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Trump legal team gave thousands in contributions to Republican senators ahead of impeachment tria
- Thread starter Dalek
- Start date
Almost all trump does is "how is that legal?" things, so it's kind of hard to care about each individual one for more than a day until the next one comes up. It's a depressingly effective strategy.
It's not but I expect the typical right wing outlets to "spin" this by saying
"It's not a bribe, it's a gift"
"Obama did it too" (which is a lie)
This is silly. Conservatives months ago gave contributions to conservative senators. A senator isn't being bought for 5k to their campaign, and these donations had nothing to do with impeachment.
When you want to bribe a senator, you slip him a briefcase with 500k inside.
There is enough actual corruption on the right that we don't need to reach for examples.
When you want to bribe a senator, you slip him a briefcase with 500k inside.
There is enough actual corruption on the right that we don't need to reach for examples.
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Eh, seems like well to do lawyers wanting to maintain some good will and connections quite a while before the impeachment was certain, and all of the guys listed lean hard right.
If it was a sudden influx of money to Romney, Collins, etc within the last month then that'd be something else.
If it was a sudden influx of money to Romney, Collins, etc within the last month then that'd be something else.
I'm starting to think the definition of "legal" should be changed to also include enforcement, because something that's "illegal", but isn't enforced seems effectively legal at this point...
gave $2,800 to McConnell in July 2019, according to CFPR.
Trump wasn't impeached yet guys. Settle down.
Trump wasn't impeached yet guys. Settle down.
laws are for poor people. 3 years have shown us that this is all mostly irrelevant.
I really think this is a huge misconception about politics in general. People do a lot for "petty" amounts of cash
Yeah, not this petty, and not for campaign contributions this small.
This is a nothing story.
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Very legal and very cool! Money from 6 months ago doesn't count.
People make campaign contributions news at 11. The timing of it totally destroys any credibility that it had anything to do with the impeachment proceedings since it hadn't even started yet.
So what's the issue here? Is Trump prevented from hiring any lawyer who has donated to a sitting senator's campaign at some point in the past?
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In any other court of law in this country conflict of interest is something that will get someone removed from a trial.
The title seems really misleading. "Ahead of trial" could mean 5 years ago, in this case it means 6 months ago. I'm not saying it's nothing, but it didn't happen 3 weeks ago did it?
It's a blatant conflict of interest. The Republican senators receiving money from the person they're supposed to be judging in the trial should recuse themselves.
The Senate is not a "court of law." These proceedings are essentially a mock trial for the purposes of providing information to the Senators who will vote on the outcome.
Almost every element of it would be grounds for a mistrial if done in an actual courtroom.
No they shouldn't. What a farce. Should Mitt Romney recuse himself because he received a contribution from Sekulow and a couple of others on the team back in 2012 (an actual example in the story)? And what if it turns out that someone like Dershowitz once contributed to a Democratic senator? Should that senator recuse themselves? This article is misleading and irrelevant.
Mitch McConnell, who controls the trial, received a contribution the same month as the phone call in question while extortion was going on, and has since been stating publicly that he is working directly with the Trump WH team on their impeachment defense, and stated on national TV that he wasn't going to act as an impartial juror.
So yes, while it's not realistic, he absolutely should recuse himself.
Dershowitz is a good example, he's donated to several sitting Democratic Senators.
The fact that the contribution took place the same month of the call is entirely irrelevant unless you can make any colorable argument that there was a reason for Starr or McConnell to know that there would be an impeachment trial and that Starr would be a lawyer on Trump's impeachment trial team at the time. McConnell's comment on coordination is independently problematic and isn't made any worse by the fact that one of the attorneys once donated to him. His statement wouldn't be any better if none of Trump's counsel had ever given his campaign money.
The only way I can even conceive that this is an issue is if you try to argue that Starr was picked specifically because of this contribution. But the reality is that there are probably lawyers out there Trump could have chosen who have done more to raise money for McConnell and others, and it's pretty hilarious to think that McConnell needed to be "bought" in the first place.
You don't have to buy in to every sensational headline against trump. You won't be kicked out of the Resistance.
Edit - that last paragraph was a little aggressive. I'll go ahead and apologize for that. Not really necessary.
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Didn't Parnas drop $5K to get a house member to write a letter slagging Amb.Yavonovich (sp?)
I think you underestimate how cheap it is to buy a Republican
Yeah, because any of these Senators were going to vote against Trump in the first place.
I agree. These guys are doing this shit for political reasons, not $2.8-$5.6K.
Why are we to assume this wasn't for services already rendered, rather than buying acquittal?