Wednesday wasn’t the best of all days for Donald Trump’s attorney Will Scharf. He tripped over his own feet trying to answer a simple question from CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. She’d asked Scharf, who’s also running on the Republican ticket in Missouri’s race for attorney general, “You’re an attorney, obviously: Have you ever gotten a legal retainer that was grossed up by hundreds of thousands of dollars?”
This was an obvious reference to Trump’s hush-money case and it tripped him up, leaving him fumbling to answer.
“uh-uh-uh, I mean i’ve received payment for legal services in many ways before: contingency fees, fee per hour,” scharf responded. “i think different people come to different agreements.”
That wasn’t Collins’s only question. “Have you ever been owed a certain amount, let’s say $100,000 that you did in billable hours and you got $330,000?” She wanted to know.
Scharf was still befuddled. “Kaitlan, I respectfully, the point here is that the payments are ancillary to the case that the prosecution is trying to prove which relates to the records of the payments, not the payments themselves,” he said. “Hush-money reimbursement for hush-money—none of that’s a crime.”
Obviously, even though Scharf isn’t involved with Trump’s hush-money case, because of his legal knowledge, he really has to struggle to justify Trump’s actions. Michael Cohen’s testimony has made it eminently clear that Trump was involved in every step of the alleged hush-money case where he now faces 34 felony counts for allegedly falsifying business records and deepening the underlying crime by using Cohen, his former fixer and attorney to pay off Stormy Daniels in the hopes of covering up their brief fling before the 2016 presidential election.
Trump, of course, made the “grossed up” payments to Cohen as a way to reimburse him and also avoid taxes and any possible scrutiny.
So, after all is said and done, this begs the question: How will Trump’s attorneys and surrogates justify this, if he is convicted?
Either way, I think some folks are going to have to do some soul-searching by the looks of it. If they have any soul to search, that is.
Trump is too stupid to juggle large numbers, relies on other crooks to sneak through his real responsibility to the taxes, schedules of court dates and only cares about his NEXT public rant session to promote himself, something that is turning slowly rotten in Maga land … His slowly fading crowd in NJ freak show should have told him that it is close to lights out at the theatre of old man, waving hands and speaking in non-English language …
With his physical well-being being a public problem daily, being qualified to be THE PRESIDENT, has already slipped through his french-fry greasy fingers …
To prevent a colossal catastrophe, he and the Republican GOP stars will have to avoid those debates with Biden, Trump has already accumulated enough bad news to provide Biden with dozens of examples of why Trump is NOT qualified to be the next POTUS …
Needless to say, any prison time for Trump will be the final tour for Trump …
Wouldn’t a ‘soul’ be necessary in order to search it? When you’ve traded it to the evil One for money and power then there’s nothing to search.
“Hush-money reimbursement for hush-money—none of that’s a crime.”
Um, yeah. Yes, it is. Otherwise it wouldn’t be HUSH money. “HUSH money” may not be a “technical” crime but it most certainly is a MORAL crime–you’re paying someone to keep from exposing some, well, less-than-purely-ethical behavior from becoming public knowledge.
If there weren’t anything illegal or immoral or unethical, it wouldn’t be HUSH money. (Some people would, in fact, describe “HUSH money” as being on par with “bribery.”)
On further consideration, let’s look at how “HUSH money” operates in a relatively mundane, normal situation: Kids.
Kid One breaks mom’s favorite vase and Kid Two is a witness. Now, there are a few courses of action. Kid One can threaten Kid Two from telling Mom but that will only work if Kid Two is more afraid of Kid One than he is of Mom (or, worse, Dad).
Another course of action is that Kid One offers to do something for Kid Two for a period of time in exchange for Kid Two’s silence. Maybe, doing Kid Two’s chores or letting Kid Two play with something special of Kid One’s that would usually result in Kid Two’s getting beaten up. The problem is when Mom and/or Dad start questioning why Kid One is doing this stuff for Kid Two. (Typically, “the goodness of my heart” is an excuse that doesn’t work in most families.)
Another course of action would be that Kid One just confess, thereby negating any advantage for Kid Two. But, again, few families really behave like this.
The most likely course of action is that Kid Two is “paid off” with some cash. Or, “HUSH money.” As in “I’ll give you money if you just keep quiet.” This is probably the easiest since Mom and Dad won’t witness any unusual behavior (like chores) and there’s no need for threats and, of course, no pesky confessions. The money is essentially given in secret (and the smart thing for the recipient to do is to avoid spending the whole amount at one time on one “big” item).
Of course, Mom and Dad could simply decide to punish both Kids which is liable to result in Kid Two’s retaliating by telling everything that happened to avoid punishment (or, at least, avoid as serious a punishment as Kid One’s going to get).
The Stormy payments as well as the National Enquirer activity should all been reported on FEC reports as well as description s of what they were for. Trump defrauded the American voters and thus cheated to win. Too, the NE activity of running negative and untrue stories about Hilary was a campaign contribution that exceeded the legal limits.