There is a fear that finding President Trump not guilty of abuse of power in the U.S. Senate will cause him to revert to and possibly even expand on the abuses of power he has displayed in the past. In the area of campaign finance law, Trump has already displayed a pattern of illegal behavior.
Leaving aside the payment of "hush" money, in which either Stormy Daniels or Karen McDougal could have derailed Donald Trump's presidential campaign in its latter stages by revealing their respective relationships with him, the pattern of violating campaign finance law began with Trump's televised appeal to the Russian government that if it is listening, please try to find Hillary Clinton's missing 30,000 emails, and the media would appreciate it. Trump's pattern of violating campaign finance law continued when he tried to justify the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting, attended by three top campaign officials, that "everybody" would have taken the meeting; also, he described getting "dirt" on Hillary Clinton as legitimate "opo (opposition) research."
The pattern continued when in an Oval Office interview with George Stephanopolos, President Trump said that if he had information that a foreign entity had negative information about a political rival, he would take a call and then decide if he would report the call to the FBI or some other governmental entity. Knowing Trump's practice of seeking advantage of a political opponent by any means necessary, if one foreign entity had a dump truck load of dirt, and another had only a thimble's full, which call would Trump be most likely to report? Hint: it would not be the dump truck load of dirt.
Finally, coming to Trump's public request to China to investigate the Bidens because Hunter Biden served on the board of a Chinese company, and the demand made to Ukraine to link investigations to a White House visit, and the release of military aid/security assistance to the 2016 presidential election, these are further indications of Trump's lack of respect for campaign finance law. This linkage is bribery under 18 U.S.C. 201 (b), a quid pro quo as referenced in that statute, and a violation of campaign finance law by exchanging an action of a foreign entity, investigations of the Bidens and Ukraine's possible meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, with a "thing of value," dirtying up a potential 2020 election political opponent, Joe Biden.
Showing posts with label "hush" money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label "hush" money. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Sunday, July 29, 2018
The Imprecision on Donald Trump''s Sexual Molestations
There has been a lot of imprecision on how many unwelcome sexual advances Donald Trump has made on women. Some commentators say more than a half-dozen, or others say more than a dozen. I can give a more precise number, subject, of course, to future additions.
A publication put together the names, the pictures, and a brief account of how Trump sexually molested them. A few of the women said Trump forcibly kissed them, and the rest described more forcible assaults. One woman said he also forcibly kissed her friend. This listing does not include Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal, or the woman who filed a lawsuit charging that Trump raped her when she was 13 years old. She withdrew the lawsuit after getting death threats. Also not included in the list is the woman who appeared on "The Apprentice" and filed a lawsuit claiming an unwelcome sexual advance. That case is moving through the court system. She is not claiming monetary compensation; she is only asking for an apology. Both Daniels and McDougal are not claiming unwanted sexual aggression, as both claim a consensual relationship. This makes 22 women claiming sexual aggression.
Michael Avanetti, Stormy Daniels's attorney, announced publicly this past week that he now has three more clients who have given him credible information that they were paid "hush" money to conceal a sexual relationship. We don't know if these involved consensual relationships. Avanetti revealed that one of these clients had an AMI arrangement, similar to that of Karen McDougal. AMI is the media conglomerate that has the "National Inquirer" in its stable. The "Inquirer" paid McDougal $150,000 to "bury" her story so that it would not appear in another publication. Notable in this matter is that the reporter who played a key role in breaking the Karen McDougal story, has said in a television interview that there is another woman who had received the McDougal treatment from the "Inquirer." There is also a suggestion in the audio released of a phone call between Trump and Cohen, that hush money may have been paid to more women than the two that are known about.
Trump lied to Melania about Karen McDougal; he lied to McDougal about his intentions; he lied to the public; he lied about his knowledge about the "National Inquirer" story; he had his staff lie about all of the above; and he conspired with Michael Cohen and David Pecker to convince McDougal that her story was being valued.
