Michael Cohen to testify publicly on Capitol Hill - 2/27

oops

more at the link

https://www.wsj.com/articles/lawyer...eys-about-pardon-11551753372?mod=hp_lead_pos1

 

“Michael Cohen, a known liar headed to the big house, has more credibility than the leader of the free world,” Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll...

Americans Trust President Trump Less Than Admitted Liar Michael Cohen

http://fortune.com/2019/03/05/quinnipiac-university-survey-poll-trump-approval-michael-cohen/

 

so pardon for lying?

 

Aside from the possibility that Cohen perjured himself before Congress again, what do you think the significance is?

 

Obstruction?

DD

 

Must break your heart to consider the possibly that Trump lies more than the Clintons.

 

Much has been discussed about the trump's wrote to cohen to pay off to silence Stormy Daniels just before and even after the election. trump defenders are trying to cite the John Edwards case as precedence and ssuggest trump's purpose was to hide his affair from his wife. Eeven rudy tries to suggest this in this tweet:



Either rudy is ignorant of the law, or is purposely lying though. This reporter catches it:



And yes, going back to the Edwards case, Ms. Rocah is correct:

Jury instructions at John Edwards trial
By JOSH GERSTEIN
05/18/2012 02:21 PM EDT

https://www.politico.com/blogs/unde...ury-instructions-at-john-edwards-trial-123887

 

Top of mind this am...

 

LOL "by me"

 

From a legal standpoint, the second sentence above is the most interesting one. Would trump have made the payment irrespective of the election.

If you believe Cohen's assertion that he couldn't remember the number of timeshe was involved in "capture and kill" of information regarding trump's alleged affairs, sexual indiscretions, etc., it perversely appears that the frequency of burying such stories with payments before any election buttresses an argument that Trump would have done so even if he wasn't running.

Cohen's testimony re: lying to Melania also seems to support an argument that this was personal.


According to the jury instruction posted above, the fact that Trump may have known it would impact the election or even found that "acceptable" would not matter if he would have made the payments in any case even absent an election.

 

Conversely, I don't think anyone can reasonably not believe trump didn't also believe the public disclosure of his affair and the payments to keep it quiet as a way of protecting his campaign. Furthermore, the other "catch and kill" activities NOT related to the Daniels affair, eg the efforts to keep his school records quiet, started in 2011 and done through the campaign.

 

This is the same argument John Edwards used and lost on - which is why the last sentence of the instruction is there:

If you find beyond a reasonable doubt that one of her purposes was to influence an election, then that would be sufficient.

You can't use "would have done it anyway" if you knew "doing it anyway" would influence the election.

 

Knowledge that it would influence the election is specifically stated as not enough. It must be one of your purposes to do so. That is a clear defense. Now, practically, do I think most juries will go that level in their decision making? Probably not. But, if Trump has a history of killing "sexual infidelity" stories for years before he was running, it does provide him with a defense to argue in court based on the jury instructions used in the Edwards case.

 

In the Edwards case, the affair was the only thing being covered up. What if there are other things being covered up? Then his "protecting his wife and kids" alibi falls apart...

 

Sure. I am just going off of the jury instruction and what we know about the affair. It certainly doesn't mean a jury will buy the argument, but I found it interesting that the more evidence there is of Trump engaging in "catch and kill" for sexual indiscretions before any election was on the horizon, the stronger the legal argument may be. As I mentioned, kind of a perverse (or counter-intuitive) result.