Democrats and the liberal media have a selective memory.
As Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, surrendered himself to the FBI and pleaded guilty Tuesday to eight criminal counts, liberals celebrated with giddy excitement as they declared the end of President Donald Trump’s administration.
But while Cohen, who is now facing jail time, admitted he violated campaign finance laws by paying porn star Stormy Daniels “in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office,” a quick flashback will reveal that former President Obama’s campaign was charged with much worse.
In fact, Obama’s 2008 campaign was fined $375,000 by the Federal Election Commission for campaign reporting violations, according to a 2013 report in Politico by Maggie Haberman.
This was “one of the largest fees ever levied against a presidential campaign,” she wrote at the time.
According to Haberman’s report:
The fine — laid out in detail in FEC documents that have yet to be made public — arose from an audit of the campaign, which was published in April. POLITICO obtained a copy of the conciliation agreement detailing the fine, which was sent to Sean Cairncross, the chief lawyer for the Republican National Committee, one of the groups that filed complaints about the campaign’s FEC reporting from 2008.
Republican election lawyer Jason Torchinsky called it “a huge fine,” adding “It may be one of their top five- or 10-largest fines.”
“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,” the report said, noting other violations by the campaign such as incorrect contribution dates on some campaign reports and failure to return contributions over the legal limit in a timely fashion.
“Almost everybody that runs for office has campaign violations,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News on Thursday, noting that Obama was caught in a “massive” violation.
Republican Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign was fined $100,000 and the Rev. Al Sharpton’s 2004 presidential bid saw $208,000 in civil penalties, USA Today noted.
Trump even tweeted about the issue on Wednesday.
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
NBC News touted “experts” who rebut the claims based on the “intent and severity of the violation,” accusing Cohen of “willfully” violating the laws while the Obama campaign’s were just errors.
The violations amounted to “a small, technical paperwork error that people who were trying to get it right might make,” former federal prosecutor Mitchell Epner told NBC News. “$375,000 for the FEC is a meaningful fine, but compared to the amounts that were involved it’s tiny.”
Trump’s critics argued that the differences amount to violations versus felonies, and that in Obama’s case, there was no criminal intent.
No, not equal transgressions & you know it. Obama’s accountants failed to meet a 24 hour reporting deadline for some contributions, while Trump personally conspired to commit felony campaign finance violations.
— Phil van Wulven (@philwrite) August 22, 2018
Obama’s campaign, not Obama personally, paid a fine for what was essentially late or accidentally erroneous paperwork on a large number of small contributions.
Cohen and the president personally engaged in a deliberate scheme to hide a payoff and lie about it. https://t.co/eOMkzUuBED— Nick Confessore (@nickconfessore) August 22, 2018
“As long as you correct them and you didn’t intend them, there’s not really a problem. The criminal standard is how egregious was the campaign violation?” law professor and campaign finance expert Michael Kang told NBC News. “Here, it seems pretty deliberate.”
While the left will jump through hoops in their quest to impeach Trump, many on Twitter called out their blatant hypocrisy and double standards.
While people want to act like the Trump campaign was the first to be accused of finance violations, remember that the Obama campaign was fined for hiding donors and keeping illegal donations. https://t.co/BN123jZUqN
— Richard Armande Mills (RAM) (@RAMRANTS) August 21, 2018
For all my lefty friends licking their chops at Trump possibly being impeached for $135,000 in campaign finance violations, Obama was fined $375k for campaign finance violations totaling $3,200,000. #NoImpeachment #NoCollusion #NoConspiracy…. https://t.co/dbNc1dvxJu
— Kevin McCullough (@KMCRadio) August 22, 2018
Kevin, this doesn’t matter.
Obama did, and will continue to do, whatever he wants without much impunity.
Trump can misspeak an acronym and its suddenly proof he has a mental disorder.With the media, the dems, and the deep state out to get him, what are his chances?
— WomanStoic (@WomanStoic) August 22, 2018
The fuss about potential Trump campaign violations being an impeachable offense, begs the question as to why its impeachable for Trump, but Obama paid the fine and moved on. What’s the difference?
— John Patterson (@Dekejlp) August 23, 2018
I guarantee Hillary/Democrats violated campaign finance rules.
Isn’t paying your attorney to hire Fusion GPS to hire a British spy to collude with Russia to find dirt on Trump…. a violation?— Athena Cruz (@kjfkugkujvj) August 23, 2018
Obama’s are actually worse but he was a democrat so it’s ok.
Democrats hate America— #JoinTheNRA (@LukeAyeWiunion) August 23, 2018
Whether Trump committed a campaign finance violation or not is arguable at this point, but if campaign finance violations are the new standard of impeachment then Obama should have been impeached.
— John Hawkins (@johnhawkinsrwn) August 22, 2018
In 2008, Obama was found guilty of committing FAR LARGER campaign finance violations and given a HUGE fine! Trump has been found guilty of NOTHING. This was a pleading by scumbag Cohen to lessen his sentence. He’d have pled to being the Easter Bunny if that had helped.
— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) August 22, 2018
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.
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