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It took a while for the implications of felon John Dean’s testimony to sink-in to the public’s common knowledge too.
3. "A copy of a check Mr. Trump wrote from his personal bank account -- after he became president -- to reimburse me for the hush money payments I made to cover up his affair with an adult film star and prevent damage to his campaign."
Cohen has the receipts -- literally! The check -- for $35,000 -- is dated August 1, 2017, and signed in Trump's very distinctive script. That date is, obviously, after Trump became president. And if Cohen is to be believed, it also directly contradicts Trump's assertions in April 2018 that he knew nothing about where Cohen got the money to keep porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal -- both of whom alleged affairs with Trump -- quiet during the 2016 campaign.
Then there is Boss Trump on Tape discussing the details of how to make the hush-money payments [WashPost]:
From the transcript:
COHEN: Um, I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend, David, you know, so that — I’m going to do that right away. I’ve actually come up and I’ve spoken —
TRUMP: Give it to me and get me a [UNINTELLIGIBLE].
COHEN: And, I’ve spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up with …
TRUMP: So, what do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?
This appears to indicate that Trump knew about the need to pay $150,000 (note that he cited the figure unprompted, suggesting previous knowledge of it) to David Pecker, the chief executive of American Media, Inc., which had paid that sum to McDougal for the story. The discussion that follows indicates that Trump worried what might become of the story if something happened to Pecker, suggesting he wanted to own the story as protection.
Then later comes this:
COHEN: I spoke to Allen about it, when it comes time for the financing, which will be —
TRUMP: Wait a sec, what financing?
COHEN: Well, I’ll have to pay him something.
TRUMP: [UNINTELLIGIBLE] pay with cash …
COHEN: No, no, no, no, no. I got it.
TRUMP: … check.
Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani is claiming that Trump actually said “don’t pay with cash.” But if so, it’s unclear why Cohen followed that with a “No, no, no, no, no.” (It’s possible Cohen meant, “No, I would never do that.”)
From the discussion on that tape, it is clear as day that:
Trump knew what the Payment was for, and wanted to know how much this one would cost.
Trump was involved in the arrangements for channeling Trump funds to cover the payments.
Trump signed multiple checks, while in the White House, to pay back his Fixer for taking care of one of his biggest election liabilities.
Without the commission of this crime — to silence these two Trump affairs — “the Locker-room-talk guy” likely would not have been able to play it off [his Access Hollywood tape admissions] as “ancient history”.
In other words, without committing these Felonies to deceive the American People, Trump quite likely would have lost the election.
Trump had the affairs. Trump signed off on the hush-money plan. Trump signed the checks.
Which in a sane and rational world amounts to Guilty, Guilty, Guilty.
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And here are Numbers 5, 6 and 7 — things of Consequence that ‘the modern-day Dean’ just told America this week, about his misplaced loyalties to one very corrupt man:
5. "There were at least a half-dozen times between the Iowa Caucus in January 2016 and the end of June when he would ask me 'How's it going in Russia?' -- referring to the Moscow Tower project."
[...]
6. "Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it. He lied about it because he never expected to win the election. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project."
[...]
7. "Mr. Trump would often say, this campaign was going to be the 'greatest infomercial in political history.'"
Yeah, and we are the late-night infomerical audience, who just had our pockets metaphorically picked by the career huckster.
And ‘Don the Con’ is still flooding the airwaves with his self-centered lies, scams, and unproven claims.
All with no “money-back” guarantee. All with no guilt. All with no remorse or shame.
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