Tag: trump hush money
Congress Will Probe Trump 2016 Hush Payments To Women

Congress Will Probe Trump 2016 Hush Payments To Women

Trump’s role in hush money payments to mistresses prior to the 2016 election could be an impeachable offense, Democrats told the Washington Post on Monday.

The House Judiciary Committee is planning on looking into how Trump directed payments to silence Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels, two of Trump’s mistresses.

“The fingerprints are all over this one — it’s not like a big mystery,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, told the Post. “And now it’s left to Congress again to figure out what to do with the lawbreaking and apparent impunity of the president.”

In the lead-up to the 2016 election, Trump directed Michael Cohen, who was at that time his personal attorney and fixer, to arrange hush money payments to both McDougal and Daniels so they would not speak about their affairs with Trump. McDougal was paid $150,000 and Daniels was paid $130,000.

Payments to McDougal went through AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer, and amounted to an illegal campaign contribution. Cohen made payments to Daniels, and was reimbursed by the Trump organization, including checks signed by Trump himself.

Trump himself admitted to authorizing the hush money payments in May 2018, saying Cohen arranged for a nondisclosure agreement to be made.

According to Trump’s own Justice Department, this activity was a felony, because the payments were made to influence the 2016 election. Cohen pleaded guilty to arranging the hush money payments in a plea agreement with the Southern District of New York, which was one of the charges that landed him in prison for three years.

In testimony before Congress, Cohen admitted he carried out the hush money payments at the direction of Trump.

In February, Cohen said he “pled guilty in federal court to felonies for the benefit of, at the direction of, and in coordination with Individual #1. For the record: Individual #1 is President Donald J. Trump.”

The House Judiciary Committee plans on hearings into Trump’s role as soon as October, according to the Post. Witnesses could include AMI employees involved in the scheme.

The investigation is in addition to inquiries about Trump’s obstruction of justice efforts outlined in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report. While Mueller laid out evidence of 10 possible instances of obstruction of justice by Trump, the Judiciary Committee is already looking closely into five of them. The hush money payments will be the sixth offense.

The majority of House Democrats want to open an impeachment inquiry into Trump, and a look at Trump’s role in an illegal hush money scheme could provide even more evidence of Trump’s lack of fitness for office.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

Judge Refuses To Conceal Details In Hush Money Case

Judge Refuses To Conceal Details In Hush Money Case

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

A federal judge confirmed on Wednesday that the Justice Department has ended its investigation into campaign finance crimes committed by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, indicating that no one else will face charges in the case. But Judge William Pauley also announced that, over the government’s objections, he will be making many of the underlying documents in the case public without requested redactions.

The case stemmed from Cohen’s efforts during the 2016 campaign to secure hush money payments for two women who said they had affairs with Donald Trump. Since investigators determined these payments were done in order to help secure Trump’s victory, the spending counted as campaign contributions that were never recorded and were, in fact, illegally concealed. The Trump Organization, Cohen has said, helped repay him for the costs of the hush money while disguising the payment falsely as a legal retainer.

Cohen implicated Trump directly in the crime, saying the then-candidate coordinated with him and directed him to make the payments. There is even a public recording of the pair seeming to discuss one of the payments. Donald Trump Jr., too, maybe implicated in the crime because he allegedly signed some of the repayment checks to Cohen.

For these and other crimes to which he pleaded guilty, Cohen has been sentenced to three years in prison. But neither Trump nor no one else apparently involved in the scheme appears to be vulnerable to charges in the case.

As a sitting president, of course, Trump could not be charged with a crime under current Justice Department policy regardless of the evidence. Such a policy wouldn’t protect the president’s son or anyone else involved in his company, though.

So the public has been left with many questions about this case. Would the president have been charged with any related crimes were he not in office? Why weren’t charges brought against other people who appear to have been involved? And was Attorney General Bill Barr — who was chosen by Trump to protect him in the special counsel’s investigation and has shown a clear desire to exonerate the president from any wrongdoing — involvemed in the final decisions?

Additionally: Why weren’t any Trump Organization officials questioned by the investigators in the Southern District of New York, if a recent CNN report is correct?

We may yet get some answers to these questions. Judge Pauley issued an order Wednesday noting that the government has confirmed that the investigation is no longer ongoing, but it asked that some of the underlying materials related to Cohen’s case remain sealed “to protect third-party privacy interests.”

Pauley didn’t buy it.

“[The] weighty public ramifications of the conduct described in the campaign finance portions warrant disclosure,” he wrote. “Moreover, the involvement of most of the relevant third-party actors is now public knowledge, undercutting the need for continued secrecy. … On balance, the ‘strong presumption of public access’ to search warrants and search warrant materials under the common law far outweighs the weakened privacy interests at play here.”

He also argued that the matter is “of national importance” and that “it is time that every American has an opportunity to scrutinize the Materials.”

The materials will be unsealed on Thursday morning, he ruled. He allowed that there may be a few limited redactions.

Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyers are in a celebratory mood.

“We are pleased that the investigations surrounding these ridiculous campaign finance allegations is now closed,” Jay Sekulow, the president’s attorney, said Wednesday according to USA Today. “We have maintained from the outset that the president never engaged in any campaign finance violation.”

He also suggested that he is not aware of any other federal case in which Trump is a subject. However, reports suggest that an investigation of the president’s inaugural committee remain ongoing.

Cohen Slated To Appear Before House Oversight Committee On Feb. 27

Cohen Slated To Appear Before House Oversight Committee On Feb. 27

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

President Donald Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen has waffled on whether he will testify for Congress before he reports to prison for the crimes he’s pleaded guilty to — but on Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee confirmed that he will be appearing publicly at a hearing on Feb. 27.

It was also announced Wednesday that the date on which he must report to prison has been pushed back two months — from March 6 to May 6. He has been sentenced to 3 years in prison.

As one of the people who had been most deeply involved in the darkest elements of Trump’s business — he frequently referred to himself as Trump’s “fixer”— his testimony has the potential to be a political spectacle and damaging to the president. Once a loyal aide, he now sees himself as a bold truth-teller speaking out against the president’s corruption. He has already pleaded guilty to committing campaign finance crimes at Trump’s direction, implicating the president himself in a crime, by arranging hush money payment ahead of the 2016 election for women who said they had affairs with Trump. He has also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about working on the president’s behalf to negotiate a deal with the Russian government to build a Trump Tower Moscow during the campaign.

He’s been scheduled to testify before but ended up backing out of the plans, most notably because Trump sent a threatening tweet demanding investigations of Cohen’s father-in-law. Cohen and his lawyer Lanny Davis said he felt threatened by these public messages, which many argued could constitute the crime of witness tampering and intimidation.

According to the Wall Street JournalCohen will not discuss Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Cohen has previously said that Trump has not been honest about the Russia issue, and Mueller said he has provided details about central parts of the investigation.

But according to a memo released by Oversight Chair Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Cohen will be expected to discuss a wide range of topics touching on the president. They include (as described by Cummings):

  • the President’s debts and payments relating to efforts to influence the 2016 election
  • the President’s compliance with financial disclosure requirements
  • the President’s compliance with campaign finance laws
  • the President’s compliance with tax laws;
  • the President’s potential and actual conflicts of interest
  • the President’s business practices
  • the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C
  • the accuracy of the President’s public statements
  • potentially fraudulent or inappropriate practices by the Trump Foundation
  • public efforts by the President and his attorney to intimidate Mr. Cohen or others not to testify

Cummings noted that Cohen is testifying voluntarily and therefore is not under a subpoena. He will also meet with the committee on Feb. 28 to discuss matters that can not be discussed publicly.