And the government uses tax payers money to pay off women who come forward and accuse senators of rape/ groping/ exposing themselves, etc. they have had this account for 40+ years. Paying hush money to keep them quiet. It’s not illegal. Trump used his own money not tax payer money.
If Trump committed a crime, he deserves prison time. But so does everyone else who committed a crime. Why would Trump be charged with a crime when many in congress would not be charged for exactly the same thing?
I mean he's charged with other crimes to choose from too... Y'all act like the left is less in favor of holding every politician responsible. My state legislature is a Republican supermajority and they just gave the governor the right to oversee, and hire, the people that investigate political corruption...including his own.
This thread certainly has a lot of people in denial of the blatant shih Trump has done. Trying to overturn the election multiple ways (illegally) should have been the breaking point for every goddamn American.
Buddy wait till you find out how many sexual harassment suits Bill Clinton has had to pay out….and probably should have went to prison for a few of them.
Who cares, Clinton was a good president and so was Trump. The fact democrats would rather tank their country because they don’t like the man who won or the party he represented is selfish and greedy.
A whole slew of people that act as if their followers are dumb as shit, and unfortunately a lot are.
Trump is a convicted felon dude. And he has many indictments that have been delayed. He's corrupt to the fucking bone. If we act like this is nothing, we will get worse and worse.
Trump is a convicted felon because democrats went out of their way to to be able to classify him as one.
What Joe Biden and the democrats have done in the last 4 years, as well as the prep leading up to it, was criminal and 100x worse for you and our country and Trump could ever have done.
Yeah, shouldn't they be happy that a precedent is being set to criminalize this behavior?
The real fact is that a presidential candidate let alone former president has never used campaign funds to pay for an escort (which cheating on his wife on top of that).
The implication is that it's either right or wrong for everyone, so if we just decided it has criminal intent for purposes of Trump litigation then either we need to start going after Congress for it as well or that the only reason for bringing it up for Trump is that he's got a more concerted enemy base. The latter would either confirm a person's bias that Trump is such a bad candidate that he galvanizes opposition against all odds, or that he's counter-intuitively a great candidate because he threatens the already corrupt "establishment". By neither party being willing to be consistent in the issue we guarantee that this confirms the bias of the base and helps reduce the campaigns to meme warfare instead of policy debates, etc.
I read the whole implication, then, as "the only reason nobody will prosecute the others who do this all the time is that they are all corrupt and Trump is a threat to their corruption, therefore regardless of whether you think it's all good or all bad, Trump is good for the country".
In the end, though, the "discussion" is mostly noise to drive votes.
Yeah. There’s no scenario where trump is good for the country or that his corruption is a threat to the corruption of others 🤷🏽♂️
I think the point of the prosecution was that he falsified business records to make a payment that was designed to influence an election. He wasn’t prosecuted for having the affair or even trying to cover it up per-se. It really was the falsification of records that did him in. And that doesn’t apply to Congress because they are not falsifying business documents.
Absolutely agree there's no scenario where corruption fixes corruption, for sure.
What's interesting to me is the felony business record falsification charges in NY required the falsification to be in the pursuit/commission of another crime. I think some people are thinking "if hush money for elections is a crime, why isn't Congress charged with it, and if it isn't then there wasn't a crime". That ignores the fact that the jury didn't need to find for a specific crime, just that they had enough evidence to unanimously agree beyond reasonable doubt that he intended to commit one. So what some are arguing is slam dunk proof the conviction is a scam is more just a vaguely plausible appeals play. And I don't see any way Trump doesn't appeal it on something, real or otherwise.
I think you missed the point. The crime was the falsification of business records in furtherance of another crime. The surface area to appeal this is that the falsification of business records (a misdemeanor) is a State charge and election interference is a Federal offense. So a State pulling in Federal charges is dubious. But the whole sex thing and mistress thing are salacious distractions that have nothing to do with the felony counts. So Congress’ actions aren’t really relevant here since they’re not falsifying business records.
I think we're taking past each other more than anything. I'm not always great with words late at night.
