Tag: Guiliani

Did Trump say flipping should be illegal?

CNBC is reporting that Trump wants to make “flipping” illegal.  Flipping is the term generally used to describe when someone is in hot water and flips on their associates in crime to work out a deal with Justice.  So did Trump really say he wants to make flipping illegal?  Or is this fake news?

As usual, there is nuance in what Trump is saying.  You can see a portion of the interview here.  Trump spoke about flipping in the context of Cohen “making stuff up”.  In fact, he reiterates several times that he’s talking about when someone gets themselves in deep trouble and makes stuff up to get a lower prison sentence.  Trump says this kind of flipping should be “almost illegal”.

Trump mentioned the curious case of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s IT guy Imran Awan, who was arrested under suspicion that he had possibly been involved in the DNC server hack and may have stolen from the DNC.  Awan struck a deal in July and was convicted for lying on a loan application.  The charges against his wife were dropped.  The case has led to plenty of conspiracy theories and there has been zero media interest as to what Awan might have given up in his plea deal.

In the interview, Trump also pointed out that Cohen’s accusations about Trump campaign violations are wrong.  Trump said that the payments to reimburse Cohen came out of his retainer paid from his businesses to Cohen.  As the John Edwards case showed, that is not a crime.  In fact, in Edwards case it was campaign donors who paid off his mistress, not his personal attorney in the process of creating an NDA.  That would make what Trump did even more innocent than what Edwards did.

Trump did in fact tweet about the payments back in May.  So Cohen’s revelation is hardly news to anyone who is interested.  Trump tweeted that he reimbursed Cohen through his legal retainer and not from campaign funds.  At the time Trump also claimed that there was no affair, that Daniels was attempting to extort him, and that they would pursue action against her based on the arbitration provisions in the NDA.  Perhaps this is why Cohen still has no cooperation agreement despite his claims of dirt on Trump.

I wonder if the question will ever come up if Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, is making these claims to affect the outcome of an election?  Davis is a Clinton ally and has been speaking on Cohen’s behalf.  He is a liberal Democrat who hates Trump and wants Republicans to lose in November.  There doesn’t appear to be any evidence at this point to support some of his outlandish claims.  But those claims being repeated over and over in the media will certainly affect the election in November.  Maybe some forms of “flipping” should be “almost illegal”.

Impeachment? The answer is still no

Michael Cohen is on his way to jail for a very long time.  But as his ship sinks, he and his attorney are grasping for straws to reduce that sentence.  Cohen has agreed to sing if it means a reduced sentence.  But Mueller already passed on a Cohen plea bargain.

But what if everything Cohen is saying is true?  Is Trump in trouble?  According to precedent, the answer is no.  Let’s start with John Edwards.  Friends and megadonors paid nearly $1 million to Edwards’ mistress to cover up his affair right before an election.  The DOJ brought the charge that those were reportable campaign contributions because they were made to benefit Edwards’ campaign and influence the election.  Edwards was acquitted.  The DOJ could not successfully make the argument that those amounts to pay off his mistress should have been reported.

President Obama found himself in hot water after failing to report $1.8 million in campaign donations made through normal channels and for keeping donations that were in excess of allowed limits.  His campaign paid a $350,000 fine, the largest in history, and moved on with life as though nothing happened.

Bill Clinton lied about an affair during a sexual harassment trial that suddenly fell into the scope of the White Water special counsel.  But he was under oath.  He actually committed perjury.  But nothing happened to him.

In Trump’s case, he paid Michael Cohen a retainer as an attorney to represent him and to deal with issues like paying off people he had an affair with.  Does that make Trump a Clinton grade slimeball?  Of course.  Who didn’t know that already?  But even the leftovers from Obama’s DOJ are going to have a hard time turning a $130,000 payment into something they couldn’t get with the million dollars spent on Edwards’ mistress.  Additionally, the liar and singer Michael Cohen, who stated in the past that Trump didn’t know about the payoffs, never had affairs, etc is going to have to provide hard evidence.  So far the Cohen tapes have disappointed in that area.

From our analysis, the only charge Cohen has made that could put Trump in serious trouble is that Trump knew about the DNC hack before it happened.  Even then, knowing about it is a far cry from causing it.  But that could get Trump into enough trouble that a Democrat run House could at least introduce impeachment charges.  They would never get 75 votes in the Senate.  But more importantly, we’d have to see more than the word of a man on his way to jail being advised by Bill Clinton’s personal attorney, Lanny Davis.  Cohen would need to produce a tape of Trump talking about the DNC hack along with timestamp proof that it was before the hack took place.

I’m pretty sure if that existed, we would have heard it by now.  But who knows, maybe it’ll be an October surprise.

Hogg rages against Pelosi and “older Democrats”

The media is finally catching up with Trump.  Boasting an “exclusive”, Reuters is finally reporting the real reason Trump doesn’t want to meet with Mueller.  Anyone who has been paying attention knows that Rudy Guiliani has been talking about their fears of the perjury trap for weeks.  Mostly though the media has misunderstood what Guiliani was saying and instead speculated about why Trump’s lawyers might be meeting with Mueller.  When McGahn met with Mueller for 30 hours with no attorney client immunity, the New York Times speculated that he was flipping on Trump rather than speaking on his behalf.

