Grokmaster
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While the Fake News/Lying Left etc. are, once again, running around in a frothy-frenzy over the latest Witch Hunt "dog whistle", they are , once again, alse trying their favorite Liespeak Game: "Create a Crime".
You know, where they decide that the ACTUAL LAW is just a "suggestion", and they declare anything Pres.Trump has ever done, to be a "crime" such as looking into a real estate development in Russia, or, in this case, , making a perfectly legal payment to stop libelous tramps from messing with his marriage, etal.
A former FEC (as in " Federal Election Commission" ) chairman explained this MONTHS AGO, but the Fake News/Lying Left just cannot help themselves when The Grand Buffoon speaks:
Former FEC Chair: Trump Hush Money Unseemly, But Not Illegal
So, about all this hush money? Does anyone, excluding snobby Acela Corridor elites, really care about it? The claim is that these payments to allege mistresses to President Trump—affairs that allegedly occurred way before he was even thinking about running for president, were campaign finance violations. The plea deal by Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen kicked the impeachment talk into high gear this week. It’s not going anywhere. Well, for starters, you have former top Federal Election Commission officials saying the payments were “unseemly,” but not illegal. The law is murky on this subject—and just because Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, says it’s a violation doesn’t make it so. The porn star lawyer has been going on a tear, alleging this, that, and the other against the Trump administration for months. Nothing substantive has materialized. Wait—didn’t Cohen admit that these payments were directed by Trump? Maybe—but again—so what?
Former chair of the FEC, Bradley Smith, has more (via WaPo):
[I]…[R]egardless of what Cohen agreed to in a plea bargain, hush-money payments to mistresses are not really campaign expenditures. It is true that “contribution” and “expenditure” are defined in the Federal Election Campaign Act as anything “for the purpose of influencing any election,” and it may have been intended and hoped that paying hush money would serve that end. The problem is that almost anything a candidate does can be interpreted as intended to “influence an election,” from buying a good watch to make sure he gets to places on time, to getting a massage so that he feels fit for the campaign trail, to buying a new suit so that he looks good on a debate stage. Yet having campaign donors pay for personal luxuries — such as expensive watches, massages and Brooks Brothers suits — seems more like bribery than funding campaign speech.
That’s why another part of the statute defines “personal use” as any expenditure “used to fulfill any commitment, obligation, or expense of a person that would exist irrespective of the candidate’s election campaign.” These may not be paid with campaign funds, even though the candidate might benefit from the expenditure. Not every expense that might benefit a candidate is an obligation that exists solely because the person is a candidate.
Suppose, for example, that Trump had told his lawyers, “Look, these complaints about Trump University have no merit, but they embarrass me as a candidate. Get them settled.” Are the settlements thus “campaign expenses”? The obvious answer is no, even though the payments were intended to benefit Trump as a candidate.
If the opposite were true and they were considered campaign expenses, then not only could Trump pay them with campaign funds, but also he would be required to pay these business expenses from campaign funds. Is that what campaign donations are for?
[…]
Yes, those payments were unseemly, but unseemliness doesn’t make something illegal. At the very least, the law is murky about whether paying hush money to a mistress is a “campaign expense” or a personal expense. [/I]
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattv...-hush-money-unseemly-but-not-illegal-n2512451
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Getting popcorn and beverage for the upcoming DP Left comedy....
You know, where they decide that the ACTUAL LAW is just a "suggestion", and they declare anything Pres.Trump has ever done, to be a "crime" such as looking into a real estate development in Russia, or, in this case, , making a perfectly legal payment to stop libelous tramps from messing with his marriage, etal.
A former FEC (as in " Federal Election Commission" ) chairman explained this MONTHS AGO, but the Fake News/Lying Left just cannot help themselves when The Grand Buffoon speaks:
Former FEC Chair: Trump Hush Money Unseemly, But Not Illegal
So, about all this hush money? Does anyone, excluding snobby Acela Corridor elites, really care about it? The claim is that these payments to allege mistresses to President Trump—affairs that allegedly occurred way before he was even thinking about running for president, were campaign finance violations. The plea deal by Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen kicked the impeachment talk into high gear this week. It’s not going anywhere. Well, for starters, you have former top Federal Election Commission officials saying the payments were “unseemly,” but not illegal. The law is murky on this subject—and just because Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, says it’s a violation doesn’t make it so. The porn star lawyer has been going on a tear, alleging this, that, and the other against the Trump administration for months. Nothing substantive has materialized. Wait—didn’t Cohen admit that these payments were directed by Trump? Maybe—but again—so what?
Former chair of the FEC, Bradley Smith, has more (via WaPo):
[I]…[R]egardless of what Cohen agreed to in a plea bargain, hush-money payments to mistresses are not really campaign expenditures. It is true that “contribution” and “expenditure” are defined in the Federal Election Campaign Act as anything “for the purpose of influencing any election,” and it may have been intended and hoped that paying hush money would serve that end. The problem is that almost anything a candidate does can be interpreted as intended to “influence an election,” from buying a good watch to make sure he gets to places on time, to getting a massage so that he feels fit for the campaign trail, to buying a new suit so that he looks good on a debate stage. Yet having campaign donors pay for personal luxuries — such as expensive watches, massages and Brooks Brothers suits — seems more like bribery than funding campaign speech.
That’s why another part of the statute defines “personal use” as any expenditure “used to fulfill any commitment, obligation, or expense of a person that would exist irrespective of the candidate’s election campaign.” These may not be paid with campaign funds, even though the candidate might benefit from the expenditure. Not every expense that might benefit a candidate is an obligation that exists solely because the person is a candidate.
Suppose, for example, that Trump had told his lawyers, “Look, these complaints about Trump University have no merit, but they embarrass me as a candidate. Get them settled.” Are the settlements thus “campaign expenses”? The obvious answer is no, even though the payments were intended to benefit Trump as a candidate.
If the opposite were true and they were considered campaign expenses, then not only could Trump pay them with campaign funds, but also he would be required to pay these business expenses from campaign funds. Is that what campaign donations are for?
[…]
Yes, those payments were unseemly, but unseemliness doesn’t make something illegal. At the very least, the law is murky about whether paying hush money to a mistress is a “campaign expense” or a personal expense. [/I]
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattv...-hush-money-unseemly-but-not-illegal-n2512451
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Getting popcorn and beverage for the upcoming DP Left comedy....