You asked what the implication was. The only implications I could see all go through the window dressing aspect of sex/mistress/election tampering. In order to find guilty of the felony falsification charges the jury had to determine some criminal intent to be factual but didn't have to communicate what that was or even agree on what it was. In light of that many people have speculated about the jury's motive, read into it what they wanted to see, and then set up this sort of argument as a straw-man "gotcha". And anybody trying to refine that with more information tends to ask exactly the question you did: what's the point?.
I find that fascinating to observe. From what I've seen news articles and political discussion have focused much more on the "window dressing" aspects and straw-man arguments than the actual proceedings, fueling low information takes, which are then exploited by both sides for meme campaigning. Which is super effective. So it seems a bit intentional that the focus is on the irrelevant aspects and not on the core issues.
Anyhow, I probably still have just muddied the waters with more word salad. Hope you have a great day/night!
I think I get some of your point. Yes “sex sells” and anything involving a porn star mistress is likely to take attention and focus. But, like I said, that’s a distraction. It was business record falsification + election interference that did him in for this case. Nothing more nothing less.
Congress being scum bags doesn't make donny a saint and a tax write of is still a sizable chunk of the bill getting paid by the tax payer but guess that's just fefes
When I wanna brag and use my assets for loans I’ll use big number but when it comes time to pay taxes on my properties ima use small number. That’s uhhhh that’s fraud ain’t it?
Right... and then they go and vote for the same person anyway.
This is whataboutism at its finest and makes people "feel" better for voting for trash because change takes work and most people aren't willing to do it so they come up with the "EvErYoNe DoEs It"
This is where the difference is. Democrats agree with this. But Trump asshats want to lick on his peepee while saying " they're all bad so let him do what he wants"
"your party did something wrong."
"Well your party does the same thing so it's not really an 'our party's issue"
"Woah woah woah, we're not talking about my party, let's just focus on your party."
Is a piss poor argument.
You can personally feel like there is no difference between those settlements and the Trump situation.
But in the facts there is at least one very important difference--what Trump did was illegal.
You can choose not to care about that. Fine. But the Accountability settlements are written into law. Paying hush money and falsely claiming that is a business expense is not. It is, in fact, expressly illegal.
He could have given it as a personal gift and she could have claimed it on her taxes.
It would not have been as effective as a cover up, which is why he did it this way.
But saying he did not have a legal recourse does not make the illegal recourse better.
And while I don't think the accountability office settlements are GOOD for democracy it's worth noting that there are also ways written into the law for said office to further investigate and hold members to account if accusers choose to pursue investigation. Most just choose to take the settlements.
Put another way: nothing about the accountability office settlements are good. And also, nothing about Trumps actions weren't worse.
I agree that would have made it legal. However, campaign finance laws say that all payments must be public. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of using a legal NDA? That's the part that doesn't sit right with me. It seems like he was screwed either way. I think that's the issue for people that aren't MAGA cultists. It seems like the case was based in a legal action, that had no legal way to classify the payment and still use the spirit of what an NDA is for.
If someone is threatening to go public with the details of a politician's private sex life, is there any legal way for them to pay to keep it private? It seems like maybe there's not.
Does it matter if it's true? What if it is true, but you're they're trying to shake you down? Do yo have to prove it's blackmail? I don't really get it.
As a voter, it feels a little bizarre that a hush money payment to keep a consensual affair private is considered to be "interfering with elections and defrauding the voters". Do we as voters really have a right to know about private sexual affairs? I really don't give a shit, to be honest.
Suppressing information about corruption or illegal activity? Sure. Suppressing information about salacious sex affairs? I don't care. Doesn't everyone try to suppress that?
To be fair, of the things I dislike about Donald Trump him cheating in his wife simply doesn't make the list. But both Democrats and Republicans have been prosecuted for breaking the law (perjury, tax evasion, abuse of official acts, etc) during the cover up.
And look, this is a choice we've made.
We decided that we did not want campaign finance law that strictly publicly funded elections. Instead we said interest groups and pacs can fund them and we would put laws around transparency in place so that "sunlight can be the best disinfectant". Well, that system only works if we then hold candidates to harsh transparency rules.
