What are the chances of Trump's political survival to 2020?

[_EAllusion]

Subgenius's dubious faith in Trump's purity aside, I love how defenses of Trump have devolved into, "this grossly unethical conduct from the president of the United States technically isn't a prosecutable felony."

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

You don't read anything, so I can't really help you read something you don't read. It's all right there for you to read. You just need to do it.

On a related note, it's incredibly disappointing that a fellow American would be so willfully ignorant with regard to Trump's unethical, criminal, and moral turpitude. But it is what it is.

- Doc

Yeah, i Literally read where it Literally was not a felony to Literally use personal money for Literally personal payments. ...which is Literally not a felony and Literally not a campaign finance violation.
But that's only Literally what your cited article Literally printed...so maybe Literally doesn't Literally mean what you Literally think it means.

And Literally, unethical behavior is not a felony...Literally.
Your sudden high moral ground for President is admirable...based mostly on fantasy and partisan parlor tricks, but still admirable (better late than never, amiright?)

I think you, the federal government, and the SDNY have wildly different ideas what 'personal money' entails. Let's just say that the state of NY and the federal government agree that a campaign (illegal thing #1) using campaign funds to reimburse Cohen for his payoffs to (illegal thing #2) keep two women silent to influence an election isn't lawful and it isn't Trump using his personal money. You have two major problems that you don't seem to grasp, on any level.

You're waaaaaaay out of your depth here. Metaphorically.

- Doc

[_Chap]

t Literally was not a felony to Literally use personal money for Literally personal payments. ...which is Literally not a felony and Literally not a campaign finance violation.

Gosh, even if Cohen won't any longer take a bullet for Trump, there are others who will!

Cohen's confession can be used in court as evidence that he conspired with Trump to cause an illegal corporate campaign contribution to be made in furtherance of Trump's presidential campaign. Of course, any such evidence is not equivalent to a conviction by the court where it is presented. But then evidence never is, so to use that as the basis of some 'nothing to see here' hand-waving is obtuse.

See this:

How the campaign finance charges against Michael Cohen implicate Trump

In a Lower Manhattan courtroom Tuesday, President Trump’s longtime attorney Michael Cohen directly implicated his former boss in a scheme to cover up alleged affairs Trump had with a former Playboy model and an adult film actress to prevent them from being revealed before the 2016 election.

Standing before Judge William H. Pauley III, Cohen admitted guilt on two criminal counts: willfully causing an unlawful corporate contribution and making an excessive campaign contribution.

The first count dealt with Cohen’s negotiation of an agreement with an unnamed company — the context of the government’s delineation of charges makes clear that it’s American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer — to pay former Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000. That payment was aimed at preventing her from being able to share her story of a year-long affair with Trump with any other media outlet.


The second count addressed the infamous payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, negotiated by Cohen shortly before the election. That payment, of $130,000, was made with funds drawn from a home equity line of credit obtained by Cohen in 2015. That line of credit was itself obtained fraudulently according to another of the guilty pleas Cohen entered on Tuesday.

To the layperson, this likely sounds as a slightly more noxious example of business as usual in politics. It’s not. Cohen made that very clear when he stood up to accept guilt for his actions, in two phrases.

The payment to McDougal was made “in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office,” he said, adding that it was made “for the principal purpose of influencing the election.” The Daniels payment was similarly made “in coordination with and at the direction of the same candidate” and for the same reason.


Those points are important. As we noted when the Daniels payment was first reported, making a payment of $130,000 to bury a story is of dubious legality in the abstract. How and if it violates the law depends on the relationship of the person making the payment to the campaign and whether such payments were in the standard course of practice of his business.

Cohen’s sworn assertions in court make clear that he was acting on behalf of the campaign with the aim of aiding the candidate’s election. This wasn’t Trump Organization attorney Michael Cohen making yet another payment to yet another woman — it was Cohen on behalf of the campaign making a campaign-related expenditure. Had the Trump campaign paid the $130,000 with legally contributed donations and reported it, it would have been perfectly legal, however politically problematic. It didn’t.

