Sigh
Others making plea deals is not evidence of Trump's misdeeds. Its not about me not paying attention but your misconception about what that actually means.
And again, I laid out what circumstantial evidence is for you and youre doing a wonderful job of showing why its a secondary metric to which we use as a basis for determining guilt. Youre making inferences. Lots of them. If you need to connect the dots, its circumstantial evidence. That alone is not going to stick here. You would need irrefutable proof, of which doesn't depend on Cnn statements and payments to the man's personal lawyer to show directly that he did this for this to be considered hard evidence. The fact youre coming up with secondary explanations to what this means, even if youre doing so sarcastically, is precisely why we use actual evidence as the basis for convictions as opposed to making a bunch of leaps of logic and testimony from one person.
This is a ridiculous understanding of evidence.
The government alleges Cohen violated campaign finance law. The government alleges Cohen was reimbursed for these contributions. Guiliani, who is Individual-1's lawyer, and Michael Cohen, who is the defendant, also say this is what happened. It is NOT IN QUESTION and is not merely statements made on television.
We know what he was paid and when. Investigators have all of his financial records. The idea that a check for the precise amount he was owed being paid on the schedule by which it was owed by the person for whom the service was performed isn't evidence is hilarious.
"Your honor, we know the defendant:
a - has a hammer
b - went to the store where this hammer was sold
c - has a charge in the exact amount the hammer costs at that store -
d - on the day we all agree he obtained the hammer
but it's mere speculation this charge is for that hammer."