Before the Commission could consider the Office of General Counsel’s recommendations in these matters, Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to an eight-count criminal information,2 and in connection thereto admitted, among other things, to making an excessive contribution in violation of the Act by making the Clifford payment from his personal funds. The plea hearing transcript includes a step by step review of how U.S.
“At the end of the day, there’s the person who committed the crime, and there’s the person who is behind bars because of it,”The documents “in question came well after Trump’s 2016 election, so it couldn’t have been done to help his election.”Third, it is not obvious that the reason for the payment and the reimbursement to Cohen was to influence the election, thus failing the “objective standard” of law.
“I don’t know how you get around the evidence that both the Department of Justice in their investigation of the federal campaign finance issues and the Federal Election Commission in their ultimate jurisdiction over campaign finance issues, neither of them found there to be any violations whatsoever, and I think the jury is going to see that and they’re going to have to rely upon the fact that both the law enforcement experts and the civil enforcement experts, as far as campaign finance are...