate. Second, even if you discount Cohen's word, it is supported by the timing. Trump apparently felt no need to silence these women for these ancient affairs until just before the election. Until then, he was apparently willing to take the risk his family and the world at large found out about them. That's damning. (And very unlike John Edwards -- there, it was a current affair and his wife was currently suffering from cancer. Those factors put together were what created the doubt about his primary motives in making payments.) As a lawyer I tell you -- this is damning. Whether the house and senate will do anything, I dunno. But there will be a piper to pay when Trump gets out of office. Unless, of course, President Pence pardons him. Isn't a co-conspirator's word insufficient evidence to find someone else guilty of that conspiracy? As to timing, it could be that such was the product of the women in question, no? As to the comparison with Edwards, I think that's bs. If it's a campain finance violation now, it was one then as well. If someone said "well, Edwards and company should have been found guilty, as should Cohen and Trump," I think that would be consistent and at least arguable (again, I admit to a lack of certainty here).
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