***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[elpablo21]

 

[Belgium]

Im glad you in better health

Whats crazy is that their is something worse that black lung for miners

Black lung from coal
Crystalized lung from silica dust


This is where automation should come into play. People dont deserve this

And equally important, good healthcare with strong protections for pre-existing conditions.

My lung surgery was a bit of an unexpected emergency and I appeared to be in perfect health otherwise so I only had our basic universal coverage rate, no supplementary private insurance at the time.
It does cover a good amount but I still had to pay the hospital around €4400, which I didn't have at the time. Looking back at it, €4400 for the level of care I got was pretty cheap.

I imagine in the US you can probably multiply that cost by at least a dozen. The hospital kept an emergency team on standby for 1-2 days, including a top surgeon from a different hospital, while they recalled an even better surgeon from an international conference to do the surgery. He was arguably the top lung surgeon in the country for my specific condition and actually invented the surgery method that was used on me. The surgery took a little over 4 hours but was very successful. I stayed in the hospital for about 5 days in total. For most of that time the doctors gave me tons of painkillers, including an epidural morphine pump, an IV bag with Tramadol, 2 injections of Dipidolor per day, briefly an opioid called "sufenta" that was several hundred times more potent than morphine, anti-emetics, ...
I was also CT-scanned every day, as well as getting rushed into some other scan I'm struggling to recall. My right arm was briefly paralyzed but it turned out I just wiggled a bit too much during my sleep and my epidural got shifted.

After that surgery bill I wasn't about to take any more chances and opted for supplementary private insurance to cover virtually all my medical expenses. I ended up becoming chronically ill from a separate condition towards the end of my recovery from the lung surgery so I have since upgraded the private insurance to 100% coverage for the most significant expenses.

I'm going to physical rehabilitation twice a week now at my local hospital and pay around €2,16 per session. Each one lasts a little under 2 hours usually.

Throughout the entire time I never really had to jump any hurdles or anything to change and upgrade my insurance as I see fit.
You're mandated to be a part of a "health union", which is the public universal healthcare system, but in addition to that you have a very wide range of supplementary private insurance options.
The public insurance provides good coverage for a very wide range of basic medical costs, for example it reduces the cost of a visit to your general physician/family doctor (not sure how y'all call it) from €24 to €1, but for larger expenses like surgeries, hospital stays, frequent specialist appointments, ... it's best to just supplement it with private insurance.

 

[gry60]

Putin won this round, especially with the US pulling out of Syria.

We are signaling that Russia can do as it wishes there.

 

[blastercombo]

Im glad you in better health

Whats crazy is that their is something worse that black lung for miners

Black lung from coal
Crystalized lung from silica dust


This is where automation should come into play. People dont deserve this

Those people voted FOR IT. Oh well

 

[the qbz]

Those people voted FOR IT. Oh well

Yep and some still support those lawmaker


Like cmon son your dying ...2018 and your getting crystalized lungs..no foreseeable cure

For me as a husband and father, these men support of republicans is selfish . their families need them to be alive.

 

[elpablo21]

bless that vm with beautiful messages coal brehs

 

[whywesteppin]

bless that vm with beautiful messages coal brehs

I'm not just going to "tell" him thank you, I'm gonna sing it to him.

Thought we'd end up with John Kasich
But he wasn't a match
Wrote some posts praising Rubio
Now I look at him and laugh
Even almost got Bernie'd
And for Hillary, I'm so thankful
Wish I could say, "Thank you" to Comey

'Cause Obama was a Bummer
He wrecked the economy
He ruined our nation
And he taught me pain
Now, USA's so amazing
I've voted and she lost
But that's not what I glee
TRUMP IS WHAT I GOT
Look at the econo-me
And for that, I say

Thank you, Trump (Trump)
Thank you, coal (coal)
Thank you, silicon
I'm so ****in' grateful for my guns
Thank you, Trump (Trump)
Thank you, coal (coal)
Thank you, silicon
I'm so ****in'

 

[boris]

bless that vm with beautiful messages coal brehs

Demanding praise is totally the sign of a good brain and healthy mind.

