Not comparing the reasons, but Obama was fined $375,000 for election fund violations.

He broke the rules.
And then paid the fine from election funds, plus what the DNC kicked in.

Nobody talked about impeaching him for it.

Not even the so-called racists who dared to criticize him.

So I'm curious how election fund violations are suddenly an impeachable offense.

tailgater wrote:

There was another person involved...Mr. Pecker... and his AMI corp. was involved in the scheme, according to docs filed by SDNY...

both Pecker and Cohen have said Trump met with them to discuss how to pay to keep the stories about the mistresses out of the news in effort to influence the election...that's what separates this from other cases of campaign finance violations...

They told the prosecutors at SDNY they all came up with a scheme to create an LLC to launder the money for AMI, who would pay the girl, create an NDA with alias/monikers, pay the LLC/ Cohen back for paying one of the girls using campaign funds...not sure if I got this right, but I'm sure the SDNY has a pretty good idea of the full picture, since they have Cohen and Pecker and the check-writer, Trump's CFO Weisselberg, cooperating...

The interesting part is whether the DOJ opinion about not indicting a sitting President will be observed here...

delta1 wrote:

I was trying to be funny to call attention to another day in the saga of Trump...but only infuriated the cons who say I'm being zealous...

I'm just reporting the news on Trump, and have let a bunch of stuff go without comment...

delta1 wrote:

I read a good analysis of this somewhere... Can't remember where.

Comes down to intent.

If you don't record the funding from certain locations properly because you have a national organization whipped together over the past 2 years with a ton of volunteers and others who aren't primarily focused on it... You get a fine.

If you have a meeting with your lawyer regarding the best way to pay off your hooker without it being noticed by anyone and using money from your campaign fund... Then to government is a bit more interested.

The first case apparently happens with just about every presidential campaign. Not so much the second.

victor809 wrote:

well, you are comparing it. so...

There are zillions of campaign finance offenses due to an insane amount of complicated requirements.
98.2% fall under the stuff Dersch and Rand Paul have addressed...failure to fill in line 14c, etc.

Let's wait on lumping in Trump's situation. It's not related to Joe Tailgater sending in $25 and it was reported incorrectly.
It may come out in the wash, but no one has quite enough info yet to decide. We have the exchange of two documented liars (Cohen and Trump) and the rest is in the real documenting and filing.

I'll wait for the truth.

frankj1 wrote:

Wow.
I thought on this one issue that you'd actually fall on the side of Trump.

Hush money to a whore is no true threat to America.
"unreported" funding is an obvious tactic to hide illegal funding.
VERY obvious.

So if we're being honest, then what Obama (and virtually all before him) did is far worse.

Sure, we can hide behind legal wording and "intent" and all the other loopholes.
But if we remove the names Trump and Obama, we're left with:
A. Using campaign funds as hush money from a whore.
B. Hiding the source of campaign funding.

One is embarrassing. The other is dangerous.

tailgater wrote:

I'm curious how election fund violations are suddenly an impeachable offense.

tailgater wrote:

I see nothing in your post related to what I wrote at all. Absolutely nothing, makes me think you replied to the wrong post!

I did not fall on the side of anyone, I specifically said I'd wait for the truth.

Didn't you recently tell me to not use quotation marks when paraphrasing? I never used nor did I imply any of the words you "quoted". Not even a paraphrase of my post.

You have missed my point.

I'll break it down...

My initial remarks bemoan the silly complicated reporting that the campaign finance laws require. It's ridiculous.
This results in many unintended violations that were not meant to deceive...as pointed out by Derschowitz and Paul. Harmless accounting errors, no evil math genius maneuvers...98.2% of the violations are due to this stupidity.

Then I said an improperly reported donation (line 14c, or d, or e, et al!) by you should not be equated to criminal intent...a phrase that does, in fact, have serious meaning.

Finally, I stated we should wait to find out what may or may not have actually transpired here. We need to know the source of the money paid to hush the "whores" and the intent of said payoffs...threats to America is not the standard of proof here.

But even you might end up saying "Wow!" if it is obviously intentional deceit.

So far in our history, the violations of Obama and those before (and since) his campaign fund violations have been limited to filing errors/clerical missteps (skipping that rascally line 14b, eg), not intentional deceit. Many have been found guilty of filing mistakes and paid fines...like Obama's campaign. No one hurt, no personal gain, no harm/no foul so to speak.

My final point was that perhaps this will also come under that type of mistake as well. Or not.

Let us be patient.

Hardly the stuff of partisanship...unlike your repetitive protective reaction...in this case for no reason.

Relax. No one knows yet.
Talk about TDS!

frankj1 wrote:

One could argue that intentionally hiding payments to prostitutes would constitute a much higher threat to america than any other campaign finance issue.

victor809 wrote:

The quotation marks were to emphasize the words. I wasn't quoting you, which should have been obvious.

But when you say things like "It's not related to Joe Tailgater sending in $25 and it was reported incorrectly." (yes, I quoted you) and follow up with "We have the exchange of two documented liars (Cohen and Trump)...." You're clearly implying that something even worse is happening.
Dressing it up with "I'll wait for the truth" feels disingenuous.
Because if we've learned anything over the past two years it's that the Trump haters are going for the kill, and if they don't get it with today's news then they'll jump on the next "outrage" du juor.
From the Dossier, to Russia, to campaign funding, it's obvious that many are just sitting around salivating waiting for something to stick.

We saw it with the Ken Starr investigation when the Whitewater land deal morphed into fat intern sex.
I'm willing to be patient and wait for the truth (as you say), but I'm afraid that if today's "crimes" don't stick then we'll just be onto the next something-shiny.

Not entirely sure how your misuse of TDS got interjected there.
You keep using that term. I don't think it means what you think it means.

tailgater wrote: