President Trump & U.S Election 2016 Investigation

Mueller is almost certainly going to go quiet around the mid-terms I think.

[Arthurgray50@blu]

This is the worst scenario, Several public figures go to prison. But the main culprit goes scot free.

I have said before that Trump has covered his tracks lovely.

And l think that someone will come along and say - l will tell all, and plead not to go to prison. And then see how quick Trump will say that 'they' are liars.

See money doesn't buy you everything. Even if he lost the Presidency. He will go back to his lavish lifestyle in Trump Tower. And his wife will divorce him

You also said before Trump would be shot in his first few months of office....

You are not always right - Arthur - just like now.

[Chloé Palmas]

Yeah, Arthur I don't understand your post all...it doesn't even make comprehensive sense.

What are you even trying to say? That third line is just seizure inducing.

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by Damien

Yeah but that’s just an agreement that he pleads guilty for a reduced sentence. Not for giving information to help with another case as far as I can see?

It depends on his allocution. We'll have to wait for that.

[Chloé Palmas]

Originally Posted by Damien

I thought that a plea in the sense that if he pleads guilty he gets a lower sentence, not a deal in the sense that if he gives up info on other crimes by other people he gets a (further) reduced sentence?

Pretty much spot on, on the former. No matter how much Cohen squeals though, it is up to the discretion of the judge as to whether he will take the co-operation of Cohen (with SP / counsel) into any farther consideration. The latter (if executed upon) could lead to the government appealing Cohen's sentence to an appellate court (which they are perfectly entitled to do) and it would or could lead to an entirely new sentence. Perfectly plausible if the government feels that it is warranted. Though that varies from jurisdiction to level / type of crime etc. (Sentence is too lenient, at the federal level, for example etc). BoP could release early which king of complicates things, too.

The other thing to bear in mind is that some crimes do have mandatory minimum sentences (like with sex crimes for example) so a judge is bound by statute. The problem becomes, that at the point of wanting an early release, "co-operation" will go in a defendants favor ; so in the case of Cohen if he were to ask for Parole then perhaps the board will look at his behavior favorably. (That is why some sex offenders plead guilty and take the 25 to life in the hope of getting out after 25).

The issue of his flipping on Trump though, will have nothing to do with this sentence. That was referred to the SDNY's office and the US attorney's office there was the one that filed and charged. It was just a referral from Bob Muller through discovery of a crime. It has nothing to do with the Russia probe so like with all other relevant crimes (at the federal level) it is passed on to the relevant office for prosecution.

Now the prosecutors may have privately told Cohen (more than likely) that if he just says what he knows, they will recommend a lesser sentence to the judge, which is the most likely outcome. However, and this is the important part : the judge is in no way bound by their recommendation and in some cases will have his hands tied in the case of a MM. I think the judge (in this instance) will be lenient if he gives anything less than 60 months and Cohen will be very lucky ; he deserves a much longer sentence IMO.

He is one passive aggressive POS, too - saying that he would not appeal anything up to 63 months. His backhanded way of telling the judge "I'll go away quietly if you go easy on me". This is why (among everything else), Cohen is also a terrible lawyer himself. I hope the judge throws the book at the little weasel.

[Lutherf]

Originally Posted by Chloé Palmas

Pretty much spot on, on the former. No matter how much Cohen squeals though, it is up to the discretion of the judge as to whether he will take the co-operation of Cohen (with SP / counsel) into any farther consideration. The latter (if executed upon) could lead to the government appealing Cohen's sentence to an appellate court (which they are perfectly entitled to do) and it would or could lead to an entirely new sentence. Perfectly plausible if the government feels that it is warranted. Though that varies from jurisdiction to level / type of crime etc. (Sentence is too lenient, at the federal level, for example etc). BoP could release early which king of complicates things, too.

The other thing to bear in mind is that some crimes do have mandatory minimum sentences (like with sex crimes for example) so a judge is bound by statute. The problem becomes, that at the point of wanting an early release, "co-operation" will go in a defendants favor ; so in the case of Cohen if he were to ask for Parole then perhaps the board will look at his behavior favorably. (That is why some sex offenders plead guilty and take the 25 to life in the hope of getting out after 25).

The issue of his flipping on Trump though, will have nothing to do with this sentence. That was referred to the SDNY's office and the US attorney's office there was the one that filed and charged. It was just a referral from Bob Muller through discovery of a crime. It has nothing to do with the Russia probe so like with all other relevant crimes (at the federal level) it is passed on to the relevant office for prosecution.

Now the prosecutors may have privately told Cohen (more than likely) that if he just says what he knows, they will recommend a lesser sentence to the judge, which is the most likely outcome. However, and this is the important part : the judge is in no way bound by their recommendation and in some cases will have his hands tied in the case of a MM. I think the judge (in this instance) will be lenient if he gives anything less than 60 months and Cohen will be very lucky ; he deserves a much longer sentence IMO.

He is one passive aggressive POS, too - saying that he would not appeal anything up to 63 months. His backhanded way of telling the judge "I'll go away quietly if you go easy on me". This is why (among everything else), Cohen is also a terrible lawyer himself. I hope the judge throws the book at the little weasel.

I'm starting to think Cohen got wrapped up in more than he should have.

Lanny Davis, Cohen's attorney, was on CNN just a little while ago kind of walking back a lot of stuff he'd said. For example, he walked back the idea that Cohen had evidence related to the Trump Tower meeting.