 

[blastercombo]

bless that vm with beautiful messages coal brehs

Picked the most racist looking, NRA life time member possible

 

[Mark Antony]

I'm not just going to "tell" him thank you, I'm gonna sing it to him.

Thought we'd end up with John Kasich
But he wasn't a match
Wrote some posts praising Rubio
Now I look at him and laugh
Even almost got Bernie'd
And for Hillary, I'm so thankful
Wish I could say, "Thank you" to Comey

'Cause Obama was a Bummer
He wrecked the economy
He ruined our nation
And he taught me pain
Now, USA's so amazing
I've voted and she lost
But that's not what I glee
TRUMP IS WHAT I GOT
Look at the econo-me
And for that, I say

Thank you, Trump (Trump)
Thank you, coal (coal)
Thank you, silicon
I'm so ****in' grateful for my guns
Thank you, Trump (Trump)
Thank you, coal (coal)
Thank you, silicon
I'm so ****in'

May as well call him daddy.

 

[Belgium]

House Republicans have previously shut down all Democratic motions to share any transcripts with the Special Counsel, including Stone's testimony. Mueller is now seeking an official copy. Schiff will do it anyway in January so there's not much point in them delaying.

Excerpt:
For weeks, the special counsel’s office has had access to an unofficial copy of Stone’s closed-door September 2017 interview, according to people with knowledge of the process. Mueller’s request of the official copy signals the special counsel could now be pursuing an indictment, several legal experts said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c8bcb8b9bcc8
Mueller seeks Roger Stone’s testimony to House intelligence panel, suggesting special counsel is near end of probe of Trump adviser
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III asked the House Intelligence Committee on Friday for an official transcript of Trump adviser Roger Stone’s testimony, according to people familiar with the request, a sign that prosecutors could be moving to charge him with a crime.

It is the first time Mueller has formally asked the committee to turn over material the panel has gathered in its investigation of Russian interference of the 2016 campaign, according to the people.

The move suggests that the special counsel is moving to finalize his months-long investigation of Stone — a key part of Mueller’s inquiry into whether anyone in President Trump’s orbit coordinated with the Russians.

Stone, who has advised Trump on and off for decades and was in contact with the candidate during the 2016 campaign, has been a focus of the special counsel as Mueller probes whether the Trump campaign had advance knowledge of WikiLeaks’s release of Democratic emails allegedly hacked by Russian operatives.

Securing an official transcript from the committee would be a necessary step before pursuing an indictment that Stone allegedly lied to lawmakers, legal experts said.

The special counsel could use the threat of a false-statement charge to seek cooperation from Stone, as Mueller has done with other Trump advisers, such as former national security adviser Michael Flynn and longtime Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.

It is unclear what aspect of Stone’s testimony Mueller is scrutinizing. But Stone has given conflicting accounts about what prompted him to accurately predict during the 2016 race that WikiLeaks was going to unleash material that would hurt Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

In an interview Wednesday, Stone said he had not been notified of Mueller’s request. But he said he is confident that the transcript of his testimony will not provide the special counsel with grounds to charge him.

“I don’t think any reasonable attorney who looks at it would conclude that I committed perjury, which requires intent and materiality,” Stone said.

For weeks, the special counsel’s office has had access to an unofficial copy of Stone’s closed-door September 2017 interview, according to people with knowledge of the process. Mueller’s request of the official copy signals the special counsel could now be pursuing an indictment, several legal experts said.

“That suggests prosecutors are getting ready to bring a charge,” said former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner. “Prosecutors can’t bring a charge without an original certified copy of the transcript that shows the witness lied.”

The House Intelligence Committee, which has provided testimony of its witnesses to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for a declassification review, has not yet turned over the official Stone transcript to Mueller, according to the people with knowledge of the situation.

The committee is expected to discuss the topic at a closed-door business session scheduled for Thursday, according to one person familiar with committee plans. An agenda for the meeting posted online shows the panel’s first item to consider is the “Transmission of Certain Executive Session Materials to the Executive Branch.”

