Trump may be guilty, but not of this!
Few years back, a state employee recommended that a contract be awarded to a travel agency whose boss wrote an election campaign check to Jim Doyle, governor of Wisconsin. The fix was in! A Republican-appointed prosecutor charged the low-level bureaucrat with a crime most felonious! A conservative judge sentenced the poor woman to the federal hoosegow.
An appellate court called the case “thinner than thin” and ordered the defendant’s immediate release. There was no crime; the state employee had gone by the book, recommending the contract be awarded to the lowest, qualified bidder. The bidder’s contribution to a Democrat running for office adhered to relevant campaign finance law and was, what is more, constitutionally protected free speech.
There was no crime!
We have the same reaction to the breathless, gambling-in-Casablanca! accounts of the unfortunately named David Pecker, once publisher of the ruck-making National Enquirer. Meeting at Mar-a-Lago some time in the 1980s, (they call me MISTER) Pecker “volunteered to publish positive stories about Trump and negative stories about his opponents.”
Sorry, but isn’t that what The Capital Times does every day?
Voluntarily publishing positive stories about progressives/Democrats and negative stories about conservatives/Republicans! Are you telling the Head Groundskeeper that Wild Bill Evjue never met with Old Fighting Bob La Follette in Maple Bluff?
Publisher Pecker promised (enuff with the alliteration!) to bird dog (verb, transitive) negative stories so that Michael Cohen/Donald Trump could purchase the rights. (Willing seller, willing buyer.)
Unsavory? Hellz bellz! We’re talking Donald Trump, aren’t we? But illegal? Hardly! If the fix was in to quash evidence of a crime, that would be legally actionable. But we have to agree with law professor Jonathan Turley:
It is not a crime to pay money for the nondisclosure of an alleged affair. Moreover, it is also not a federal election offense (which is the other crime alleged by Alvin Bragg) to pay such money as a personal or legal expense. It is not treated under federal law as a political contribution to yourself.
Yet, somehow the characterization of this payment as a legal expense is being treated as an illegal conspiracy to promote one’s own candidacy. … [Whatever] the misdemeanors in this case, including falsifying these payments, expired with the passage of the statute of limitations. — “Alvin Bragg has his Trump trial, all he needs now is a crime.”
Nothing but good news coming our way!
The Capital Times is up today with an editorial praising Mark Pocan. What else is new? This time it’s for his congressional vote against aid to Israel, which is fighting off Iran’s mullahs and ISIS copycats in Gaza. No mention of his friends among the Hamas cheerleaders on our college campuses. A cynic (or even a Rotarian) could argue that The Capital Times is consciously aiding and abetting Mark Pocan’s re-election effort this year as it does for every Democrat in every election in even- and odd-numbered years.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: The Werkes generously allows that The Capital Times is sincere about its moral equivalence. We won’t use spittle-flecked words like “lackey” to describe its partisanship. Is it within the realm of possibility that Mister Pecker is any less sincere about “influencing an election” on behalf of his favorite candidate — even if it is Donald Trump, even if his name is Pecker?
11 responses to “Show me the crime!”
“Give me the man and I will give you the case against him”
-commonly attributed to the Stalinist-era Soviet jurist Andrey Vyshinsky
“Case? We ain’t got no case! We don’t need no case! I don’t have to show you any stinking case!”
-commonly attributed to the Bidenist-era Progressive jurist Alvin Bragg
I don’t think the prosecution is alleging that what happened with the Enquirer was a crime. Pecker was merely a foundational witness.
But a necessary foundation for the “crime” of conspiracy. There was no conspiracy — which was never spelled out in the indictment. Trump is charged neither with conspiracy nor any state election statute.
112 republicans voted against the aid bill too. Did Pocan change parties? You have no problem with those people? It is NOT a crime to pay money to cover an affair. The issue is the assault charge, the personal attacks, defamation, slander. I know you got a Pecker on for the Cap Times because they pissed in your fruit loops. 18 gop senators voted against the aid bill also. I guess there aren’t any Jews in Green Bay. The bottom line is that ALL of our so-called world leaders have been F#$%ing up the middle east for decades. Now the bill is due. You guys have Moscow Marj cheerleading for Putin along with Rubio, Hawley, Johnson, Boebert, Graham, etc. Whose side are you people really on? Let’s go through all the secret files in trump’s crapper and find out. You may be shocked. Don’t stand near any open windows Boris; it’s a long way down.
You are conflating the Stormy Daniels case with that of E. Jean Carroll.
Fighting Bob got the owner of the Trane Co. to buy the Wisconsin State Journal with the understanding that David Lloyd Jones (an ardent Prog) would be senior editor and Bill Evjue would be second in command. This was early in 1911 and was top secret in Madison.
Looks like the Turtle got his meds straight and went after Pucker Carlson today for being a lying, grifting douc bag over Ukraine. But; we all knew that already. Funny how easy it is to cut throats when you’re on the way out.
wh4en charged with 34 counts are we really going to split hais? Leave that to Watters and company.
PokeMan should visit Hamas in order to…um…experience firsthand how they suffer SS practitioners like himself.
The CRAP Times? It’s suffering the ultimate, uncoerced ignominy: Self-hoisted on its own petard above a sea of indifference.
Just look at the stacks left by the exits at Metro Market, Woodmans, et al; they can’t even give that despicable Lefty POS away.
It’s almost too much to take…almost…
The Gotch
Fear not crotch. Moscow Marj is on the job. Already informed us that the Ukraine is killing priests, a war on Christianity and are fielding a Nazi Army. As Putin’s special envoy to congress she should know. She’s a TV and Media star in the Motherland there’s nothing to doubt. I’m sure there is an offshore account set up for her and the rest of the politicians and newsmen that have sold their souls. When that comes out you can blame it all on the Cap Times. May the ROCK be with you.