Trump’s concern has been that if Mueller interviews him and he happens to say something contrary to what Comey or someone else has said, Mueller will slap Trump with a perjury charge.  Of course, it would be a he said, he said situation, but Mueller would likely take Comey’s word for it.  Unlike Bill Clinton who committed perjury and was proven to have lied by the DNA on Lewinsky’s dress, Trump would be giving his word versus Comey or some other long time Mueller ally/business associate.

Media discovers Trump is avoiding perjury trap

Speaking of the unhinged media, NY Times columnist Michelle Goldberg said on MSNBC’s The Lid that she believes Trump wants to “murder people without due process”.  Goldberg was explaining why she felt Trump was no longer the leader of the free world, but instead should be classified as a murderous dictator.  When asked if she thought he would murder people without due process, Goldberg replied “he would certainly like to.”

 

David Hogg is back in the news, giving an interview to New York Magazine.  In the interview, Hogg expressed frustration with “older Democrats”, saying they should get out of the way and let him take over.  He also called Pelosi old and suggested there should be an age limit for people in Congress.  In case you were still taking him seriously, Hogg also said Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was going to be the President of the United States.

Hogg: Pelosi is too old for Congress, Ocasio-Cortez will be President

8/13/18: Omarosa and the age of disgruntled tell all book profits

Trump is once again the victim of someone looking to sell books.  Although honestly, he should have seen this one coming.  Omarosa Newman, the former bad guy from the Apprentice turned Trump advocate is promoting her tell all book about her brief time with the Trump administration.  Of course, this means she needs to sell books.  Among her claims are unverified attacks on Trump and his associates, including the claim that she has heard a recording of Trump using the N word.  She doesn’t have the recording, but I’m sure we can take her word for it.

Omarosa also may be in trouble.  In preparation for her book, she had been recording private meetings which could get her in big trouble for national security violations.  Omarosa was fired for unethical behavior, but claims that chief of staff John Kelly threatened her.  The threat though sounds more like he was saying he did not intend to  make public what she did to get herself fired. That may change now, and she may find herself in legal trouble for the illegal recordings.

However, as of press time, we have a new recording from Omarosa of a phonecall with Trump, where he says he didn’t know she was getting fired and that was a shame.

Omarosa could be in trouble for secret tapes

Speaking of unseen videos, Democrat Representative Keith Ellison’s ex-girlfriend’s son is claiming to have video of Ellison abusing her during their relationship.  Like Omarosa’s claims, nothing has been put out there yet and Ellison is denying it.  Keith Ellison has also recently denied having a relationship with Louis Farrakhan, although his claims of not knowing Farrakhan were easily debunked.  Ellison is currently running for Attorney General in Minnesota.

Keith Ellison accused of domestic abuse

Speaking of he said, she said and secret recordings, Rudy Guiliani is now saying Trump never told Comey to go easy on Flynn.  Guiliani said that was Comey’s version of the events and when he discussed it previously on ABC’s This Week, he was discussing their version of events.  It appears though that none of this will matter.  Guiliani is very carefully threading a needle with a hostile prosecutor who seems to be looking for perjury or obstruction of justice.  But Comey had already testified that Trump’s actions did not constitute obstruction of justice, even if they had discussed Flynn as Comey said.  Like Omarosa, Comey released unverified memos of his supposed private conversations with Trump to bump his book sales.

Guiliani clarifies differences with Comey

Need to Know 7/31/18

Republican candidate Austin Petersen had his Twitter account suspended for 12 hours after thousands of antifa communist Democrats are triggered by a Stalin gif he posted.  No, this isn’t the Babylon Bee.  Petersen posted the gif in response to one pundit’s ridiculous assertion that Petersen had paid the Russians off to hack Claire McCaskill’s email account.  Petersen is in an uphill battle in the Republican primary to take on McCaskill for her tenuously held Senate seat in Missouri.  He has caused a splash with his AR-15 and 3D gun printer giveaways through the campaign.

Communists triggered by Stalin gif

Is North Korea building new ballistic missiles?  That’s the claim by Washington Post citing unnamed US spies who decided to share classified intelligence with the news agency on the condition of anonymity.  Of course, we’ve seen so much fake news coming from unnamed sources through WaPo and others that there really can’t be too much stock put in this.  It would absolutely benefit Democrats in November to blunt the progress Trump has made with North Korea.  And it seems like a very big risk for people in our spy agencies to tell the Washington Post something so sensitive.  So for now, we’ll stick with the official story.

WaPo publishes classified intel on North Korea, claims anonymous sources

There was no collusion, and even if there was it’s not a crime.  That’s the latest from Trump attorney Rudy Guiliani.  Guiliani made the claim Monday on Fox & Friends.  Depending on the facts and circumstances, he’s correct.  If Trump didn’t commission hackers to break into the DNC’s servers or somehow cause them to break the law, then any other sort of collusion is meaningless.  Even if Trump arranged and met with the Russian attorney in Trump Tower, which he didn’t, it still wouldn’t be a violation of the law.  In fact, compared to hiring a British spy get paid dirt from Russian operatives and then giving that phony info to the FBI to start an investigation, even the worst allegations against Trump are trivial.

Considering Trump has never been the target of a criminal investigation having to do with Russia and considering Hillary Clinton colluded more than even the most wild allegations against Trump, I think it’s time to stop beating this dead horse and move on.

Trump didn’t collude, and even if he had it wasn’t a crime