Trump blew a fuse over the Michael Cohen guilty plea and claimed that Obama had an even bigger campaign finance violation.
Trump tweeted:
Michael Cohen plead guilty to two counts of campaign finance violations that are not a crime. President Obama had a big campaign finance violation and it was easily settled!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 22, 2018
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Trump is insisting that he is being treated unfairly because Obama had a big campaign finance violation too, but the difference is that the Obama campaign wasn’t directed by the candidate to break the law in an effort to win an election.
The 2012 Obama campaign was fined $375,000 for missing a 48-hour deadline for reporting contributions. As Politico reported in 2013, “The major sticking point for the FEC appeared to be a series of missing 48-hour notices for nearly 1,300 contributions totaling more than $1.8 million — an issue that lawyers familiar with the commission’s work say the FEC takes seriously. The notices must be filed on contributions of $1,000 or more that are received within the 20-day window of Election Day.”
The Obama campaign didn’t do anything illegal, like engage in a conspiracy to hide over the limit contributions to help their candidate win. The Obama campaign violated a reporting rule. They didn’t commit a felony.
Trump is falsely equating his felonies with Michael Cohen to Obama
There is no comparison between the two situations. Trump thinks that he should be able to commit felonies and escape with a fine. What Donald Trump and Michael Cohen did was highly illegal. Trump directed Cohen to pay hush money to women that he had affairs with just before the 2016 election, and they used illegal methods to conceal the payments so that they would not be reported as campaign contributions.
Trump is going back to that old Fox News/GOP trick of blaming Obama, but that gimmick has long expired. Trump directed Cohen to protect him from his wife and hide damaging information before the election. Eventually, Trump will pay for these crimes and no amount of Obama blame will help him escape justice.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
