The Trump Presidency - how I stopped worrying and learned to love the Hair

Show me your incontrovertible proof. Before you start incontrovertible means there is absolutely no possible way that data and scientists are not paid off/manipulated by the Chinese
Why's it gotta be the Chinese?
 
More importantly, why are we having this conversation?
 
I was responding to your comment that the only arguments you had heard were financial.
 
I was responding to your comment that the only arguments you had heard were financial.
That one was also largely economic, since he was going for the idea that Chinese are taking over as manufacturing super power by convincing rest of the world to stop
 
Sanders joked about bringing a lie detector to debate Trump.

He wouldn't even need a lie detector, just a photocopier that spits out "HE'S LYING" every time you push the button. Press it whenever Trump opens his noise-hole and it will be just as accurate as the real thing (and a lot cheaper).

Bring extra paper.
 
Like every other "bombshell" for the last 2 years, nothing is gonna come of this either. Its one thing if he was a credible witness, but he is clearly not. Paying off mistresses is never gonna bring down Trump, especially considering how the country is doing.

Trump has been a public figure for 40 years, there are probably thousands of pictures of him in friendly situations with famous black people. Everyone "liked" him before he ran for president. He allegedly "forcibly kissed" Alva Johnson... If he is a racist he is very bad at it....
 
Yeah, I remember, we have the opening remarks already. This isn't open for interpretation.

Like every other "bombshell" for the last 2 years, nothing is gonna come of this either. Its one thing if he was a credible witness, but he is clearly not. Paying off mistresses is never gonna bring down Trump, especially considering how the country is doing.

Trump has been a public figure for 40 years, there are probably thousands of pictures of him in friendly situations with famous black people. Everyone "liked" him before he ran for president. He allegedly "forcibly kissed" Alva Johnson... If he is a racist he is very bad at it....
Trump and his supporters are going after his credibility as a "convicted liar". The lie he was convicted of telling was "Trump did nothing wrong."

Maybe not the best strategy
 
The thing about Cohen that puts me off is that the campaign finance violation he is pleading guilty to is extremely weak. If you go by precedent, the chances he would be found guilty in a court of law is almost zero. He could easily make the case that paying hush money to protect his client's image is a regular thing with Trump, and I doubt anyone would argue with that.

So why would he plead guilty and walk into a jail cell without a fight?

Probably because they have some much more serious dirt on him. A much more serious case with a much worse punishment, should they decide to prosecute him. But it must not be something that implicates Trump, otherwise they would just go with that. So instead they offer Cohen a deal, where he pleads guilty to campaign finance violations, since that will also make Trump look guilty even though it's unlikely he will be charged with anything, since the evidence is so weak.

And now we have Cohen going before congress to fulfill his plea deal by making accusations against Trump, to make him look guilty of stuff, but without providing any evidence of anything, which will result in nothing but an attack on Trump's image, which seems to be the entire point of this circus from day 1.
 
Even if paying people off is a "regular thing" for Trump, in this context it's illegal - so that's not helping Trump's defense. It's like saying, "no officer, it's cool, I sell drugs all the time." He's pleading guilty to this because they have him dead to rights on something bigger, but they're not interested in him, they're going after Trump; it's Investigation 101. It's not about making Trump look guilty, this is Cohen being called on the carpet before Congress because he lied to them last time, Muller already has what he needs from Cohen, I'm sure he would rather Cohen not testify before Congress and potentially spill what he told Muller.

The plea deal wasn't to make accusations against Trump, it was to cooperate with the investigation. He broke that plea deal and now he's going to jail. This is no longer about his plea deal.
 
Even if paying people off is a "regular thing" for Trump, in this context it's illegal - so that's not helping Trump's defense. It's like saying, "no officer, it's cool, I sell drugs all the time."
Except that there is nothing illegal about paying hush money. It only becomes illegal in the context of running a campaign for public office due to campaign finance laws. But if what you're doing is a regular thing, something you have a history of doing that goes beyond public office, then that becomes a different story. This is actually written into the law, iirc.

For example, you cannot accuse your political opponent of campaign finance violation for spending their own money on a tailored Armani suit, if buying tailored Armani suits is a regular normal thing for your political opponent to do. It has to be something out of the ordinary, something unique that they are doing because of the campaign, but are not reporting as a campaign expenditure.

At least that is my understanding of it.
 
That's only true if you are using your own money and it isn't related to the campaign. This was clearly something Trump didn't care about until his campaign started; it was only then that he wanted this problem "fixed". Either way, this is just one tiny facet of a much bigger investigation.
 
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