Discussion: Trump's Lawyer Says He Paid Stormy Daniels Out Of His Own Pocket

great explanation of why Cohen, why now:

Bannonā€™s one move of genius was to understand that people wonā€™t fall for your substitute of a good news story over a bad one. His genius was to say ā€œIā€™ll give you a new, worse story with a human interest element - servers are boring, hereā€™s a porn starā€

from this thread;

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So that fabricated letter you gave the media claiming it was a sworn letter from Danielsā€¦ um

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Uh-huh, sure he did. But even if he did and especially if he wasnā€™t reimbursed, that doesnā€™t exclude this from being a campaign contribution. This is a textbook example of ignoratio elenchi.

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Is that a big roll of bills in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?

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missing an important nuance here. he doesnā€™t exactly say he gave her a personal check for 130k; rather says he used personal $ to ā€œfacilitateā€ the payment to her.

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No doubt Cohen will eagerly present his personal checking account records to authenticate his claim.

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I just took money that was paid to me for my services and used it as hush money. Was that wrong?

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So you agree that you made a contribution to the campaign above the FEC limits. How does the fact that it was not reimbursed make this legal. If anything it makes it illegal.

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Such a gut fraynd. What a guy!

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I guess you missed the Cooley Law School ethics course. Cohen got an Aā€”and Iā€™m sure it wasnā€™t from studying! wink

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Well, my goodness, I guess that settles it. 'Cause Michael Cohen is such a trustworthy guy. BTW, I wonder what he wrote on the ā€œmemoā€ line for the check ā€” ā€œfor services renderedā€?

Whatā€™s that? No check, it was a cash transaction? Ahhhhh, then thereā€™s nothing at all suspicious about it, is there?

But then how do we prove where the money came fromā€¦

Curiouser and curiouser.

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So it was part of the infrasructure plan?

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ā€œI was just feeling generous one day and said to myself, ā€˜Hey, I think Iā€™ll give $130,000 to a porn star.ā€™ā€

ā€œNeither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly,ā€ Cohen said.

How about Donald J.Trump, individually? Or his fake foundation? Or the Affair Pay-off Slush Fund, Inc.?

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So, if he wasnā€™t reimbursed, does he claim it was a business transaction, in which case did he file a form (1099?) and did Stormy report it as income? Or was it a gift, in which case the transfer tax responsibility would be his. Has he done whatever reporting and, if applicable, payment, was required? Or is this one of those ā€œIā€™ll just sit on it until it hits the papersā€ kinds of deals? The payment was in 2016, so filing deadlines have long since passed.

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You are right about the term ā€œfacilitateā€ and claiming that the Trump Campaign did not reimburse him leaves a whole universe of people who could have. You can bet he was reimbursed.

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Ok .
I just waiting for some pool reporter willing to risk getting banned from the press briefings to ask.
This is a payoff to a porn star to keep quiet about a tryst with Trump
What else is out there?
Who else is waiting to blackmail Trump?
How is this not worse than some of the of the scandals that have denied White House staffers security clearance?
Given his history of bankruptcies, fraud, infidelity, lying and ties to mobsters , how is it possible he has security clearance?

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He did make it out of his pocketā€¦ from his retainer.

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BOOM goes the dynamite. Itā€™s inconceivable to me how this [fill in the blank with your favorite invective] has a clearance.

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Can we, for a second, get back to the fact the Trump is a whore monger?

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