So Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance dropped case against Trump kids after a big donation

[Maraya1969]

Last edited Mon Oct 9, 2017, 10:59 AM - Edit history (1)

ALBANY - A state assemblyman wants state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to investigate Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance's decision to drop a case against two of President Trump's kids.

Vance received a $31,000 donation from Trump's personal lawyer in 2013 after deciding not to prosecute Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

Vance in 2010 began looking into whether Trump’s kids misled prospective buyers in a failed Manhattan Trump Soho project, but ultimately dropped the case over the objections of his investigators, according to a report by WNYC, ProPublica, and The New Yorker.

In a letter calling for Schneiderman to investigate the matter, Assemblyman Dan Quart (D-Manhattan) said “a district attorney must not only adhere to the laws that govern public officials, but be held to a higher standard.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/n-y-assemblyman-probe-cy-vance-dropping-case-trump-kids-article-1.3545068


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I wish this will be the topic of the next protest of Trump + Trump Jr. + Ivanka

[Not Ruth]

1. Mueller time

[not fooled]

2. The media

needs to stop calling these grown-ass adults "kids". We have among them a russian colluder and a fashion design plagiarist, plus both are cheats and liars in the mold of their sh*tty father. Calling them "kids" makes it sound as if their egregious conduct is just innocent larking.

[Maraya1969]

3. What is a better word? Maybe they should leave out the reference to Trump altogether?

[Soxfan58]

7. Spawns

Of Satan(Trump)

[Maraya1969]

21. That will do. eom

[Orrex]

9. Co-conspirators?

[nocalflea]

4. Way to guard the public trust, Cy.

[Cicada]

5. If corrupt why did he return money before meeting?

If he were crooked why would he return the $25000 before he met with Trump lawyer? If he were a crook wouldn’t he have kept the money? And why would he do something crooked for a campaign contribution after previously winning re-election with 91% of the vote? The last sitting Manhattan DA to lose re-election was in 1915. Do you seriously think he would become a criminal to get a campaign contribution when the contribution had zero percent chance of influencing his re-election? If he is so crooked why doesn’t he go to work for a big law firm where he would make literally twenty times as much? Do you know he was endorsed by Caroline Kennedy, Robert Kennedy Jr and the founders of the Innocence project? That as a private lawyer he spent lots of his time doing pro bono work for the indigent? That his father was on the Knapp Commission fighting police corruption? That hid dad was Secretary of State for the super clean Jimmy Carter? That there has never been a hint of misbehavior about him? Republicans were convinced Comey, a Republican, was corrupt when he said the law did not warrant prosecution of Hillary. Were they right in their charges of corruption?

[sharedvalues]

11. Too bad we've legalized political corruption.

Let me answer all your questions:

Yes.
Vance took his biggest donation from a lawyer whose client he stopped prosecuting.
That is corruption.

It's too bad that action might not meet the LEGAL definition of corruption, because America/SCOTUS have foolhardedly legalized many forms of political corruption.


P.s. 'whatabout whatabout whatabout Comey" is a deeply unserious argument.

[Cicada]

12. You have no evidence for your claim

It is not corrupt to decide in favor of a campaign contributor. It is corrupt only if you make your decision because of a campaign contribution. You have no evidence Vance made his decision because of the contribution. I pointed out many reasons why it is unlikely Vance made his decision because of the contribution.

You did not answer my question about Comey. Do you agree that his decision was corrupt? My point is that there are many who think an action was corrupt when it was not.

There is a standard for bribery - which is the allegation against Vance. It requires taking an official action in return for something of value. You have zero evidence that Vance made his decision for the campaign contribution, and there are many reasons why that is very unlikely, some of which I previously mentioned.

We should not smear people without good evidence.

The notion Vance is corrupt, in my opinion, is absurd.

[sharedvalues]

17. US has legalized political corruption

Any politician who takes campaign money to favor a contributor is by usual definition, corrupt.
The US has just decided, farcically, that such implicit quid pro quos are technically legal.
There is no bigger issue corrupting US democracy than this.

Lots of reading here:

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/10/19/books/review/zephyr-teachouts-corruption-in-america.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/in-theory/wp/2016/05/05/how-the-supreme-court-gets-corruption-totally-wrong/

How the Supreme Court gets corruption totally wrong

Members of Congress spend the majority of their time fundraising from wealthy donors, learning the smallest details about donors' lives — at the expense of learning about the policy details most relevant to their legislative work. When they're not fundraising, members may be anxious about meeting their fundraising quotas set by the national committees, or worried about offending the secret donors to powerful super PACs. This lurking fear undoubtedly shapes policy decisions, lest a wrong move trigger a deluge of attack ads from special interests.

The Supreme Court has said that none of this is corrupt or corrupting. That defies law, history and logic.

(You're using the technical legal defn of bribery discussed above. As the law stands today. That current law is a big problem for american democracy. It allows politicians to be purchased. That's what's created today's billionaire-controlled GOP.)

[Cicada]

18. Vance did not take money to favor a contributor

If he had taken the Trump lawyer’s money to favor Trump then he - obviously - would not have given the money back before meeting with him.

[sharedvalues]

19. Campaign contributions are in practice corruption (see articles I linked from Z Teachout)

"If he had taken the Trump lawyer’s money to favor Trump then he - obviously - would not have given the money back before meeting with him."

If campaign contributions didn't bias people, there would never be any need to give them back.
Look at the way France finances elections. In France, there is a law that makes many donations illegal. We need that law.

