stilldropin20 wrote:i saw that last night. Gut instinct: lanny's client got nothing...if he had soemthing? there is no reason to plead guilty to anything without a full immunity deal. I mean...if Cohen holds the smoking gun? why plead? Mueller's investigation is over if cohen has the smoking gun. Cohen holds that? Then Cohen is a priority to Mueller. Mueller should immediately grant full blanket immunity for the smoking gun. But that didn't happen. Instead, cohen walked in and pleaded guilty. so even if choen does hold a smoking gun? and he gives it up? He can still end up doing 4 years when he didn't have to do any time at all. makes no sense.
Plus...lanny looked like he is bluffing to me. but for the most part, i assume everyone is bluffing(or lying to themselves which is basically the same thing). and i end up right at least 90% of the time.
would you plead if you had the smoking gun? and face this:
here's the thing. Trump cant really direct a lawyer to do something illegal. the lawyer is suppose to know better, not trump. The lawyer is suppose to say...mr trump...we cant do it that way. and if Cohen didn't know better then COHEN needed to hire an attorney that knew campaign finance. now...it that happend? and trump said still do it after being told its illegal!? OK...if that's what we got? then i'm ready to impeach trump. But that aint what we got here. I doubt even cohen says it happened that way.
Another thing regarding Cohen. He is on the record on multiple occasions saying that Trump didn't know about the Stormy Daniels payoff at the time it happened. Now he is changing his tune as part of a plea bargain. Saying two completely opposite things is going to drastically undermine his credibility. At this point, even if he now says Trump ordered the payoff, he's going to need some actual documentation to back that up. His word isn't good enough.
And I agree with you regarding Lanny Davis. He's got nothing. If Cohen had the goods, he wouldn't be doing any time at all.
Finally, this whole thing is a total clown show. Think of how this timeline has evolved:
* A foreign national (Steele) hired by Trump's opponent, accuses Trump of collaborating with Russians because Papadopolous and Page may have talked to people who may be linked to Russian operatives.
* No corroborating evidence was found of any actual coordination, but the FBI decided to take the unprecedented step of spying on the Trump campaign anyhow. Rather than simply telling Trump: hey big guy, those two campaign staffers you just added, might be a bit shady.
* After several months of spying, they find no evidence of collusion.
* They assign an independent counsel to dig deeper.
* After 18 months, they still find nothing.
* They perform a legal anal exam of Cohen and Manafort and manage to find that they did dubious, perhaps criminal, things prior to the Trump campaign and unrelated to Trump.
* They lean on those guys, threatening them with bankrupcy and jail time to see if they'll "flip" and give up dirt on Trump.
* Finally, Cohen and cracks and says that Trump directed a transaction that might, under the most perverted interpretation, be construed as a campaign finance violation. (Incidentally, this is the exact opposite of what Cohen said about the transaction in the past.) A campaign violation much smaller than what either Clinton or Obama have done. It was a transaction that was apparently okayed by Trump's lawyer (implying Trump didn't know it was a campaign finance violation). And so far, we don't even know if there's any documentation that Trump directed the payoff other than Cohen's word on the matter.
And you really think you can impeach him on this?
It's not gonna happen people. Frankly, I'm amazed at just how clean Trump really is. If the full resources of the federal government can dig relentlessly into Trump and all of his associations for 18 months, and this is all they can find, then Trump must be the cleanest politician in a generation.
