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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   27864 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024

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The payment to Stormy was for about 135k. Trump paid Cohen around 420k. So no it wasn’t solely reimbursement.

Fortunately, there were handwritten notes explicitly laying out what the money was all for. Exhibit 35 has you covered.

It was $130k reimbursement for Stormy Daniels, $50k reimbursement for Red Finch, that 180k total got doubled to make Cohen whole for the income tax he would need to pay, and then they gave Cohen an extra $60k as his profit for doing this.

Yes my point. It wasn’t solely reimbursement. Instead it easily could be described as legal expenses under a retainer.

Okay, so what? The prosecution did not claim it was solely reimbursement.

If I pay you $100 for a stick of chocolate and some cocaine, the fact that it's legal to buy and sell chocolate does not mean that I can't be prosecuted for purchasing the cocaine.

The big difference is that reimbursement is not illegal (unlike cocaine). Paying for legal services and reimbursing your lawyer for payments he is making on your behalf is perfectly encapsulated as a legal expense. Could they have broken it down further (ie legal expense for service and for reimbursement)? Sure. But that doesn’t make the overall category (ie legal expense) fraudulent.

Again, that would have been an interesting argument for Trump to make, but he did not make it. His position was that Cohen was lying by claiming to have been reimbursed.

It's very easy for a jury to conclude that "legal fees" do not encapsulate reimbursement in a case where the defendant is continuing to maintain that they do not.

I agree that Trump’s lawyers weren’t great but it isn’t clear exactly what Blanche argued.

they gave Cohen an extra $60k as his profit for doing this.

Sounds kind of like legal expenses, him being Trump's lawyer and all.

If I hire a contractor to build me a deck, then log the total bill as 'building expenses', am I committing fraud for not putting down 'lumber', 'nails', 'wages', and 'contractor margins' on my own books?

I certainly wouldn't recommend arguing in court that the contractor built your deck of his own accord and that you didn't ask him to do it.

Interestingly there was a case like this in BC awhile back -- it seemed like some contractors were trying to curry favour with the premier (who they knew personally), so they built him a deck and then refused to send him a bill!

I don't think it ever went to court, although he did get voted out over it. (among other things)

In this situation, I suppose cutting the guy a cheque for what you think the services were worth (whether he likes it or not) is kind of the right thing to do -- otherwise it looks like a bribe.

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