pacino wrote:the new thing is that everyone breaks the law and they're going after trump unfairly for it

thephan wrote:

pacino wrote:the new thing is that everyone breaks the law and they're going after trump unfairly for it

Sure, lets list some of that everyone:

- Mikey Cohen
- Paul Manafort
- Chris Collins
- Duncan Hunter

... and the beat goes on ...

thephan wrote:California says that its too late to get Hunters name off the ballot.

“Manchin even called Hillary warm, compassionate, engaging, tough ― can you believe that?” (WV candidate) Morrissey (at Trumps rally, er, campaign stop) asked.

The crowd immediately began repeating “Lock her up!”

pacino wrote:the new new thing is to get rid of rod rosenstein

If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!

The Crimson Cyclone wrote:he tweets!

If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!

that's pretty funny

I feel very badly for Paul Manafort and his wonderful family. “Justice” took a 12 year old tax case, among other things, applied tremendous pressure on him and, unlike Michael Cohen, he refused to “break” - make up stories in order to get a “deal.” Such respect for a brave man!

"I know that Mr. Cohen would never accept a pardon from a man that he considers to be both corrupt and a dangerous person in the oval office," [Lanny] Davis tells NPR's Rachel Martin, referring to the president later in the interview as a "criminal."

"And [Cohen] has flatly authorized me to say under no circumstances would he accept a pardon from Mr. Trump," Davis added, "who uses the pardon power in a way that no president in American history has ever used a pardon — to relieve people of guilt who committed crimes, who are political cronies of his."

“The plea, under oath, establishes that the president was a co-conspirator in the campaign violations to which Cohen pleaded guilty,” said Philip Allen Lacovara, who served as counsel to special prosecutors investigating President Richard M. Nixon’s role in the Watergate scandal.

A grand jury named Nixon an “unindicted co-conspirator,” and he later resigned in the face of mounting calls for his impeachment. Mr. Lacovara said Mr. Trump now also “is, technically, an unindicted co-conspirator.”

But under current Justice Department policy, Mr. Trump will not face prosecution at least until he leaves office.

A middle ground and second option urged by some legal experts is to allow prosecutors to obtain an indictment but defer further proceedings until the president leaves office.

The third option is impeachment, and prosecutors may present the evidence they have gathered to the House for its consideration.

Prosecutors in Manhattan, Mr. Lacovara said, “could seek permission from the deputy attorney general to do what we did in Watergate, which was to prepare a ‘road map’ of evidence bearing on the president’s culpability and send it to the House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over impeachment.”

Both the Manhattan prosecutors handling the Cohen case and Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating the Trump campaign’s ties with Russia, are bound by Justice Department policies banning the prosecution of sitting presidents.

The Supreme Court has never answered the question of whether sitting presidents can be prosecuted. The court did hear arguments on the issue in 1974 in a case in which it ordered Nixon to turn over tape recordings, but it did not resolve the matter.

The closest the Constitution has come to addressing the issue is in this passage, from Article I, Section 3: “Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States: But the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law.”

This much seems clear: The president and other federal officials may be prosecuted after they leave office.

...pfssssssss...

The payments began flowing in February 2017, soon after Trump took office, when Cohen approached Trump Organization executives seeking to be reimbursed for “election-related” expenses, prosecutors said.

That included a $130,000 payment Cohen had made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels so she would remain silent about an alleged affair with Trump, according to the court documents.

Trump executives decided Cohen should be paid more than he sought — an additional $360,000 for expenses and other fees and taxes, plus a $60,000 bonus, prosecutors said.

The involvement of Trump’s company in the hush-money payments has been previously reported, but Tuesday’s documents, released as part of Cohen’s plea deal with federal prosecutors, offered the most detailed accounting yet of the full scope of the payments and the machinations inside the president’s company over how they were made.

JUburton wrote:Didn't realize the new indicted congressman is the VAPING congressman. This is wonderful news. Also if dems can pick up a relatively safe R seat, that is wonderful too.

jerseyhoya wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:Rand Paul is a Russian stooge. I have no idea why this obvious fact isn't getting talked about more often. He's approaching Trump levels, just more quietly.

He's not a Russian stooge. He is, to use an old term linked to Russia, a useful idiot. Paul, like his father, walks the libertarian/paleocon line where he wants to be an isolationist and allow other nations to have their own spheres of influence. A world where we pull back from NATO and don't need to be involved in the middle east (never mind how many people are slaughtered or what the actual outcomes are) is a good one in his book. He does not want us sanctioning Russia because he thinks it is futile or ill advised for us to do so.

He's got a lot of overlap in his broad worldview with Mr. Trump. Both very much out of the mainstream of whatever the hell GOP foreign policy was supposed to be and still is largely with electeds, which is a) why the rare occasions when backbone appears v. Trump it is often on issues like this and b) why Rand is still a caucus of 1 in the Senate.