Don’t Know Why, There’s No Sun Up In The Sky

Don’t know why, there’s no sun up in the sky, stormy weather, since you and I been together…

Ethel Waters – 1933

“Stormy Weather” was a song written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler. Ethel Waters first sang it at The Cotton Club night club in Harlem in 1933. Yesterday, Michael Cohen, the President’s former lawyer, implicated the President in a federal crime involving campaign finance laws. So what laws did Michael Cohen admit to breaking and why has the President been implicated. Well, its actually one law they allegedly broke, but it was two instances. Payments were made to persons to suppress their stories in an effort to influence the Presidential election. Although the President has been accused of sleeping with prostitutes and while it may be very distasteful, it doesn’t rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. The crime is allegedly paying them not to tell anyone. Now lets get down to the nitty gritty. Campaign finance laws recognize two types of contributions, soft money and hard money. Contributions made directly to a specific candidate are known as hard money and those made to parties and committees are called soft money. There are limitations to how much money each of these categories can contribute to an individual candidate. Individual contributors can contributor up to $5400 per candidate, per election. Its a little more different when you contribute to PAC’s, State/District/Local Party Committee or a National Party Committee, with these organizations the money can really add up to the hundreds of thousands of dollars. There is another little deal, where contributors can “bundle their money and give it to those organizations. Okay, so this is a little overview of where we are going. For more information on campaign finance laws you can click this link.

Michael Cohen, admitted to committing two separate crimes that violated federal election law. He caused a corporation to make an unlawful contribution to the Trump campaign and he personally made an excessive contribution to the Trump campaign. The first crime occurred when Cohen arranged to have AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer, buy the rights to the story of Playboy model Karen McDougal for $150,000, according to court papers. AMI then shelved her story. In November 2016.  The Wall Street Journal reported that McDougal had told her friend that she had an affair with a married Donald Trump from 2006 to 2007, with various sources quoting that it had lasted from ten months to a year. In February 2018, with Trump already elected as President, The New Yorker‘s Ronan Farrow wrote about the affair and AMI’s purchase of the story, largely corroborating the 2016 Wall Street Journal report, except that the affair had gone on for nine months. That payment served as an in-kind contribution to Trump’s presidential campaign, violating a ban on corporate donations to campaigns.

The second violation occurred when Cohen paid adult-film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in hush money days before Election Day. Cohen admitted to making the payment so that her story would not damage Trump’s campaign. Prosecutors said that the $130,000 served as an excessive contribution to Trump’s campaign by Cohen, who under federal law was only allowed to donate a maximum of $5,400. By now we all know the story of Stormy Daniels, so I’m not going to get into that. Suffice it to say, there is no sun up in the sky on this one. Now even as the Presidents vehemently denies any wrongdoing, many expert observers say, ” Under federal campaign finance rules, a contribution is “anything of value given, loaned or advanced to influence a federal election.” My oh my… and a “knowing and willful violation of those rules can lead to criminal charges.” As for the President, it is unclear if a sitting President can be indicted. Many experts say it is not constitutionally allowed and if the Special Prosecutor went forward, it would cause a constitutional crisis. Ladies and gentleman, this one would go to the Supreme Court. By the way, there is going to be a lot of duck sauce flying when the President tries to seat another Supreme Court Justice. I will leave that for another time. Do we see impeachment down the road after the midterms? Maybe, but impeachment doesn’t guarantee the President will leave office. The Senate will have to find the President guilty. The House will surely fall into Democratic hands if all goes as it has been going. Not so sure about the Senate. If it stay in Republican control, we will have to wait until 2020 to elect another President…. don’t know why there’s no sun up in the sky.