(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Bothsideism at the Washington Post [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-17 Bothsideism corruption reappears in the Washington Post yet again with a story which promotes Trump’s PR that the case against John Edwards involving payoffs to his girlfriend Rielle Hunter is equivalent to the case Alvin Bragg is bringing against Trump. www.washingtonpost.com/… A form of corruption which the corporate media virtually never mentions is the bothsideism corruption of journalists who realize that in a field with declining job opportunities, they may need to apply for a job at Fox News. Rosalind Helderman at the Washington Post wrote a story which keeps open her option to ask Rupert Murdoch for a job. The material omissions in the story are significant and numerous. The WPost story in typical bothsideism faction mentions that the case against Trump could be stronger, but leaves out important facts which bolsters that position. That is counterbalanced by speculation that the case against Trump could be weaker with few facts or details to support that opinion. Helderman’s assessment, while promoting Trump PR leads with a pro-Trump narrative, carefully includes a few unfavorable facts in the latter part of the text. First impressions matter and the first impression presented to the reader argue that the cases are equivalent. These tools indicate that the writer’s goal was not fairness, but deniability that the priority was promoting bothsideism. If you anonymously asked 100 criminal defense attorneys their opinions, the great majority would tell you that the case against Edwards was much weaker. Helderman failed to point out that in the Trump case, the federal indictment mentioned individual number 1 (Trump) directed Cohen’s payments and Cohen testified that he lied to government agents on Trump’s behalf: “I pled guilty in federal court to felonies for the benefit of, at the direction of, and in coordination with ‘Individual 1,’” Cohen said, reading from his prepared statement. “And for the record: ‘Individual 1’ is Donald J. Trump.” www.vox.com/… Helderman failed to mention that at the time Cohen plead guilty, the DOJ held the opinion that a sitting President could not be indicted, then the NY Federal prosecutor chose not to indict him after the election because they considered other Trump crime investigations, i.e. the January 6 insurrections, election tampering and obstruction of Congress in Georgia and other states were more significant. “But prosecutors did not consider charging Trump at the time because of longstanding Justice Department guidance that a sitting president cannot be indicted. With Trump about to leave office in January 2021, however, Audrey Strauss, the acting US attorney, held multiple discussions with a small group of prosecutors to discuss its evidence against Trump. They decided to not seek an indictment of Trump for several reasons, Honig writes, including the political ramifications and the fact that Trump’s other scandals, such as efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the January 6, 2021, insurrection, “made the campaign finance violations seem somehow trivial and outdated by comparison.” “We were well aware of the prudential reasons why you wouldn’t charge a president, even after he was out of office,” one person with knowledge of the investigation told Honig.” www.cnn.com/ The explanation by the federal prosecutors does not absolve Trump. This explanation is a manifestation of our two legal systems, one of which favors the wealthy and powerful. New York federal and state prosecutors have a poor record of charging rich and powerful men. (Cyrus Vance, Jr., overruled two career prosecutors who wanted to criminally charge Ivanka and Jared with fraud just as Bragg overruled 2 career prosecutors who wanted to charge Trump with criminal tax fraud) Of course, no individual bankers were charged with criminal fraud by Manhattan state or federal prosecutors after the investment banks blew up the world in 2008 even though many large bank paid big fines (which did not threaten their longterm profitability) www.yalelawjournal.org/... Cohen paid off Stormy Daniels a few weeks before the election by taking out a loan on his house. Cohen was Trump’s mouthpiece and dependent upon him for income. Trump tried to slow walk the negotiations with Daniels until after the election so he wouldn’t have to pay her off — negating the claim that the motivation for payments were primarily personal rather than electoral. Helderman told an intentionally incomplete story about the payoffs in the Edwards case. In Edwards case, the two persons most closely involved were far richer than Edwards and received no income from him or his campaign. Fred Barron, an extremely wealthy Texas lawyer who was Edwards finance chair and a friend of Edwards and who knew that he was dying of cancer, contributed about $200,000. Bunny Mellon, a rich old lady with more money than God who liked Edwards, (the Mellon family are American oligarchs for the unfamiliar) paid $725,000. Their extreme wealth is indirect character evidence for Edwards because their loyalty was not motivated by the prospect of personal financial gain. In the unlikely event that Edwards had won, they would have been taxed more heavily. Although Barron publicly denied knowing about the payment from Mellon, it is reasonable to doubt that story because Barron may have known that the grave would protect him. No one would believe that Michael Cohen was motivated by personal loyalty to Trump; the “I employed a greedy, dishonest attorney for 20 years” is indirect, negative character evidence about Trump. Another crucial point Helderman omits is that John Edwards, an unfaithful husband who behaved disreputably, had friends who liked him. Edwards was a handsome guy who was likely a serial philanderer; they are frequently charming individuals. Bunny Mellon considered the payments dumb but entertaining. www.nbcnews.com/... Trump is a fat old man with no real friends — he is surrounded by flunkies, opportunists, and a few Christofascist true believers. Trump admitted that he reimbursed Cohen with campaign funds and his personal lawyer and his co-conspirator Giuliani admitted the same thing. “President Trump admitted Thursday to reimbursing his lawyer for a $130,000 payment made on the eve of the 2016 election to porn actress Stormy Daniels as part of a settlement about her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump.” www.npr.org/... No one reimbursed Mellon or Barron. Mellon paid the money through her interior designer and labeled the payment for furniture, but she did not take a tax deduction. Not telling the truth to your accountant or lawyer is not a crime if you don’t falsely claim a tax deduction. A Trump company was the vehicle for Trump laundering his payment which the company took a tax deduction for the payment as a retainer for “legal fees.” Personal legal fees are not deductible. Even a reporter for the Washington Post should have an instinct that making payoffs through shell corporations for personal reasons, then claiming a false business deduction smells to high heaven. In summary the following material facts were “omitted” in the WP story (1) Trump admitted that he made reimbursement payments- Edwards did not make any payments (2) Funds for the payments in the Edwards case came from third parties unreimbursed by the candidate or his campaign (3) The individuals making the payoff in the Edwards case did not take a tax deduction in contrast to the illegal tax deduction taken by a Trump company (4) The persons paying the woman in the Edwards case were richer than Edwards, were his friends, did not receive income from Edwards nor did their economic future depend upon Edwards (5) No one went to jail because of the payoff to Rielle Hunter (6) Shell corporations were not set up and directed by Edwards but were by Trump (7) The Republican NY federal prosecutor identified Trump as directing the payments, but did not prosecute him because he was a sitting President, then decided after he was no longer President that the crimes in the Daniels case were less important than investigations into fomenting an insurrection or threatening the Georgia Secretary of State to illegally overturn an election. So what are the odds that a WPost reporter omitted these material facts by accident, oversight, or coincidence? Follow the money, the WPost frequently doesn’t. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/17/2161776/-Bothsideism-at-the-Washington-Post Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/