Another conspiracy bites the dust

Does anyone recall how Michael Cohen plead guilty to a campaign contribution violation regarding the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels? Cohen was supposedly going to be a star witness who could take down not only Trump organization executives associated with the payments, but possibly even the President himself (who was rumored to be an unnamed co-conspirator).

A federal investigation into whether Trump Organization executives violated campaign-finance laws appears to be wrapping up without charges being filed, according to people familiar with the matter.

For months, federal prosecutors in New York have examined whether company officials broke the law, including in their effort to reimburse Michael Cohen for hush-money payments he made to women alleging affairs with his former boss, President Donald Trump.

In recent weeks, however, their investigation has quieted, the people familiar with the inquiry said, and prosecutors now don’t appear poised to charge any Trump Organization executives in the probe that stemmed from the case against Cohen.

A few points from this. 

 First is the fact that most legal analysts believed that Cohen was pleading guilty to a crime that even the Federal Elections Commission had already stated wasn't a crime. Now it's one thing to get a man guilty of other things to admit to an additional crime if there is no additional punishment (or in the case of Cohen, he was believed to have gotten a shorter sentence for pleading guilty to this crime). But it's quite another to convict someone in the court of law for an action that nobody has ever been convicted of a crime for. Clearly the people in the Trump organization responsible for the reimbursement of Cohen's payments are not going to simply roll over and plead guilty as Cohen did. They would be provided with the best legal counsel, they would plead not guilty, and garnering a conviction would be nearly impossible (even if prosecutors got an indictment).

Secondly, the concept that Trump himself could still be criminally liable for "overseeing" the transactions is wishful thinking. Much like Cohen's claim that he was offered a possible pardon if he took a fall for the President, those who are taking the action are considered guilty of the crime even if they were acting on someone else's behalf. You cannot simply shoot someone and then claim innocence because you were told to do it by someone else. So if one of Trump's attorneys offered a Pardon to Cohen, that would be obstruction on the part of the attorney first and foremost. Same would hold true for the reimbursement payments to Cohen. If those reimbursements were a criminal act, then the people directly responsible would have to be charged to get to Trump. The bottom line is that prosecutor cannot charge someone with being co-conspirator or aiding and abetting a crime, if the person actually responsible for the action was not charged with that crime in the first place.

Lastly, there has been a growing myth that prosecutors provide some people with total and complete get out of jail free cards, in order to get to other people. While that might be done on a very rare occasion, the reality is that prosecutors generally need to be able to charge the person with a crime (and then provide leniency in exchange for damning testimony). It's what Mueller did with Gates to get to Manafort. It's what he did with Flynn. It's what the NY prosecutors tried to do with Cohen to get to the Trump organization. If they had the real goods on people within the Trump Organization, they would charge them, then provide them with some sort of plea in exchange for testimony against Trump himself. The fact that nobody is being charges very likely means that they cannot find a crime that they feel that they can prosecute.