The committee’s incoming chairman, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), who takes over from Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) next month, has made it clear that he believes the committee should provide the special counsel with the Stone document.

“I believe that there’s ample reason to be concerned about his truthfulness,” Schiff said Sunday on NBC News’s “Meet the Press.” “And I do think that with respect to Mr. Stone, and perhaps others, the special counsel is in a better position to determine the truth or falsity of that testimony, and that we ought to provide it to the special counsel.”

A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment. A spokesman for Schiff declined to comment. A spokesman for Nunes did not respond to requests for comment.

Stone accused House Democrats of “attempting to play frivolous word games, and hairsplitting about semantics over nonmaterial matters.”

“This has devolved into gotcha word games, perjury traps and trumped-up process crimes,” he said Wednesday. “I think people can see through the political motivations behind this.”

Stone added: “Where is the evidence of Russian collusion or WikiLeaks collaboration?”

Mueller has spent months investigating whether Stone knew of WikiLeaks’s plan to release hacked Democratic emails in advance of the November 2016 election and whether he lied to Congress about his knowledge and his contacts with the group. In July, the special counsel charged a group of Russian intelligence officers with hacking the emails and providing them to WikiLeaks.

Stone, who boasted during the race that he was in touch with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, has said since that his past comments were exaggerated or misunderstood. Both he and WikiLeaks have adamantly denied they were in contact.

Several weeks ago, the House Intelligence Committee provided transcripts of its interviews with Stone and more than 50 other individuals to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is conducting a declassification review before they are released publicly, according to congressional officials.

As part of that review, ODNI shares copies of the transcripts with other agencies, including the special counsel’s office, that might have an interest in protecting information in the interviews, officials said.

However, because the Stone interview was conducted in executive session, the transcript officially belongs to the committee and may not be released unless authorized by the committee, according to its rules.

In general, if prosecutors want to bring a charge of lying to investigators, they must obtain a certified “clean” copy from the transcriber or clerk who took the statement to present as an exhibit to a grand jury, legal experts said.

Charges of lying to Congress are relatively rare. But last month, Cohen pleaded guilty to such a charge as part of the special counsel probe.

Stone released written testimony he provided the House Intelligence Committee before his September 2017 interview, in which he wrote that he had no “advanced knowledge of the source or actual content of the WikiLeaks disclosures regarding Hillary Clinton.”

He told the panel that he based some of his predictions on public information and tips from associates. He also said that he had an intermediary who provided him with information about WikiLeaks — but refused to name the person, indicating the person was a journalist with whom he had spoken off the record.

Shortly after his closed-door appearance, Stone wrote a letter to the committee saying he learned about WikiLeaks’s planned release from Randy Credico, a New York comedian who had interviewed Assange and is a longtime friend of New York attorney Margaret Ratner Kunstler, who has represented WikiLeaks.

Credico has repeatedly denied passing any information from WikiLeaks to Stone. He said he may have speculated about the group’s tactics with Stone.

In recent weeks, Mueller’s prosecutors have been focused on another Stone associate who alerted him to an upcoming WikiLeaks release in 2016: conservative writer Jerome Corsi.

In an Aug. 2, 2016, email, Corsi wrote to Stone that the group planned to disclose emails that October that would embarrass Clinton, according to charging documents drafted by Mueller’s team and provided to The Washington Post.

“Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps,” Corsi wrote in the email quoted in the draft document, referring to Assange, who has been living in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London since 2012. “One shortly after I’m back. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging.”

Corsi, who rejected a plea offer from the special counsel, said the email was based on his speculation of what WikiLeaks might be planning, not any inside knowledge.

The day after receiving the message from Corsi, Stone has said, he spoke with Trump by phone.

Stone has said he never discussed WikiLeaks or hacked emails with Trump. “Unless Mueller has tape recordings of the phone calls, what would that prove?” he told The Post last month.

“The emails prove nothing,” Stone added, “other than like every other politico and political reporter in America, I was curious to know what it was that WikiLeaks had.”

Both Trump and Stone have decried the Mueller investigation as a “political witch hunt,” and Stone has said Mueller is applying intense pressure on his associates as a way of punishing him for supporting the president.

