(08-22-2018, 01:17 PM)mikesez Wrote:

(08-22-2018, 01:02 PM)JagNGeorgia Wrote: Which part is incorrect?

1) Here's a former chairman of the FEC saying that these payments ARE campaign contributions.  https://www.newsweek.com/trump-lawyer-mi...els-860084  I don't know which former chairman you're citing.  In any case, what the former chairman says is simply a very informed opinion.  Legally, only what the current chairman, and current prosecutors and judges say matters, but the opinion of this former chairman helps us predict what the opinion of the current ones will be or should be.

2) We don't have good information on how many times Trump has been audited, or what was found.  Those are all private matters that can only be disclosed by Trump.

Bradley Smith.  I posted the article in this thread.  

Moreover step back and consider the logic.  It is not asserted that Michael Cohen accessed Trump's Campaign funds to arrange a payment.  It is asserted that he used his personal money and the position of the prosecutors is to reclassify that payment as a campaign EXPENSE to taint the transaction.  

The problem is, if that EXPENSE is in fact a bona fide campaign EXPENSE then Trump and Cohen could have used the money raised from campaign contributions instead of their OWN money.  

More importantly, the statute also requires specific intent to violate the law itself.  If a reasonable person, Bradley Smith quslifies, could have seen the payment as a personal or secondarily personal EXPENSE then that means there was no criminal intent even if the current FEC deemed the payments campaign contributions.  That's why this was a part of a grand plea agreement and not specifically these charges that are generally handled by the FEC with the possibility of a civil penalty not pre-Dawn raids.

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