In fact, Cohen was repaid by the Trump Organization, according the government’s delineation of his crimes. Cohen, it reads, submitted a series of invoices to “a Manhattan-based real estate company” where he had once worked. Those invoices were meant, among other things, to repay him for the money he gave to Daniels and occurred over the course of 2017. Those payments were identified inside the company as being for a legal retainer.


The situation with the payment to McDougal is even more complex. The information document provided by the government walks through the details.

Prior to any agreements being signed, the chairman of AMI — Trump’s longtime friend David Pecker — allegedly “offered to help deal with negative stories about [Trump]’s relationships with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided.” Over the course of the campaign Cohen “was able to arrange for the purchase of two stories so as to suppress them and prevent them from influencing the election,” those of McDougal and Daniels.

In June 2016, McDougal reached out to an AMI publication (presumably the Enquirer) through an attorney. AMI informed Cohen, who promised to repay AMI if it purchased her story for $150,000.


In August, the company agreed to do so. Later that month, Cohen reached an agreement to buy the rights from AMI for $125,000 — a potential purchase revealed in a conversation between Cohen and Trump that Cohen recorded. An agreement was signed and an invoice sent to Cohen but, in early October, Pecker told Cohen the deal was off. It’s not clear why, but in the same time period the “Access Hollywood” tape was published by The Washington Post.

A media outlet can buy stories and decide not to run them. But as we noted last month, when the existence of the Trump-Cohen recording was first reported, it can’t coordinate with the campaign to do so. The government document and Cohen’s assertions in court suggest that they did.

There’s a natural question that emerges here: Is Trump himself exposed to criminal liability for these payments? Setting aside the question of whether a prosecutor would seek an indictment against a sitting president or even whether such an indictment is possible, it’s a question worth answering.


Charlie Spies, who served as counsel for Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign, noted that Cohen’s admission of guilt didn’t necessarily mean that Trump was at risk. Trump could argue the expense was made for a personal purpose — to maintain his personal and professional reputation — rather than for a campaign purpose, he said.

Lawrence Noble, former general counsel for the Federal Election Commission, suggested that Trump’s actions put him at risk.

“If Trump on his own, or through Cohen, coordinated with AMI to buy her story to prevent it from coming out and hurting his campaign, then he solicited and accepted an illegal corporate contribution from AMI,” Noble said. That’s a violation of federal law.

Moreover, Noble noted, the reimbursement by the Trump Organization for the Daniels payment was itself problematic.


“If Trump authorized or coordinated the Trump Organization reimbursing Cohen for the Daniels payments,” Noble said, “then he is liable for the company making, and his campaign accepting, illegal corporate contributions.”

Richard Hasen, election law expert at the University of California at Irvine, agreed. Hasen said that Cohen’s violations could pose “liability on behalf of the campaign and liability on behalf of the Trump Organization, but there’s potential that Trump himself could be personally liable for conspiring to engage in this activity.”

“If the Justice Department were dealing with an ordinary case not dealing with the president, it sounds like he [Trump] could potentially be charged with a crime,” he added.

Cohen’s attorney Lanny Davis offered his thoughts on Twitter.

For months — more than a year — Trump has insisted that he is not implicated in the broad investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. His refrain of “no collusion” has became a go-to mantra meant to distance himself and his campaign from wrongdoing.

In court on Tuesday, his former attorney and “fixer” made clear that the Russia investigation is not Trump’s only worry.

[Guest]

Subgenius's dubious faith in Trump's purity aside, I love how defenses of Trump have devolved into, "this grossly unethical conduct from the president of the United States technically isn't a prosecutable felony."