Over the past several months, Mueller’s investigators have interviewed a dozen Stone friends and associates, focusing on individuals who discussed WikiLeaks with Stone before to the election. Some have provided testimony and records that contradict Stone’s claims.

Charles Ortel, a Wall Street analyst and conservative writer, told The Post that he was interviewed in New York last week by two FBI agents who asked about his 2016 contacts with Stone, Corsi and Credico.

Ortel said the agents were interested in an email from then-Fox News reporter James Rosen that Ortel forwarded to Stone on July 25, 2016. In it, Rosen wrote, “Am told WikiLeaks will be doing a massive dump of HRC emails relating to the CF in September,” referring to Clinton and her family foundation.

Ortel declined to disclose the full details of his FBI interview but told The Post that he did not know where Rosen had gotten his information about WikiLeaks’s plans.

Rosen, who no longer works at Fox News, has repeatedly declined to comment.

In written questions posed to the president earlier this year, Mueller sought information from Trump about his interactions with Stone and whether they discussed WikiLeaks.

According to people familiar with Trump’s responses, the president said he had no prior knowledge of what the group was going to do and that Stone did not tell him about WikiLeaks’s plans.

In recent days, however, Trump attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani was less definitive.

“Did Roger Stone ever give the president a heads-up on WikiLeaks’s leaks concerning Hillary Clinton and the DNC?” ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos asked him Sunday.

“No, I don’t believe so,” Giuliani said. “But again, if Roger Stone gave anybody a heads-up about WikiLeaks’s leaks, that’s not a crime . . . collusion is not a crime.”

 

[Belgium]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...sanctions-for-election-meddling-idUSKCN1OI27F
U.S. imposes fresh Russia sanctions for election meddling
The United States imposed fresh Russia-related sanctions on Wednesday, expanding a blacklist of individuals allegedly involved in a Kremlin-backed campaign to meddle with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, among other misdeeds.

The U.S. Treasury Department twinned that development with an announcement that it would lift sanctions on major aluminum company Rusal and two other firms tied to Oleg Deripaska after a deal was struck to sever the Russian oligarch’s control over them.

Deripaska himself will remain under sanctions, Treasury said.

The fresh sanctions targeted 15 members of a Russian military intelligence service and four entities involved in the alleged election interference, the hacking of the World Anti-Doping Agency and other “malign activities” around the world, the Treasury said in a statement on its website.

The action, which followed sanctions in April on Deripaska and six other oligarchs, were “in response to Russia’s continued disregard for international norms,” the statement from Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said.

The move also comes on the heels of U.S. President Donald Trump’s signing of an executive order in September to impose sanctions on any country or person that tries to interfere in U.S. elections. Trump issued the order amid criticism over his handling of Russian election meddling.


“The administration hasn’t taken its eye off the Russian intelligence service and the role they play in malign activities around the world,” said Michael Dobson, who worked on sanctions policy toward Russia at OFAC and is now at the Morrison & Foerster law firm. “I think it’s definitely a strong action.”

The sanctioned individuals include several intelligence officers who were allegedly engaged in the hacking of Democratic Party officials and in campaigns to sow discord over social media with the aim of disrupting U.S. elections.

The list includes Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova, who was charged in October in Virginia for attempting to interfere in the 2018 U.S. midterm elections, and who has been named in court papers as the accountant for a collection of Russian companies indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller earlier this year.

Treasury also singled out Victor Boyarkin for his ties to Deripaska. Boyarkin is a former intelligence officer who reports directly to Deripaska and helped provide “Russian financial support” to a Montenegrin political party ahead of elections in Montenegro in 2016, Treasury’s statement said.

The Treasury sanctioned several individuals for their alleged roles in the hacking of the World Anti-Doping Agency, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and other organizations between 2016 and 2018.

It also sanctioned two Russian intelligence officers, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, for their alleged role in the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury in March.