This is just me shooting from the hip but I think Cohen knew he was screwed when it came to the tax evasion stuff. He was looking at decades of jail just for that. Then Lanny Davis came along to "save" him. Davis is a well known Clinton devotee. Davis probably discussed the possibility of Cohen dropping some kind of dirt that could be used against Trump in exchange for lenience in the tax matters. Cohen, unfortunately for him, didn't have much to say about Trump. The best they could come up with was campaign finance violations...and that was pushing it.

The prosecutors, however, loved the idea of the campaign finance stuff. Their whole reason for going after Cohen had been to get an inroad to Trump. Anyway, the deal was made and Cohen had his name in the papers as a potential savior of the nation if he could say something to put Trump away. So he opened up in the court room and let his big secret out...Trump had ordered all the payments and was the mastermind behind the whole thing.

It was a lie.

The tape Davis and Cohen released where they discuss the McDougal payment indicates that, contrary to Cohen's courtroom assertion, Trump was unaware that a payment was to be made until that call. Furthermore, the tape reveals Cohen saying how he arranged things with someone named Alan Weiselberg regarding how to "set the whole thing up". That's definitely not Trump telling him to make the deal. That's Cohen working with others to set up the payment and all he's doing is letting Trump know a payment will need to be made.

Cohen made one heck of an assertion in court and will likely need a whole lot of supporting documentation to prove his assertion if the Democrats that are pushing for impeachment try to use this thing. It's all political showmanship and, like most other things purported to portend Trump's demise, lacking desperately in substance.

[Chloé Palmas]

Originally Posted by Hugh

MAGA - My Attorney Got Arrested

You goofed on that one Hugh - the joke has been going around some time but the MAGA acronym would be better suited to "my attorney got arraigned" given that the proceeding was an arraignment. /rasp

Luther is pretty much spot on in everything that he said in the post above btw...Cohen tried to talk big (as if he was some big power player) but now that Lanny is correcting the record all that is doing is suggesting that Cohen lied to the judge, too.

If anything, Cohen trying to be cute should probably whack on a few more charges. (Lying under oath / perjury etc). He tried to whack on some stuff onto Trump and in the process just admitted his own guilt some more. Tried to show that Trump colluded, it fell flat on its ass. (Like he did).

Luther's point is exactly correct - Lanny is a long time Clinton whore and the Clintons are playing Cohen like a bitch. As it is, Cohen deleted a few tweets...one specifically:

http://thehill.com/homenews/administ...on-with-prison

Whoops!

What an idiot.

I am not saying this to absolve Trump but there is and has never ever been a shred of proof of any collusion. Yes I want Brett to be confirmed as the next AJ but even if he wasn't nominated to an open seat I can't see a single reason to suspect Trump of collusion. There is just no proof of it. Cohen is, has and always will be an idiot. None of what he said holds weight though. Like Luther said, it is a lie.

So you have a Clinton Lawyer, Lanny and a Judge presiding over Cohen's case, Kimba Wood, who almost became President Clinton's Attorney General.... How convenient...

[Lutherf]

Mick, there's a whole lot of "interesting" surrounding the anti-Trump crowd. The more I watch this thing the more corrupt and abusive it looks. These people HATE Trump. I'm not talking about merely having political or sociological differences of opinion. I'm talking drunk mother-in-law who never flushes the toilet kind of hate. They are clinging to every potentially damaging tidbit they can find and building massive conspiracies around those tidbits. They were so heavily vested in the "Russia" thing that they HAVE to find something to hang around Trump's neck. It's simply incomprehensible to them that it was their own attitudes and their own tendencies to arbitrarily dismiss anyone they disagreed with that put Trump in office. They simply can't look in the mirror and find even a smidgen of fault in themselves. To them it MUST be some conspiracy that crushed their dreams and Trump MUST be at the center of that conspiracy. Frankly, it' a bit frightning to watch up close.

[Chloé Palmas]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

Tax evasion is what they "get" you on in the states when they can't find anything else.

Not even close. The most often (trap) of a scenario is that have done very little wrong but they get you anyway because you lied about it. It is the known DC "not the crime, but the cover up" adage. It happens time and time again. For example, they will nail you on OoJ or Perjury charges, over and over again. The original issue was either a non issue or inconsequential ; your lie to hide it or cover it up is what will land you into trouble.

The tax aspect is just to nab serial liars like Cohen who screw every single thing up - bombastic assholes with not a cent to their name. All making it up as they go along on a ponzi pyramid scheme. Falsifying applications / loans / returns / income etc etc etc. Not only is Cohen one grandiose liar, but he is financially worthless and nothing but a lackey for Trump.

When Trump was done with him he turfed him and Cohen turned into a source / snitch for counsel.

Just like Comical Ali (after the fall of Baghdad) US authorities wanted none of it ; Mueller did not advocate that he get a lesser sentence nor was any of his information even worth anything. He passed it on to the SDNY's office so even as a petty criminal Cohen is a nobody. What a pathetic waste of space.

Speculation continues that Trump could paradon Manafort. I can’t think why he would do that, especially since the crimes for which he has been convicted predate his association with Trump.

Speculation is being packaged up by the Media, Trump has stated earlier in week he has not considered it.

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Mick

Speculation is being packaged up by the Media, Trump has stated earlier in week he has not considered it.

Apparantly, Trump told his Fox interviewer he is :

Trump said he is considering a pardon for Paul Manafort, Fox's Ainsley Earhardt says after interview

[Stephen]

So Trump now contradicting himself yet again.

It was no I didn't know about any money or pay outs to oh yeah the money came from me.

What a total idiot.