While many important specifics are not known, some in the media continue their attempts to have you believe that yesterday’s (Aug. 21, 2018) news regarding an agreed upon plea between former Donald Trump attorney Michael Cohen, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, marks a pronounced step towards possible impeachment proceedings beginning in January — against President Trump.
This is a possible scenario should the Democrats take back the U.S. House in the November, following the upcoming midterm elections.
As part of Cohen’s plea, he claimed that "in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office," he kept information that may have harmed the unnamed candidate from becoming public during the 2016 election season.
Isn’t the timing and coordination of a plea deal that carries what should be considered medieval sentencing for what can essentially be viewed as only potentially an administrative error (so close to a midterm election) suggest that perhaps the coordinated resistance to our president has fully mobilized?
Depending on the execution of the payments, and what funds the various payouts were drawn against, Trump may either have a huge problem, a small problem, or be totally insulated from charges in this matter that his former attorney plead guilty to.
Some of the possible scenarios that dictate the severity of Trump’s exposure in the matter include:
- Can these payments to Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels be considered personal expenditures or campaign expenditures?
- Were the funds used by Cohen to execute the payoff drawn from an account that was opened specifically for use towards expenses related to the 2016 Trump presidential campaign?
- Was the money placed in the account used to repay Cohen for "fixing" Trump’s issues provided by then candidate Trump’s vast fortune, or did the money consist of campaign contributions?
- When directed to make the payment, was the president counseled by his then attorney Cohen regarding the legality of making such a payment?
- Did Michael Cohen potentially engage in legal malpractice by executing the payment and failing to properly advise his client of his potential exposure to prosecution in the matter?
I question the severity of the penalty dealt to Cohen over what seems to be such a benign issue. According to a New York Times article published just 3 days ago, Trump’s former attorney had been the subject of a non-related investigation into whether he "committed bank and tax fraud on well over $20 million in loans obtained by taxi businesses that he and his family own."
It would seem that the substance of the original investigation was where the uncovering of any substantial law breaking, and potential plea deals should have manifested itself from.
Did a prosecution that may have been more interested in discrediting the presidency of Donald Trump look the other way on potential criminality by Cohen for what may have resulted in a far stiffer sentence in return for his cooperation?
If in fact unseen forces are working against Trump and the FEC adjudicates that it was a campaign contribution, can a potentially Democratically controlled U.S. House of Representative’s Judiciary Committee use the Cohen conviction as the basis to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump in January?
I’m sure this story will not be going away anytime soon.
Stay tuned.
Julio Rivera is a small business consultant, political activist, writer and Editorial Director for Reactionary Times. He has been a regular contributor to Newsmax TV and columnist for Newsmax.com since 2016. His writing, which is concentrated on politics, cybersecurity and sports, has also been published by websites including The Hill, The Washington Times, LifeZette, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Toronto Sun and PJ Media and many others. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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