 

[blastercombo]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...sanctions-for-election-meddling-idUSKCN1OI27F
U.S. imposes fresh Russia sanctions for election meddling
The United States imposed fresh Russia-related sanctions on Wednesday, expanding a blacklist of individuals allegedly involved in a Kremlin-backed campaign to meddle with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, among other misdeeds.

The U.S. Treasury Department twinned that development with an announcement that it would lift sanctions on major aluminum company Rusal and two other firms tied to Oleg Deripaska after a deal was struck to sever the Russian oligarch’s control over them.

Deripaska himself will remain under sanctions, Treasury said.

I was told this meddling never happened and that if it did happen it’s not even bad .....?

 

[elpablo21]

 

[Sharpshoeter13]

Van Jones be like

 

[Brownstone]

Interesting article, and thank you for posting.

A comment and a question.

That graph in the article that depicts the exponential growth in state prisons vs the sustained growth in Federal is striking. I can almost guarantee that only a few states account for that exponential growth. Ahem the south.....

Now for the question, I get that reform was directed at federal prison terms, but don't most state appeals roll up to the federal system? That would lead to a much wider affect than the article claims.

 

[elpablo21]

Interesting article, and thank you for posting.

A comment and a question.

That graph in the article that depicts the exponential growth in state prisons vs the sustained growth in Federal is striking. I can almost guarantee that only a few states account for that exponential growth. Ahem the south.....

Now for the question, I get that reform was directed at federal prison terms, but don't most state appeals roll up to the federal system? That would lead to a much wider affect than the article claims.

Good question

Only thing I've seen mentioned state prisoners in a federal capacity is this summary of the bill does mention state offenders housed in federal prisons are excluded from earning time credits but not sure exactly how the appeals process will work through the federal system

Summary: HR 5682, FIRST STEP Act - ...
PDF

https://famm.org

Edit: shortened link to the summary from Famm
https://bit.ly/2LpPPlN

 

[iDon’tRead]

I'm not sure how comparable this is, if at all, but when I had half of my right lung removed in surgery in late 2013 it was god awful for a year or so. To be clear the rest of my lungs worked fine.
I essentially had to talk like this for several weeks: "Hi.....how....are....you?"
Couldn’t really say more than 2 words without breaks for a while.

Speech improved at a decent rate but activity was very tough for a solid year. Walking up/down my stairway had me out of breath like I just gave it my all on a lengthy sprint.
I imagine cutting my yard would have taken a similar time if I did so at the time.

Thankfully my right lung fully regenerated itself by now and my lung capacity is back to above average. The only remaining side effect I suppose is that my voice still sounds quite different and some unrelated lasting effects from the narcosis.

But the initial struggle after the surgery was truly awful and not something I’d wish on anyone.
The black lung folks have it much much worse and unlike my case it’s not simply going to cure itself.

Read that in Stevie from Malcolm In the middle voice

 

[Belgium]

 

[Belgium]

https://thehill.com/homenews/admini...-ross-didnt-divest-from-stocks-document-finds
Ross didn't divest from all stocks when he said he would
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross still owns stocks that he has twice stated in sworn testimony he divested from, according to a financial disclosure obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.

Ross submitted disclosure reports to federal ethics watchdogs in May 2017 and last August saying he had divested from certain stocks, according to the ethics watchdog. However, Ross’ federal filing shows that he did not sell his stock in BankUnited, which was valued at up to $15,000, until October.

Ross acknowledged in the October filing he had indeed reported in the past that he had sold the stock, but had done so “based on a mistaken belief that the agent executed my sell order on that date.”

Ross’s original federal ethics agreement mandated he divest from stocks representing conflicts of interest, including BankUnited, within 90 days of his Senate confirmation.

But the commerce secretary also previously failed to divest in a timely manner from his stocks in Invesco Ltd., which was valued at up to $50 million, Sun Bancorp Inc., the Greenbrier Companies Inc. and Air Lease Corp, according to the Center for Public Integrity.

David Apol, the acting head of the Office of Government Ethics, sent Ross a stern letter in July admonishing him for disclosures saying he had divested from stocks that he still owned.

