borrowing and straw donors. of note, the time says cohen recorded a conversation with a top inaugural official whose company was paid $26,000 by the inaugural committee. you look at the list of crimes alleged here, and, a, it s very weighty, and b, it also reminds us as people talk about the mueller investigation winding down, there are other investigations that seem to be ramping up. that s right. the list of potential crimes here also goes in a way to the heart of this investigation as well. i mean, were there foreign donors funneling money into the campaign ostensibly to try to gain some influence? that s one of the violations that s in this subpoena they re looking into whether people were having the donors pay money directly to vendors to bypass disclosure laws, or whether they were making donations in another s name, kind of this notion of a straw donor to avoid
but what we don t know is where a lot of this money came from, and were these people questioned about it? were any, you know, were any red flags raised? but isn t the whole idea of people donating to the inaugural committee to buy influence? exactly. so, it s a little bit like saying, there s gambling at rick s casino. of course. you re exactly right, but look, the issue is that yo you re right. the whole concept and the whole way the inaugural system is done is maybe needs to be they need to take a look at it, but there are rules. and there are guidelines. and there are laws. and something as simple as like what shimon was mentioning, potentially a straw donor, if that happened even once, that s a big problem. but the other thing is, okay, let s say they tried to buy influence. they want the subpoena calls for e-mails, text messages and other things. there s buying influence and then there s buying influence.
discussion about who would have contributed and gotten their just reserves for going to the naulg committee and pass a loop haul throu hole through a straw donor. i am not able to give contributions. i m a foreign national, i will give it to you, could you please do me a solid and do it for me. the inaugural committee raised an inordinate amount of money compared to the modest events they had. where did the money go? where did it come from? who was given the ability to appear and rub elbows with the president of the united states. it also tells me, poppy, again, a second case has been farmed to the sdny. cohen and campaign contributions, mueller didn t want any part of it. you have this same thing. this is on autopilot, even if
today. i only know what i read about the subpoena. you have that. let s hear about what this is all about. kara, what are you hearing about the case? this is an expansion of the case that we first reported about in december when we knew that the new york prosecutors were looking at the inaugural committee. now with the subpoena, we are seeing this is very expansive. they are asking them for details about all the donors and bene t benefits that they were promised or received. they want to know if any donors were asked or directed or if there were any discussions within the inauguruation campaign to have donors directly pay vendors. that would be potentially a violation of skirting the disclosure requirements. they are looking at the question of whether any foreign donors were discussed or communications about people positioning themselves in place of someone else so the notion of a straw
the argument that it s in the children s best interest they are not returned to their parents and remain in sponsor homes. courts in america have not usually held that. no, held that. absolutely not. the government is acting as if these are parents who put their kids up for adoption decades ago and now want to reinsert themselves in the lives of these children. these were children who were ripped from their parents arms literally within the last year, 18 months, and now the government is saying, well, maybe the children don t really want to see the parents anymore. it s a stunning argument. for the united states government to say, well, we don t want to dedicate the resources to try to reunite these families we separated, and that it s probably not worth it, i mean, that s a remarkable statement. we just got an announcement we re going to send 3500 more troops to the bored erder. that could be money used for these children. that s right. the house and senate committee