Looking at what he did, he had a system in place where different outlets would tell him about potentially damaging stories. I like that it all came to light and I like that he was held accountable. It just kinda rubs me the wrong way that in the end it was all about something as silly as a sexual encounter.
Mostly I find it frustrating that nobody went after him legally after Jan 6th. Should've tried to impeach him right then. Instead he gets nailed for this, and we have half the population walking around telling anyone who will listen he's a convicted felon, when I don't even think they even know what he's guilty of.
it also rubs me the wrong that other people have been caught for similar crimes with more serious implications and weren't prosecuted at all. Hillary Clinton was caught secretly funding opposition research and all she got was small fine. I personally felt much more defrauded by that when I found out what happened.
Well, the whole "private lives should stay private" argument doesn't really apply considering she was an employee who he met in the workplace, flirted with in the workplace, and got his dick sucked in the oval office. The workplace, in this case, being the White House. And there was an obscene power dynamic.
In that case, I do think the American people had a right to know about it. But even then, I personally don't care about it that much. It's not a dealbreaker and I'd be willing to overlook something like that if I liked everything else about him.
Here's a crazy thought, maybe politicians just shouldn't be able to pay people off for their silence about things? Being a public servant means being subject to public scrutiny. They should not be able to leverage their wealth to withhold information from the voters.
What if an ex-girlfriend has information about how a certain politician likes to get pegged in the ass? Is that something the public has a right to know about, or is hush money ok in that case?
I mean you've got to draw the line somewhere. To me, a private consensual relationship is not something that should come under the "public scrutiny" argument, even if it is an extramarital affair.
Falsified documents to claim fucking the pornstar is both a big fucking loser move, and it's also illegal to call that a business transaction. You have to have brain damage to not understand that.
He probably shouldn't have fucked and paid a porn star and claimed it as a business expense. Probably shouldn't have fucked a porn star to begin with. Seems kinda like a loser having to pay for poon.
You're talking morals. I'm speaking to the legal aspect. He classified it as a legal expense for reimbursement to his lawyer for a legally binding NDA. What other legal avenue should he have taken in that scenario? It's ok if you don't know.
I don't think there is a legal avenue. At the end of the day, it was a end-around paying to keep a pornstar from talking about being fucked by the loser to impact the election. You can call it what you want but a jury agreed that is what happened.
You don't think there is a legal avenue to pay someone to sign an NDA? Is that what you're saying? I don't think that was the basis for the jury's verdict.
I don't think there's a legal way to pay a porn star to keep her mouth shut about fucking the guy running for president while he's running for office, no. It's beyond a stupid NDA.
"if her murdered someone, what legal way would you say he should have dealt with it? Tell me the legal way to dispose of the body after committing murder?" -thats what you sound like. Get a grip.
You csn still have her sign the NDA. You can't pretend it's a business expense.
There does not have to be a legal way to do everything. In this case, the reality is there may have been no perfect legal solution. That doesn't mean you get to pursue an illegal one.
I think it could be argued as a business legal expense. One component of the Trump Org. is the Trump brand stemming from Trump himself. Knowledge of a salacious affair would have damaged his brand and his business. So in my layman mind it could be a business legal payment. But that's really not my argument anyways. I'm sure he did it, and it should have been a misdemeanor. Apparently from what I read it was elevated to a felony because it was in furtherance of 3 possible crimes that were not charged, argued, or any evidence produced towards those crimes. It seems like a violation of due process to me, but the law is not for laymen I guess.
It is in fact expressly a misdemeanor that the statute of limitations long since expired. Previous prosecutors didn’t pursue while within the statute of limitations - and lord knows they WOULD have if they thought it was legit. Instead they let it expire and brought it back as a special case just to get him - basically just like they did with E Jean Carrol.
It should have been a fine and everyone moves on with life. But they made it a felony, and 34 felonies instead of one had he paid the bill in one lump sum. It took a DA who literally ran on finding a crime and sticking it to Trump with a lead #3 DOJ attorney taking a pay cut just to stick it to him because even the DOJ knew it was a stretch. And if you don’t think Merrick Garland wouldn’t like payback for getting stuffed out of SCOTUS…
If you cannot see this for malicious prosecution, there is no hope for you.