“You have advised both OGE and your DAEO that the various omissions and inaccuracies on your part were inadvertent, 5 and we have no information to contradict that assertion.Unfortunately, even inadvertent errors regarding compliance with your ethical obligations can undermine public trust in both you and the overall ethics program. Furthermore, your actions, including your continued ownership of assets required to be divested in your Ethics Agreement and your opening of short sale positions, could have placed you in a position to run afoul of the primary criminal conflict of interest law,” he wrote.

Ross responded that he had made “inadvertent errors in completing the divestitures required by my ethics agreement.” He promised to sell off stocks at that point.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to the Justice Department in July asking it to investigate Ross’s disclosures. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) also asked the Commerce Department inspector general to assess if Ross ran afoul of conflict of interest laws.

 

[Wargames]

Evil is the only way to describe this administration.

Only way to describe the leadership of a whole political party if you ask me.

 

[Belgium]

And as he told everyone, Trump not only has one of the best brains out there in all of history but he also has one of the greatest memories of all time.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-...nowledge-of-campaign-finance-laws-11545257201
Trump Testimony From Decades Ago Indicates Knowledge of Campaign-Finance Laws
Legal experts say that could be critical if investigators pursue a case over hush-money payments to women in the 2016 campaign

Mr. Trump’s statements were made as part of a 2000 regulatory investigation into his casino company and in 1988 testimony for a government-integrity commission. They contrast with the portrayal by some of the president’s allies that he is a political novice with little understanding of campaign-finance laws and therefore couldn’t be charged with violating them.

In 2000, the Federal Election Commission investigated allegations that Trump Hotels & Casinos violated the law related to a fundraising event for a Senate candidate. Mr. Trump’s sworn affidavit “indicates that Trump had a very thorough understanding of federal campaign finance law, especially regarding what he could and could not legally do when raising money for a federal candidate,” said Brett Kappel, an election-law lawyer at Akerman LLP.

In the four-page affidavit that Mr. Trump signed, he stressed he had a particular familiarity with laws governing corporate contributions to candidates. Mr. Trump said he was acting in his “individual,” not corporate, capacity when he hosted the event, that he had paid for the reception costs “from my personal funds,” that he “took no action, of any nature, kind or description, to compel or pressure” any employee to donate to the campaign ahead of the event and that he wasn’t reimbursed for any of the costs.

The FEC decided to take no action against the company.

In December, federal prosecutors in New York directly implicated the president in campaign-finance violations to which his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, has pleaded guilty, confirming earlier reporting by The Wall Street Journal. During the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump directed Mr. Cohen to arrange hush-money payments for two women who alleged having sexual affairs with Mr. Trump, prosecutors said.

To obtain a conviction of violating campaign-finance law, prosecutors would have to prove Mr. Trump knew the rules and violated them willfully. Allies of Mr. Trump have contend that wasn’t the case.

Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for Mr. Trump who has previously argued that the president had limited understanding of campaign-finance laws, said in an interview Wednesday that “whether or not the president had detailed knowledge of campaign-finance law” the hush-money payments for which Mr. Cohen was charged didn’t break the law. But, he added of Mr. Trump: “Honestly, I don’t think his knowledge goes that deep because mine didn’t until I researched it.”

Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal attorney, was sentenced to three years in prison. In court, he said his blind loyalty to President Trump led him “to take a path of darkness.”

It isn’t known whether or how prosecutors would pursue a case against Mr. Trump. Under Justice Department policy, a sitting president can’t be indicted. But prosecutors could refer their findings to Congress or seek to indict Mr. Trump after he leaves office.

Mr. Trump’s previous statements testifying to his knowledge of campaign-finance laws could help prosecutors clear the hurdle of proving Mr. Trump willfully broke the law, election-law experts said.

Any evidence showing “his sophistication in matters of campaign finance would be valuable and probative evidence” in any inquiry into whether Mr. Trump knew enough about the law to understand the hush-money payments were illegal, said Richard Hasen, a professor at University of California, Irvine, who specializes in election law.

