The theory as I understand it is that the payment was a large unreported contribution to his presidential campaign. It's not legal to do that, and the prosecutors believe they can demonstrate that's what happened.
`The commission documents said Perkins Coie — where a partner at the time, Marc Elias, was representing the Clinton campaign — paid Fusion GPS slightly more than $1 million in 2016, and the law firm was in turn paid $175,000 by the campaign and about $850,000 by the party during six weeks in July and August 2016. Campaign spending disclosure reports described most of those payments to Perkins Coie as having been for “legal services” and “legal and compliance consulting.”`
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/us/politics/hillary-clint...
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-03-30/dnc...
The article referred to in the parent asserts that Clinton was also prosecuted (albeit for a different, and lesser charge). As many others have been. So the argument you're making here seems rather weak.
> The Clinton campaign agreed to a civil penalty of $8,000
It really helps to know the difference between civil, criminal, charge, prosecution and indictment when reading such things, and to keep note of who is being charged etc by whom.
Regarding the email server farrago, she was not prosecuted for that either. As this helpful article[0] comparing the raids on Mar-a-Lago to the email stuff points out:
> So prosecutors decided "there was no basis" to charge Clinton or her aides, the inspector general said.
and
> "The biggest difference right now between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump" is that with Clinton, "we know there was no prosecution -- that ship has sailed,"
The NYT article also backs this up by not mentioning any charge, indictment or prosecution. I certainly didn't notice it. Hillary Clinton is mentioned once.
> Some Democrats pointedly recalled Trump supporters’ calls during the 2016 election for Hillary Clinton, then the Democratic presidential nominee, to be arrested.
> “Those lock her up chants that people were chanting like hyenas in a stadium around the country were never funny,” Representative Jared Moskowitz, a Florida Democrat, said in a Twitter post. “Perhaps they now understand why.”
That's it.
[0] https://abcnews.go.com/US/fbis-trump-investigation-hillary-c...
I didn't. Thanks for taking the time to properly read my comments in future.
Don't try to take it back now.
b) It's an example of lack of discrimination, not a wish or obligation to have them prosecuted - I'm all for prosecuting Trump and Clinton. I could've written Biden or Pelosi, or Clinton B.
c) You're tumbling in the weeds now.
My advice, you mucked up in your reading - of the article you mentioned and of my comments - and you're clearly finding it hard to deal with having that pointed out. Just take it, learn from it, and move on. Arguing about it like I care about Republicans or Trump isn't going to get you anywhere. It's certainly not going to magic up anything that matches what's happening to Trump, like a charge for Hillary.
Degree of severity and attempts to conceal a crime are both considered serious factors in punishment a crime merits.
Similarly the DOJ looked at the Trump hush money case and declined to prosecute.
Campaign finance laws in the US are a land mine and need reform. There is too much prosecutorial discretion and not enough clarity for people to know whether they are breaking the law. Campaign finance laws have become a way to fish for a crime against political enemies.
To wit: Bragg actively campaigned for his position promising to investigate Trump.
Rule of law should be about observing and then prosecuting crimes, not about spending years and millions investigating people looking for a crime that they committed.
But I'd still say that we need to see more details of the case than have been released yet before drawing any conclusions.
We haven't seen the indictment yet so it may be well justified but the scuttlebutt so far does not seem to strongly indicate that.
> Degree of severity and attempts to conceal a crime are both considered serious factors in punishment a crime merits.
Which do you consider a more direct violation of campaign finance law with direct intent to benefit a campaign?
1. Paying a lawyer to pay a woman to not speak about an elicit affair from a decade prior.
2. Paying a lawyer to pay a private investigator to compile a negative dossier about your political opponent in the, at the time, current US general election.
Maybe reflect then on why one campaign settled a law suit, and Trump is being indicted at the moment, if again, neither is actually illegal under campaign finance law.
Hint: it's legal to pay for opposition research, but a violation to not disclose that you're doing it.
It's also legal to pay for an NDA, but not legal for the NDA to be created by direction of one's private lawyer, and then subsequently to use campaign finances to reimburse and list bonuses to that lawyer for legal services they never rendered to the campaign.
If Trump gets a $1000 fine for this, I feel like that's justice.
It's felony or nothing as the statute of limitations has expired on the misdemeanor. My money is on the latter.
Such an odd take.
And that "impossible to prosecute all" is BS. We are talking couple of people here.
Hillary paid for the Steele Dossier and improperly reported it and was fined for it. They didn't try to press criminal charges against her for that or for mishandling classified emails (also a crime technically).
Did you notice how talk of Trump's crimes related to classified documents disappeared completely after Biden was found with improperly handled classified documents?
It's all theater.
Well, it could also be because Biden's discovery (a) was smaller and self-reported, (b) his legal team helped in resolving the situation, AND (c) the documents have been recovered in both cases and the ball is now in competent authority's court.
It's like this - say you and I both run over someone. I hide the evidence and try my best to prevent my guilt from surfacing. You, on the other hand, co-operate with the authorities and accept your blame. Which story is more likely to linger longer in the papers? I'd say mine simply because I'm being obstinate and refusing to do the right thing as expected by the law and by common decency.
I'd say that's why Biden's story died because of this.
Let me restate your example of running over someone:
Let's say you and I both run over someone. I did it last year, and you did it 6 years ago. You say nothing for 6 years, I say nothing for 1 year. I get caught, and provide no cooperation whatsoever. You watch me get caught and excoriated in the press and decide you need to fess up and cooperate. 6 years after the fact.
That's a truer representation of what actually happened.
The Biden team discovered some very old files nobody ever knew were missing and turned them over immediately.
Trump meanwhile, clearly intended to take these documents, clearly lied to the feds about having these documents, gave some of them back when the feds said they knew he had them, lied about having more, and other stonewalling tactics. The feds TRIED to keep this hush hush for like a full year. If Trump would have given everything back at the first question, we might never have even heard of it.
IIRC the first instance wasn't, it was the second and third that were afterwards.
Also the FBI knew about and helped secure the documents Trump had before they were "discovered".
Don’t think it’s malicious.
Trump is the war-machine establishment, bro. Recall he wanted (and according to some stories yesterday, still wants) to invade Mexico.
It wasn't just a campaign finance violation. It also was a major financial misstatement, even fraud telling the election bureau, the IRS and state officials this was legal expenses, which it clearly wasn't. There's no way no how one can make the claim "not a big enough deal to charge". Things like that and even more minor get charged all day long. It's just that there is a very long history of Trump and his goons interfering with this charge getting brought and making a much bigger deal about it.