(08-22-2018, 04:27 PM)mikesez Wrote:

(08-22-2018, 01:59 PM)jj82284 Wrote: 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.

If you think that Cohen was intending to use his own money to defend his much more wealthy friend, and that friend wasn't either coercing him or promising to pay him back later, I have beachfront property in Arizona to sell you.