The conventional wisdom is that more revelations of payment of hush money will not affect Trump's political standing, as these payments are "baked in" as repeats of what he has done before. I would suggest that the sheer volume of these types of actions will prompt some people to say, in effect, "enough is enough."
President Trump seems to have a special penchant to denigrate African American women. He demanded the firing of Jemele Hill, a black ESPN reporter who called Trump a white supremist. He singled out AURN White House correspondent April Ryan as an "enemy" in a campaign ad, and bullied her at a press conference. He waged an all-out campaign against Rep. Fredericka Wilson (D-FL) and disrespected the mother and wife of Sgt. LaDavid Johnson, in a condolence call for his combat death in Africa. Trump claimed that these three women listening in on the call had lied about the tone and substance of the call. Moreover, Trump's chief of staff, John Kelly, had claimed that Wilson had used undue influence to get an FBI building located in her district. Even after learning that Wilson was not even in Congress when the funding for the building was appropriated, Kelly refused to apologize to Wilson, and Trump didn't require Kelly to do so. Trump's latest African American woman target is Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Cal), who has called a person of "low IQ" in tweeters and at campaign rallies. Waters has been highly critical of Trump.
A publication put together the names, the pictures, and a brief account of how Trump sexually molested them. A few of the women said Trump forcibly kissed them, and the rest described more forcible assaults. One woman said he also forcibly kissed her friend. This listing does not include Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal, or the woman who filed a lawsuit charging that Trump raped her when she was 13 years old. She withdrew the lawsuit after getting death threats. Also not included in the list is the woman who appeared on "The Apprentice" and filed a lawsuit claiming an unwelcome sexual advance. That case is moving through the court system. She is not claiming monetary compensation; she is only asking for an apology. Both Daniels and McDougal are not claiming unwanted sexual aggression, as both claim a consensual relationship. This makes 22 women claiming sexual aggression.
Michael Avanetti, Stormy Daniels's attorney, announced publicly this past week that he now has three more clients who have given him credible information that they were paid "hush" money to conceal a sexual relationship. We don't know if these involved consensual relationships. Avanetti revealed that one of these clients had an AMI arrangement, similar to that of Karen McDougal. AMI is the media conglomerate that has the "National Inquirer" in its stable. The "Inquirer" paid McDougal $150,000 to "bury" her story so that it would not appear in another publication. Notable in this matter is that the reporter who played a key role in breaking the Karen McDougal story, has said in a television interview that there is another woman who had received the McDougal treatment from the "Inquirer." There is also a suggestion in the audio released of a phone call between Trump and Cohen, that hush money may have been paid to more women than the two that are known about.
Trump lied to Melania about Karen McDougal; he lied to McDougal about his intentions; he lied to the public; he lied about his knowledge about the "National Inquirer" story; he had his staff lie about all of the above; and he conspired with Michael Cohen and David Pecker to convince McDougal that her story was being valued.
The conventional wisdom is that more revelations of payment of hush money will not affect Trump's political standing, as these payments are "baked in" as repeats of what he has done before. I would suggest that the sheer volume of these types of actions will prompt some people to say, in effect, "enough is enough."
President Trump seems to have a special penchant to denigrate African American women. He demanded the firing of Jemele Hill, a black ESPN reporter who called Trump a white supremist. He singled out AURN White House correspondent April Ryan as an "enemy" in a campaign ad, and bullied her at a press conference. He waged an all-out campaign against Rep. Fredericka Wilson (D-FL) and disrespected the mother and wife of Sgt. LaDavid Johnson, in a condolence call for his combat death in Africa. Trump claimed that these three women listening in on the call had lied about the tone and substance of the call. Moreover, Trump's chief of staff, John Kelly, had claimed that Wilson had used undue influence to get an FBI building located in her district. Even after learning that Wilson was not even in Congress when the funding for the building was appropriated, Kelly refused to apologize to Wilson, and Trump didn't require Kelly to do so. Trump's latest African American woman target is Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Cal), who has called a person of "low IQ" in tweeters and at campaign rallies. Waters has been highly critical of Trump.
