Trump could be charged for the same thing Clinton was fined

Jeoffro René2 weeks ago


Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is using essentially the same legal theory to potentially indict former President Donald Trump for which Hillary Clinton’s campaign was fined, former U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman said.

Tolman claimed on Saturday that Bragg’s legal theory that Trump tried to cover up a campaign expense by using his then-attorney to pay porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in alleged hidden money before the presidential election in 2016 reportedly applied to Clinton when her campaign hid a payment for the bogus Russian pee case against Trump as “legal fees.”

Former NYPD officer and conservative pundit John Cardillo tweeted, “Bill Clinton paid Paula Jones $850,000 and nobody cared.” Tolman tweeted in response: “And the Hillary campaign was actually fined for hiding the Steele case payment under ‘legal fees’ – essentially the same legal theory on the Stormy Daniels payment that the DA is running a criminal investigation of Trump.”

Indeed, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in March 2022 fined Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee for failing to properly disclose payments for the so-called pee dossier on which the DOJ and the FBI leaned on to investigate Trump for alleged Russian collusion.

Campaigns are expected to report expenses over $200 and disclose the purpose of the expense. However, the Clinton campaign and the DNC routed their payments for the filing — totaling more than $1 million — through the Democratic law firm Perkins Coie.

According to the FEC, Perkins Coie paid opposition research firm Fusion GPS more than $1 million in 2016 for the filing. Perkins Coie was then paid $175,000 by the Clinton campaign and around $850,000 by the DNC in July and August 2016 – around the same time the FBI claimed to have opened its investigation into the Trump campaign.

The payments were not disclosed until Kash Patel, lead investigator for then Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), discovered them.

The FEC fined the Clinton campaign $8,000 and the DNC $105,000 for flagging the payments as “legal services” and “legal and compliance advice” rather than corporate research. opposition, the FEC said.

Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and criminal defense attorney, also noted in a recent column on the potential indictment against Trump that “Hillary Clinton faced a campaign finance allegation no different”. He wrote in The hill:

Last year, the Federal Election Commission fined the Clinton campaign for funding the Steele case as legal fees. The campaign had previously denied funding for the dossier, which was used to push false Russian collusion allegations against Trump in 2016, and it buried the funding in the legal campaign budget. Yet there have been no cries for these kinds of lawsuits in Washington or New York.

Although Bragg cannot sue Trump for federal violations, Turley said he could sue the state under Section 175 for falsifying business records, based on the claim that Trump allegedly cloaked the silent payments as “legal expenses” for violating federal election laws.

As Turley noted, a charge under Section 175 would normally be a misdemeanor, but Bragg could try to convert it to a felony by showing that “intent to defraud includes intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal his commission”. The crime, Turley speculated, is that of federal election violations, which he noted the Justice Department had previously declined to charge.

Epoch Times host Hans Mahncke — who has followed the Russian collusion hoax closely — also agreed with Tolman: “Probably the most important thing anyone has said since the reports came out. pending arrest. Hillary claimed the Steele reports were legal fees. It’s not just essentially the same thing Trump is accused of, it’s the same thing.

“Why hasn’t Hillary been arrested?” he tweeted at Bragg.

Follow Breitbart News’ Kristina Wong on TwitterTruth Social or on Facebook.



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Jeoffro René2 weeks ago
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