Readers React: These readers think Trump is legally in the clear — and they get their news from the L.A. Times

President Trump was implicated in a crime. This much we know as fact, thanks to Michael Cohen’s guilty plea in which he said, under oath to a judge in federal court, that he arranged payments at the behest of the then-Republican nominee to two woman alleged to have had affairs with Trump. These hush-money payments were not disclosed as spending on the campaign.

Of course, Cohen’s allegations are just that — allegations. The president has not been charged with any crimes.

To some of our readers, however, nothing that happened in a week widely regarded as enormously consequential for this presidency presents any legal trouble for Trump. To them, Cohen’s confessed crimes are his alone, and the conviction of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has nothing to do with the administration that he helped usher into the White House.

These readers are not solely Fox News viewers and consumers of fringe online commentary. Some of them regularly write letters to us, often responding pointedly to news articles and opinion pieces in the Los Angeles Times. In other words, they get at least some of their news from The Times, even if they tend to express skepticism about anything in the newspaper that might reflect poorly on Trump.

David N. Hartman of Santa Ana agrees with comments made by the White House press secretary:

In spite of the Manafort conviction and the guilty plea of Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, our president should be happy with the performance of his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Skillfully, she faces the media and answers for him. On Wednesday, she told them this: “As the president has said and we’ve stated many times, he did nothing wrong. There are no charges against him and we’ve commented on it extensively. Just because Michael Cohen made a plea deal, doesn’t implicate the president on anything.”

It is very difficult to disagree with her.

George A. Vandeman of Playa del Rey dismisses any talk of being at a “crisis point”:

A Times editorial states that we’re at a crisis point. Yet you point out no actual crisis, only the straw man that you create by leaping from Trump’s understandable comments about Manafort to the “highly alarming possibility” that Trump “might seek” to pardon Manafort.

The “possibility” that he “might” do something — is this a crisis?

As for the idea that Cohen “implicated” Trump in a crime, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz put this one to bed on Thursday. Then-candidate Trump could have paid this hush money for any reason, including impacting the election, with impunity. No crime.

Hopefully, the federal judge who deals with Cohen’s guilty plea will push very hard on whether Cohen even committed a crime on these counts, including how he knows what Trump’s motivation was. But it should be clear to all that Cohen did not “implicate” Trump in a federal crime.

Rick Solomon of Lake Balboa wonders about collusion:

So, after two years of investigating Trump, what do we have? Right now, we are not focused on the original suspicion of collusion with Russia to influence the 2016 election.

Instead, we have a president who was a high-powered businessman and media star, and who used his lawyer and his money to make some of his prior dalliances go away. We also have a former campaign manager convicted of tax fraud and bank fraud.

That’s it? And this is supposed to be “high crimes and misdemeanors” for a potential impeachment? You’ve got to be kidding me. Now, it’s conviction or bust — a truly sad state of affairs.

Beverly Hills resident Berta Graciano-Buchman hears the echo of partisan media:

Right-wing media serves an audience for whom objective facts are nothing more than a vilification against Trump. Trying to correct misconceptions is a frustrating exercise, as people tend to accept facts that confirm their views and overlook those that challenge their ideology.

Whether this belief persistence relies on willful ignorance or tribalism, the fact remains that desired conclusions are the driving force in our post-truth era.

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