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
The Mainstream Media and White Evangelists Want to Hid the Stormy-Trump Affair
Fox News apparently killed a story that was filed by its reporter, Diana Falzone, that Donald Trump had a sexual relationship with adult-film star, Stephanie Clifford -- stage name of Stormy Daniels, which will be used throughout this piece. Falzone has an on-the-record statement from Daniel's manager at the time, Gina Rodriquez, confirmation from three other people, and had even seen e-mails about a settlement. Slate's Jacob Weisberg said Daniels had the personal phone number of Trump's long-time personal assistant, Rhona Graff, and his bodyguard, Keith Schiller. Weisberg spoke to three of Daniel's friends, all of whom confirmed the outlines of the story.
Besides the two reporters referenced above, on January 18, the Wall Street Journal published a story that Trump's personal long-time lawyer, Steven Cohen, made a $130,000 payment to Daniels, hiding it by setting up a company named Essential Consultants, LLC in Delaware. Although Daniels now denies receiving the money, friends of hers say she did receive it . Besides this hush money paid to Daniels, the "National Enquirer," whose owner is a good friend of Trump's, paid $150,000 to former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Although McDougal was presumably being paid to be a writer for the "Enquirer," she only produced three articles, and it is virtually certain that the payment was to buy her silence about a sexual affair with Trump.
The sources for the sexual relationship between Donald Trump and Stormy don't end with the three above. "In Touch" magazine published an interview with Stormy in 2011, in which Stormy gave a detailed account of a sexual relationship with Trump that was more than a one-night stand -- Stormy said Trump called her about once every ten days. Besides that, Megyn Kelly interviewed another porn-star performer, Alana Evans, a neighbor of Stormy's, who described a chance meeting in which Stormy told her that she had just met Donald Trump. Later that evening, Stormy made calls to Alana from Trump's hotel room, inviting her to come to the room to join in a party. Alana claimed that Donald even came on the phone to invite her to his room. Since Alana was with a friend and didn't want to leave her by herself, she declined the invitation. The next morning, however, Stormy filled her in on what happened in the room.
This story of the affair between Stormy Daniels and Donald Trump wasn't a one-night stand; has many sources; and hangs together very well, yet, there is no indication that "family values" white evangelists will drop their overwhelming support for Trump. It appears that the hope that Trump will advance the United States toward becoming a theocracy trumps any pretension that they are people who actually believe in family values.
Besides the two reporters referenced above, on January 18, the Wall Street Journal published a story that Trump's personal long-time lawyer, Steven Cohen, made a $130,000 payment to Daniels, hiding it by setting up a company named Essential Consultants, LLC in Delaware. Although Daniels now denies receiving the money, friends of hers say she did receive it . Besides this hush money paid to Daniels, the "National Enquirer," whose owner is a good friend of Trump's, paid $150,000 to former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Although McDougal was presumably being paid to be a writer for the "Enquirer," she only produced three articles, and it is virtually certain that the payment was to buy her silence about a sexual affair with Trump.
The sources for the sexual relationship between Donald Trump and Stormy don't end with the three above. "In Touch" magazine published an interview with Stormy in 2011, in which Stormy gave a detailed account of a sexual relationship with Trump that was more than a one-night stand -- Stormy said Trump called her about once every ten days. Besides that, Megyn Kelly interviewed another porn-star performer, Alana Evans, a neighbor of Stormy's, who described a chance meeting in which Stormy told her that she had just met Donald Trump. Later that evening, Stormy made calls to Alana from Trump's hotel room, inviting her to come to the room to join in a party. Alana claimed that Donald even came on the phone to invite her to his room. Since Alana was with a friend and didn't want to leave her by herself, she declined the invitation. The next morning, however, Stormy filled her in on what happened in the room.
This story of the affair between Stormy Daniels and Donald Trump wasn't a one-night stand; has many sources; and hangs together very well, yet, there is no indication that "family values" white evangelists will drop their overwhelming support for Trump. It appears that the hope that Trump will advance the United States toward becoming a theocracy trumps any pretension that they are people who actually believe in family values.
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