[Cicada]

23. I agree we should outlaw campaign contributions

And use public money given to candidates. It will cost us trillions less to have public financing of campaigns than to continue with our clearly corrupt current system.

But not every elected official is a crook.

[sharedvalues]

24. I don't know the details about Vance. But this looks bad.

Maybe Vance is truly an upstanding person, I don't know him personally.

But the system is corrupting and needs reform -- sounds like we agree on that.

[Maraya1969]

25. This is the same as Trump's donation to FL AG Bondi. And it is still be investigated

https://www.citizensforethics.org/press-release/crew-files-irs-complaint-donald-trump-trump-foundation/

This is the second IRS complaint filed by CREW


September 7, 2016

Donald Trump and the Trump Foundation appear to have broken the law by giving $25,000 to a political group supporting Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi in an effort to discourage her office from investigating Trump University, thus using the Foundation for Trump’s personal benefit, according to an IRS complaint filed today by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). The complaint calls for an investigation into the Foundation for violating the tax code by providing a private benefit to Trump and his business interests and falsely representing its political giving on its tax returns. The complaint further calls for an investigation into Trump for engaging in prohibited self-dealing.

A private foundation cannot operate for the benefit of its founders or board, or businesses they own or manage. Likewise, it is illegal self-dealing when an officer or director of a private foundation uses the foundation for their own benefit. As the founder of the Foundation, Trump unquestionably cannot benefit from its actions. The Foundation’s contribution to the Bondi-backing group appears to be an attempt to benefit Trump and the Trump-owned Trump University by influencing the Attorney General’s decision on a lawsuit against Trump University.

Trump has previously bragged about his history of making do

[L. Coyote]

15. Because it is illegal to take money from someone under investigation and meet with them.

So you return the money, meet with them legally, then drop the investigation, then once the investigation is gone, you can legally take lots more money from them. See how that works? It is called "playing the system."

[Cicada]

16. It is not illegal to meet with a campaign contributor

It is illegal to take an official action in return for something of value. There is no evidence of that.

And it is extremely unlikely. He returned the money before he met with Trump’s lawyer. If he took action for money he would have kept the money - right? Right. Six months later that lawyer gave him $50,000. Which when asked about it, he gave back also.

And why would he break the law for such contributions? Would you? Especially after you won re-election with 91% of the vote? In an office where the sitting office holder was last voted out in 1915? Mr. Vance has this office for life and he knows it. Everyone knows it.

The odds he is a crook are basically zero.

To claim an unlikely event happened you need strong evidence.

In reality Mr Vance is about the least likely guy to be corrupt in all of America, in my opinion. He is a classic goo-goo (the derisive term corrupt politicians use to describe do gooders.)

[sharedvalues]

20. Read the articles I linked above. It SHOULD be illegal, but SCOTUS defined it away.

[Maraya1969]

26. It was label as a "Campaign contribution" Chances are it went into his pocket eventually

[Maraya1969]

22. Because he got $35,000 after the fact. Then he got $50,000 a few years later

[atreides1]

28. The $25,000 was the first donation!

Vance in 2010 began looking into whether Trump’s kids misled prospective buyers in a failed Manhattan Trump Soho project, but ultimately dropped the case over the objections of his investigators, according to a report by WNYC, ProPublica, and The New Yorker.

Dropped the case over the objections of his own investigators, why would he do that?


Vance received a $31,000 donation from Trump's personal lawyer in 2013 after deciding not to prosecute Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

Received the money after deciding not to prosecute the case!

Vance returned the $25,000 in 2012...but the next year received $31,000 from the same lawyer!

Vance's campaign didn't return the $31,000 until this year, that's 4 years! If Vance was so honest, why accept the $31,000 and then for 4 years to return it?

[Merlot]

29. Returning the 25K is a policy

He didn't do it out of choice, he had to return it before working on their case. Then it was returnd to him not as 25k but as 31k.

It's sad that someone with the credentials and resume that you list would feel the need to take this money, he had to know how bad it would look.

And the prosecutors wanted to move forward with the case, he stopped it.

[secondwind]

6. You need to edit this. You mention Ivana. The K is missing

[Maraya1969]

27. I fixed it. Thanks

[AJT]

8. Vance should be investigated, not for dropping the case against the Kushners

but for taking what amounts to bribes for dropping a number of cases. The man is corrupt.

[beachbum bob]

10. trump has always bought politicians, espeically DAs so whats new?

[Blue_Tires]

13. Mafia presidency....

[H2O Man]

14. Recommended.

This is very troubling.

[Me.]

30. I Hope So

Haven't trusted him since the Strauss-Kahn case.

“The People of the State of New York v. Strauss-Kahn was a criminal case relating to allegations of sexual assault and attempted rape made by a hotel maid, Nafissatou Diallo, against Dominique Strauss-Kahn at the Sofitel New York Hotel on 14 May 2011. The charges were dismissed at the request of the prosecution which pointed out serious doubts in Diallo's credibility and inconclusive physical evidence.[1][2][3] In a television interview in September, Strauss-Kahn admitted that his liaison with Diallo was a moral fault and described it as "inappropriate" but that it did not involve violence, constraint or aggression. He said that Diallo had lied and that he had no intention of negotiating with her over a civil suit she had filed against him.[4] The suit was later settled for an undisclosed amount,[5] subsequently reported to have been $1.5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_v._Strauss-Kahn

[cyclonefence]

31. His father must be spinning in his grave

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_Vance

[Me.]

32. It Was His Father's Name & Reputation That Got Him The Nom In The First Place

& Then elected

IMHO