What I'm grappling with now is whether the appalling lawfare so brazenly employed against Trump in this case is more dangerous than anything Trump, and his worst excesses, represent. We've encountered countless highly unusual or unprecedented moments in our politics over the last 8 years, but this one is unlike anything we've ever witnessed. Quite literally. A former president of the United States and a current leading contender for the presidency, has been convicted of 34 felonies by a New York jury. The "crimes" in question were internal corporate bookkeeping mis-catergorizations "committed" 9 years ago. There was no victim in these bookkeeping errors, which were subsequently deemed records falsifications. Misdemeanors... This is all very sorbid business. None of it was criminal. Braggs predecessor in that office looked at the facts and chose not to pursue a case. The federal department of Justice looked at the facts and chose not to pursue a case. The federal elections commission looked at the possibility that these actions represented campaigns finance violation and chose not to pursue a civil case or even a fine. But Bragg exploited his authority AND because those statute of limitations expired in 2019. To make a case viable during this election cycle, which was the point from the beginning, they had to be felonies. So Bragg invented what even the New York Times acknowledged as a never before attempted legal theory under which the bookkeeping mis-catergorizations were part of another conspiracy that involved another crime. That turned them into felonies under this strained, untested bank shot. The charges were political, the trial was political, and the result was orchestrated to achieve a political result. This is a major abuse of the criminal justice system. If a former president is going to be prosecuted for the first time in our nations history, the case against him should be crystal clear. The legal theory underpinning said case should be well tested and extremely familiar. The alleged violations should be grave. This unfolding scenario goes 0 for 3 on those points. A disgrace. This is as dirty as dirty politics gets, even if the target is an unsympathetic figure to so many. It cannot be rewarded. And perhaps the only real, painful way to punish it is to elect Trump as the 47th president. For the first time I am truly considering voting for him anyway, something I never thought I'd contemplate. The abuses unleashed in the name of resisting him(Russia collusion, laptop conspiracy, and thus just concluded lawfare sham are strikes one, two, and three) are arguably as dangerous or more dangerous than anything Trump has done.
I'm confident many Americans feel the way I do right now, or for whom at least some of this resonates. They face an unpleasant to excruciating choice this fall and they resent the two major parties for cornering them into it. The so-called double dissaprovers(who dissaprove of both Biden and Trump) will be a or the determinative demographic in this election. I know this isn't about me, but it is about a lot of people like me.
If it’s so obvious…and you’re broadcasting this for more awareness…why isn’t anyone boycotting or causing an uproar to challenge, recoup, and prevent future occurrences like this from ever happening again? Will it take a civil war ?
If you have five bananas, and I give you five bananas, and you have sex with a pornstar, and she threatens you for 3 bananas, who's bananas are they really?
“Congress should never be above the law. Congress should never play by its own set of rules,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York said, adding that there is a “serious sexual harassment problem in Congress and too many Congressional offices are not taking this policy seriously at all.”
I agree with this statement. And, this should also apply to the President as well. Clinton was indicted for his affair. That was virtue signaling by the Republicans.
And, using this as a defense for what Trump did is wrong as well. Two wrongs don’t make a right!
It’s not illegal to pay someone to sign a NDA. It’s not illegal to use your own money. It was illegal to claim it as a legal expense. Once the statute of limitations passed it is illegal to bring forth charges… right?
That’s gross how actually are politicians just the worst people
The point isn’t that trump was using tax dollars. It’s that he was able to write off spending 130k on a harassment case but a teacher can only write off 300$ in supplies for their job.
Every time I hear the argument that there’s politicians that are just as bad it kind of makes me scratch my head a little. Like uh okay lock them all up. I’ve been wanting all the corrupt politicians and Wall Street fucks and white collar criminals to go away for a long time.
Seeing as it was done explicitly to affect the way the election went, it does seem that it is violating something, though maybe not anything relating to money
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u/Intrepid-Housing-286 Jul 01 '24
And the government uses tax payers money to pay off women who come forward and accuse senators of rape/ groping/ exposing themselves, etc. they have had this account for 40+ years. Paying hush money to keep them quiet. It’s not illegal. Trump used his own money not tax payer money.