Come to #60Minutes for Stormy Daniels. But stay for @thetrevorpotter talking campaign finance violationshttps://twitter.com/rickhasen/status/978048019907059712 …
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Finished the transcript of the Stormy Daniels interview. I haven't seen it yet so I cannot judge credibility. But people following this story will learn very little more beyond such an assessment.
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As to whether or not the Michael Cohen payment is a campaign finance violation, the issue turns on motive, and after John Edwards, the key question is whether there are texts or emails showing Cohen saw payment as motivated to help campaign rather than Trump's marriage.
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While Daniels' lawyer says the timing of the payment raises inference Cohen payment was campaign-related---I agree---I can't imagine a fair prosecutor deciding to go after Cohen without some external corroboration of state of mind, like a text message.
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And this puts aside the political pressure that would be on DOJ as to whether to treat this campaign finance violation as a wilful criminal violation. As
@thetrevorpotter mentions, the unknown question is whether this is within the purview of special counsel MuellerShow this thread -
Presumably, given that it is campaign related, AG Sessions would have to recuse on handling of DOJ case, which gives it to Rosenstein. But we don't know if Rosenstein would/did refer it to Mueller. If not, could be handled by DOJ public integrity folks or people in another office
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But just to stress--even a fair minded prosecutor untouched by political pressure would have to think twice about going after Cohen criminally for this, absent some smoking gun evidence. John Edwards case just latest time DOJ got burned for being too aggressive in political cases
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End of conversation
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Even after Edwards, isn’t it sufficient if influencing the campaign were ALSO a reason? Plausible reading of Edwards was that no violation because the payments predated campaign substantially
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It's Cohen, so you KNOW the guy left a paper/electron trail a mile wide.
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Trump told Clifford that he & Melania had separate bedrooms by then (2006). Viewed in that light, 2016 payment seems more like campaign protection, not marriage protection.
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I don't know law or much about her lawyer, but I don't think he would risk exposure if he didn't have paper, video, or audio evidence to prove accusations. Wouldn't seem very smart or lawyerish
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What a joke.
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