In their opening remarks on Monday, Manhattan prosecutors attempted to persuade a judge that former president Donald Trump had orchestrated a criminal plot to rig the 2016 presidential election. The Russia-collusion ruse, the actual legal structure that was stoked by meddling in that election, is still ongoing.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg claims Trump broke the law after he classified payment made by his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, to brought Stormy Daniels, as “legal costs ” rather than plan investments. If Trump had classified quite an expense as campaign funding, which would have benefitted him individually rather than just his campaign, it is not illegal to purchase bad press about oneself. )
Matthew Colangelo, a former top official in President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice, claimed in opening remarks on Monday that the investigation was a “planned, long-running plot to control the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal investments to silence persons who had something bad to say about his actions. ”
“It was election fraud, pure and simple, ” Colangelo continued, according to PBS News. “The defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election. Then he fabricated that criminal plot by lying repeatedly in his New York business records. ”
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Trump could spend up to four years in prison, according to Manhattan prosecutors. In addition, the Russian-backed operatives who fabricated a hoax accusing Trump of being a Russian asset in 2016 have been given a light tap on the wrist, if any punishment at all.
Marc Elias, the Clinton campaign lawyer who commissioned the discredited dossier, received no punishment. The DNC and the Clinton campaign— which together provided funds for oppo research firm Fusion GPS to hire former British spy Christopher Steele, who put his name on the so-called “Steele dossier ” — were fined$ 105,000 and$ 8,000, respectively, for labeling the payments as “legal and compliance consulting ” and “legal services. Clinton herself, who personally supported the decision to release the false accusations, was still making claims that the 2016 election had been stolen from her as recently as 2022 and that the Russia hoax had never been repercussions.
Russian national Igor Danchenko, the “primary sub-source ” whose testimony Steele relied on in creating the dossier, “fed Steele false information about the Trump campaign, which a Clinton booster had invented. Special Counsel John Durham charged Danchenko with lying to the FBI regarding a call he claimed he received in 2016 from an unidentified person, allegedly Sergei Millian. Danchenko claimed the anonymous caller revealed a “conspiracy of cooperation ” between Trump and the Russians. The Steele dossier contained more of these assertions.
According to the evidence presented to the jury, Danchenko claimed he did not know Millian and that he had not received any calls during the appropriate time frame that might have been comparable to the call Danchenko claimed to have received, as Margot Cleveland of The Federalist at the time noted at the time. ”
Nevertheless, a jury in a deep-blue Virginia suburb of Washington, D. C. acquitted Danchenko in 2022.
Michael Sussmann, a lawyer for the Clinton campaign, was also found innocent despite allegations that he lied to then-FBI-General Counsel James Baker in 2016. According to Cleveland, Smithsman provided Baker with information and whitepapers that purportedly revealed the existence of a secret communications network between the Russian-based Alfa Bank and the Trump organization. When he met with Baker, Sussmann claimed to be acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign and tech executive Rodney Joffe but claimed to have falsely informed his friend that he was coming to assist the FBI. ”
Kevin Clinesmith, a former FBI attorney, was the only one who was given a sentence after pleading guilty to falsifying an email in order to obtain a spy warrant for the Trump campaign. Clinesmith, according to Federalist CEO Sean Davis ’ reporting on Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s findings, “altered an email from a separate U. S. falsely claim that [ Trump campaign associate Carter ] Page had never worked with the CIA to investigate suspected Russian agents operating in the United States. S. ”
“ In fact, ” Davis wrote, “as Clinesmith was told by the operative, Page had worked with the CIA previously, as well as with the FBI. ”
Clinesmith received a year of probation and 400 hours of community service.
The Federalist’s election correspondent, Brianna Lyman.