Mr. Cohen last week was sentenced to three years in prison for crimes including campaign-finance violations involving the hush-money payments in which he implicated the president. One of those payments, for $150,000 to a former Playboy model, was paid by American Media Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer.

Mr. Trump has denied having sex with the two women.

American Media, which signed a nonprosecution agreement with federal prosecutors, said it made the payment to the former model to help Mr. Trump’s campaign.

Prosecutors have said the American Media payment amounted to an in-kind contribution to a campaign, which is made when supporters coordinate with a campaign to spend money that benefits the candidate. Federal law bars companies from making such contributions.

Mr. Giuliani, asked in an interview last week if Mr. Trump had known that directing a hush-money payment by an outside corporation during the election would have been illegal, suggested he didn’t. He blamed Mr. Cohen, saying a “real lawyer rather than this jerk” would have told Mr. Trump that was the case.

Mr. Trump faced similar allegations of accepting corporate contributions years before he sought American Media’s help to suppress stories that could damage his campaign. In 2011, he was accused of violating federal election law in a previous exploration of a presidential run by accepting illegal in-kind contributions from his business, the Trump Organization.

Cleta Mitchell, a partner at Foley & Lardner who represented Mr. Trump in the 2011 FEC case, said the 2000 case largely dealt with different regulations than those prosecutors said were violated in the campaign-finance case against Mr. Cohen.

"I don’t know how anything in that old matter could be used to show much of anything regarding the whole Cohen payment matter,” Ms. Mitchell said of the 2000 case.

Mr. Trump has been involved with campaign finance issues for decades, donating to candidates as a real-estate developer, extending them loans and hosting fundraisers for them, according to federal and state campaign finance records and testimony he gave in 1988 to the New York State Commission on Government Integrity.

In that testimony, Mr. Trump demonstrated an awareness of the federal contribution limits at the time and spoke at length about his views on campaign finance.

“I have gone through federal campaigns, and frankly it’s the best thing that ever happened to me because you’re limited to a thousand-dollar contribution,” he said.

But Mr. Trump also said he felt restrictions on contributions damaged the political system, saying some lawmakers “spend their entire tenure trying to raise money, with a thousand dollar limit.”

He called for donations to be disclosed with greater frequency and criticized moves to limit contribution amounts further. “It may have the effect of making a certain person dishonest, because he is so intent on winning an election,” Mr. Trump said in his 1988 testimony.

 

[elpablo21]

And as he told everyone, Trump not only has one of the best brains out there in all of history but he also has one of the greatest memories of all time.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-...nowledge-of-campaign-finance-laws-11545257201
Trump Testimony From Decades Ago Indicates Knowledge of Campaign-Finance Laws
Legal experts say that could be critical if investigators pursue a case over hush-money payments to women in the 2016 campaign

Mr. Trump’s statements were made as part of a 2000 regulatory investigation into his casino company and in 1988 testimony for a government-integrity commission. They contrast with the portrayal by some of the president’s allies that he is a political novice with little understanding of campaign-finance laws and therefore couldn’t be charged with violating them.

In 2000, the Federal Election Commission investigated allegations that Trump Hotels & Casinos violated the law related to a fundraising event for a Senate candidate. Mr. Trump’s sworn affidavit “indicates that Trump had a very thorough understanding of federal campaign finance law, especially regarding what he could and could not legally do when raising money for a federal candidate,” said Brett Kappel, an election-law lawyer at Akerman LLP.

In the four-page affidavit that Mr. Trump signed, he stressed he had a particular familiarity with laws governing corporate contributions to candidates. Mr. Trump said he was acting in his “individual,” not corporate, capacity when he hosted the event, that he had paid for the reception costs “from my personal funds,” that he “took no action, of any nature, kind or description, to compel or pressure” any employee to donate to the campaign ahead of the event and that he wasn’t reimbursed for any of the costs.

Very Legal and Very Cool

 

[blastercombo]

“He’s not allowed to know the law?”


- ignored content



Haven’t read their trash in about a month and still know what they’re about to fry, I mean say

 

[harlemtothebronx]

Van Jones is a ****head, but we knew that back when he nearly cried praising Trump.