The Media’s Latest Scam: Trump’s Going to Be Impeached Because of the Michael Cohen Plea

One of the “it’s so horrible it’s funny” things about the Trump era has been all the “Wow! Pence better get ready because this time we’ve got him for sure” stories. Trump says something, a scandal breaks, the media reports that an anonymous person who may or may not exist has revealed a shocking crime and it’s supposed to be all over! Yet, like Jason from the Friday the 13th series, Trump shrugs off the media’s ax to the forehead or Democrats’ shotgun blast to the chest like it’s nothing and he’s back doing what he does five minutes later while they pull their hair out.

The latest story of this sort is Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen pleading guilty to a number of crimes, all of them unrelated to Trump except for a campaign finance violation. Cohen paid off the porn stars Trump slept with and Trump paid him back.

First of all, is this a campaign finance violation at all? That is arguable because campaign finance laws, beyond the basics, are a murky, byzantine mess that only highly specialized lawyers can navigate and even they only get definitive answers when a judge rules.

Trump’s argument will probably be something akin to, “My personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid off those women I slept with and I reimbursed him. No campaign funds were used. Michael Cohen told me it was legally fine and I did it because I didn’t want to cause any embarrassment to my family.” Is this true? We can’t know for sure at this point, but it certainly seems to be an extremely plausible argument. That is doubly so because Trump has a history of setting up nondisclosure agreements and paying out what could be considered “hush money.”

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