Justice Department ends inquiry of hush-money payments in final months of Donald Trump's campaign,

[neohippie]

Source: USA Today

Federal prosecutors in New York concluded their investigation of hush-money payments Donald Trump's former personal lawyer orchestrated to quiet potential sex scandals in the final months of his presidential campaign, a judge said Wednesday.

The notice, contained in a brief order issued Wednesday by U.S. District Judge William Pauley, was an unceremonious end to an inquiry that implicated the president.

Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, said he engineered payments to two women who claimed to have had extramarital affairs with Trump to silence them before the 2016 presidential election. Prosecutors in New York said those payments violated federal campaign finance laws, and they and Cohen said Trump directed his lawyer to arrange the payments.

Pauley revealed the end of the investigation as part of an order in which he instructed the government to make public some of the search warrants it used when investigating Cohen, who pleaded guilty to two campaign finance violations for the payments, as well as a set of other felonies. He is serving a three-year prison sentence.

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/07/17/doj-ends-investigation-hush-payments-involving-donald-trump-michael-cohen/1755046001/

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So all of the sudden SDNY drops the felony campaign finance violation charges against Trump

Does this reek of Barr interfering and closing down another investigation into the president?


Back in May while testifying under oath Barr admitted that Trump was individual 1 involved in directing others to commit a felony to circumvent campaign finance laws, but today the case was closed.

https://thinkprogress.org/barr-confirms-key-mueller-finding-trump-directed-criminal-scheme-violate-campaign-finance-law-51e1937f13cf/

Attorney General William Barr acknowledged under oath Wednesday that special counsel Robert Mueller found the president has been implicated in a felony, and that the case has been referred to the Southern District of New York.

Barr confirmed that President Donald Trump is “Individual 1,” the person who, according to the government’s court filing, directed a subordinate to make hush money payments to a woman who said she had an affair with Trump. Those payments violated campaign-finance laws, because they were made with the intention to cover up the affair and influence the election — but were not reported as campaign spending.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) elicited the information during his second round of questions at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Something is rotten in New Amsterdam

[beachbum bob]

1. Bill Barr the fixer and no democratic leadership willing to make him pay.

We are seeing our effort in 2018 crumble

[TheRealNorth]

2. Trump got his Roy Cohen

If you are a Democrat and you use campaign funds to hide a mistress, you get convicted. But Republlicans keep getting off without charges. Equal Protection under the law already seems dead.

[BigmanPigman]

3. Watch charges against Epstein disappear too.

If it were possible, the racist rapist would have gone to IKEA and built a Barr. Fortunately for him Barf came already assembled.

[iluvtennis]

4. If I properly interpreted the article, this is for Federal investigation. There are still other

State and Congressional investigations. Barr can't shut down the state or congressional investigations.


Tracking 29 Investigations Related to Trump
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/13/us/politics/trump-investigations.html

[PSPS]

5. Congress can investigate but cannot prosecute

Congress passes on its investigations to the DOJ for prosecution which, essentially, means Barr's shredder since it's now acting as trump's personal law firm.

[iluvtennis]

6. aww, understood. thanks for the reply back. Very sad that this administration is above the law. nt