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Originally Posted by vienna
Apples and oranges...
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And of course there are going to be a variety of opinions and we have just started to hear them.
Here's one from a guy who may actually know what he is talking about. Bradley A. Smith is a former Commissioner, Vice Chairman and Chairman of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) between 2000 and 2005. He was appointed by President Bill Clinton.
This is an article by him in Wednesday's National Review. It is aptly titled
'Michael Cohen Pled Guilty to Something That Is Not a Crime'
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/...n-finance-law/
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...the law — following our common sense — tells us that the hush-money payments outlined by the U.S. Attorney are clearly not campaign expenditures. There is no violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act.
To reach the opposite conclusion, the U.S. Attorney is placing all his chips on the language “for the purpose of influencing an election.” Intuitively, however, we all know that such language cannot be read literally — if it were, virtually every political candidate of the past 45 years has been in near-constant violation.
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In short, Michael Cohen is pleading guilty to something that isn’t a crime. Of course, people will do that when a zealous prosecutor is threatening them with decades in prison. But his admissions are not binding on President Trump, and Trump should fight these charges ferociously.
Many Americans have convinced themselves that Trump is a uniquely dangerous and bad man, such that any available tool should be used to expel him from office. But in that way lies the bigger threat to our democracy and rule of law.
We do ourselves no service by distorting and misapplying our campaign-finance laws in the hope of bagging Donald Trump.
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