Whether it's prosecutable on the federal probably depends on whether or not Trump is re-elected and whether or not the government wants to do it six years down the road (and whether or not they can win in court). What's not a question is using campaign funds, to the tune of $280k in order to keep people silent during a general election is, in fact, felonious on two accounts for sure, and probably more like three accounts since the two payments entailed different criminal acts.

eta:

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Today he stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election. If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn't they be a crime for Donald Trump?

- Doc

[_honorentheos]

subbie doesn't seem to realize Trump has acknowledged the payment to Daniels through at least two vehicles - his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani stating that Trump reimbursed Cohen for the $130k to make the claim it wasn't a campaign donation by Cohen that exceeded the individual cap, and in a financial disclosure form for 2017 filed around the same time where the payment of a sum between $100k and $250k for reimbursements had been sought and paid to Michael Cohen for expenses incurred in 2016.

It's incumbent on Trump to demonstrate that the payment was for personal reasons unrelated to the campaign. It isn't that he is innocent until proven guilty so much as he is on the precipice of being accused of a crime for which there are multiple threads of evidence, witnesses, a cooperating co-conspirator, and obvious motive. Daniels has said what she intended to do and why were all related to the election and not Trump's personal life. Cohen has confirmed that it was understood by their side it was related to the campaign. There's no reasonable cause to assume it isn't except to attempt to protect Trump because...? That's a real mystery here. What could possibly motivate someone who isn't Trump or one of his close allies to toss their integrity and shut their eyes to what is right in front of them?

The burden is clearly on Trump. And I guess subbie as his surrogate on this forum if that is the burden he wishes to take on himself with his line of argument, above.

[_Jersey Girl]

Apparently former New Jersey Gov. Christie has chimed in saying that they probably have evidence against Trump. Just for the record, I take Christie more seriously than I do Giuliani whom I believe is totally and completely full of crap.

Call me crazy. Just my impression.

[_Gunnar]

What I fear will happen is that no matter how grievous the charges against Trump, and how well justified the case for impeachment, it will probably be impossible to get 2/3 majority of the Senate, as currently constituted, to vote for conviction--even if incontrovertible evidence that Trump actually murdered someone turns up. As at least one other person here has suggested, an actual impeachment with failure to convict, may actually boost Trump's popularity, regardless of how guilty he actually is. I would not be surprised if Trump and/or some of his supporters are actually counting on that to be the case.

[_Jersey Girl]

What I fear will happen is that no matter how grievous the charges against Trump, and how well justified the case for impeachment, it will probably be impossible to get 2/3 majority of the Senate, as currently constituted, to vote for conviction--even if incontrovertible evidence that Trump actually murdered someone turns up. As at least one other person here has suggested, an actual impeachment with failure to convict, may actually boost Trump's popularity, regardless of how guilty he actually is. I would not be surprised if Trump and/or some of his supporters are actually counting on that to be the case.

I had to read up on this the other day so I understod what the process entails. He could easily be impeached without addtional consequence--not lose office. It's not a quick and dirty, done deal process. I suppose it was intended to be that way.

Yeah, he'd spin that latter situation into a PR opportunity for sure.

[_EAllusion]

I'm sure what Democrats are worried about right now is that an impeachment with a failure to convict, which seems highly likely, will be interpreted by the public as an exoneration rather than broad Republican corruption. 1) I don't think that's a given. 2) There's something to be said for just doing the right thing and letting the chips fall where they may. and 3) It would be an example of broad Republican corruption.

[_Jersey Girl]

I'm sure what Democrats are worried about right now is that an impeachment with a failure to convict, which seems highly likely, will be interpreted by the public as an exoneration rather than broad Republican corruption. 1) I don't think that's a given. 2) There's something to be said for just doing the right thing and letting the chips fall where they may. and 3) It would be an example of broad Republican corruption.

I don't honestly know how long the process takes. I do think that if he's impeached without conviction--he'll twist that right into a campaign pretzel eye roller and use it to successfully win the 2020 election.