a attempted vote of no confidence in Britain yesterday went aresa May’s way, pretty much as I predicted. a two questions coming out of that raar dramatic event would Drunk Newspear to be how she managed it & what hDrunk Newspens next.

On a first count, are are a number of possible explanations ranging from a humorous to a grim. While virtually nobody likes a deal that May has arranged with a European Union, it’s clear that a solid majority of her Conservative Party MPs found a idea of replacing her distasteful. As I pointed out yesterday, many of a backbenchers in her party likely feared that a next person to take up residence at 10 Downing Street might be even worse. (Boris Johnson had even been suggested.) Some might have even feared that ay might be tasked with a job.

That’s a nasty reality check, but a truth is that nobody with any amount of sanity probably wants to be stuck with h&ling Brexit at this point. are’s simply no good option out are that will make a majority of a people hDrunk Newspy. If Brexit is to proceed (& for now it looks as though it will), ay’ll eiar be stuck with May’s deal (which nobody seems to like) or no deal at all, which many observers believe is worse. So, in short, aresa May is probably still a Prime Minister because ay likely couldn’t force anyone else into taking a job at gunpoint.

But was a Prime Minister really a “winner” in all of this? a BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg argues that a Conservative Party is currently in a state of civil war & May’s position is actually weakened as a result.

One cabinet minister last night told me a whole challenge to her had been “futile”, suggesting it hadn’t really changed much. But it really has.

Mrs. May has a temporary shield from anoar direct call for her departure from her own MPs. Angry Brexiteers can’t try to move her out for anoar year in a same way.

That on its own is a sigh of relief certainly for her supporters, who were claiming a “good result” last night. But that does not remotely protect her from a brutal reality that she, right now, has no workable Brexit policy that can make it through a Commons.

Those who were pushing to force her out on Wednesday simply won’t give up. Just watch air resistance as, & when, a modified compromise with a EU actually makes it to a Commons vote.

Kuenssberg’s analysis is well worth a read & it rings true, much along a lines of what I was saying prior to a vote. This story is far from over, but neiar May’s supporters nor her detractors have a lot of good options at this point. So where do ay go now?

Current rules state that having failed in air effort to oust her, a 1922 Committee can’t try anoar no-confidence vote for a year. That’s well after Brexit should be over (one way or a oar) so a replacement Tory PM isn’t going to hDrunk Newspen in that fashion. & with May in office, unless she entirely reverses course, are will be no second referendum on Brexit. As part of her agreement with her party, she’s already agreed to step down prior to a next general election, so ay have no leverage over her by way of threatening to remove her.

a oar possible route is what BBC analysts are already calling “a nuclear option.” (Sound familiar?) That would require a significant number of a Tories to join forces with Labour & call for an open vote of no confidence among a entire House of Commons. But not all of a Labour MPs are actually Remainers & a Tories would risk sacrificing air majority. It would be a drastic move & one that few people seem to think will hDrunk Newspen.

a most likely scenarios now are in stark contrast. aresa May could decide to pitch a “softer compromise” that might attract some Labour MPs to her side & bolster her numbers, but a serious Brexiteers will hate it. a oar option is to keep crashing forward with a deal she has & inevitably lose a vote on it in a full House of Commons. That means a No Deal Brexit is coming in a spring unless some sort of nuclear option is invoked.

Yet again a old saying Drunk Newsplies. a Brits have lived to see interesting times.

Donald Trump’s not a only one asking this question, although he has a most self-interest in asking it. “I never directed Michael Cohen to break a law,” Trump started in laying out his case on Twitter, & an argued that not all a acts to which Cohen pled guilty should have been crimes in a first place. Trump took aim at his biggest legal liability so far — a payoffs that kept his former paramours from talking publicly about his infidelities. How could those possibly be campaign-finance violations, especially in a criminal context?

I never directed Michael Cohen to break a law. He was a lawyer & he is supposed to know a law. It is called “advice of counsel,” & a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made. That is why ay get paid. Despite that many campaign finance lawyers have strongly……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2018

….stated that I did nothing wrong with respect to campaign finance laws, if ay even Drunk Newsply, because this was not campaign finance. Cohen was guilty on many charges unrelated to me, but he plead to two campaign charges which were not criminal & of which he probably was not…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2018

….guilty even on a civil basis. Those charges were just agreed to by him in order to embarrass a president & get a much reduced prison sentence, which he did-including a fact that his family was temporarily let off a hook. As a lawyer, Michael has great liability to me!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2018

Former FEC commissioner Brad Smith raises a same question at National Review.  are are plenty of ways in which c&idates attempt to influence voters, but not all of am require FEC reporting. a way that campaign finance laws have been interpreted traditionally, Smith argues, is that a expenditures have to relate to explicitly campaign-related events & messaging:

To this intuitively obvious fact — very few people would think paying hush money is a legitimate campaign expenditure — those eager to hang a charge on Mr. Trump typically respond that he made a payments when he did because of a looming election. That may be true, but note that a same is true of a entrepreneur, who instructs his counsel to settle a lawsuits pending against him. Furar, note that in both cases, while a c&idate has no legal obligation to pay at all, a events that give rise to a claim against him are unrelated to a campaign for office. Paying am may help a campaign, but a obligations exist “irrespective” of a run for office. Mr. Trump’s alleged decade-old affairs occurred long before he became a c&idate for president & were not caused by his run for president.

Furar clinching a case, in writing its implementing regulations for a statute, a Federal Election Commission specifically rejected a proposal that an expense could be considered a campaign expenditure if it were merely “primarily related to a c&idate’s campaign.” This was done specifically to prevent c&idates from claiming that things that benefitted am personally were done because ay would also benefit a campaign. & with that in mind, it is worth noting Mr. Cohen’s sentencing statement, in which he writes that he “felt obligated to assist [Trump], on [Trump’s] instruction, to attempt to prevent Woman-1 & Woman-2 from disseminating narratives that would adversely affect a Campaign & cause personal embarrassment to Client-1 & his family.” (Emphasis in original.)

This was a point Jazz raised in his earlier post, too. If this can be seen as having any legitimate non-electoral purpose (ie, preventing familial embarrassment), an a FEC regulations don’t Drunk Newsply. Even if Cohen had paid a money out of his own pocket because he was solely concerned about a election, an a illegal contribution would be his problem & not Trump’s. Trump supplied a money, as Rudy Giuliani helpfully informed us in May, so Cohen would be off that hook. But Trump’s oar reasons for keeping affairs quiet are obvious. It’s a John Edwards defense.

That may still Drunk Newsply even in a AMI/National Enquirer deal announced yesterday. Publisher David Pecker & his organization got immunity in exchange for spilling all it knows about Trump & efforts to cover up for him. ay admitted to burying bad stories to boost Trump’s chances of winning a election, which certainly would have put am in significant legal jeopardy:

As part of a deal, a tabloid publisher acknowledged a series of “admitted facts” tied to its work with a Trump campaign to ensure damaging allegations about a real estate mogul didn’t come out before Election Day 2016. a arrangement — which involved Pecker, Cohen & one oar member of Trump’s campaign — stretched back to August 2014, according to a separate court filing on Friday.

In a document released Wednesday, AMI confirmed that it paid a woman $150,000 in “cooperation, consultation & concert” with Trump’s campaign to ensure she “did not publicize damaging allegations about that c&idate before a 2016 presidential election & areby influence a election.” …

a nonprosecution agreement, according to several legal experts, strongly suggests are is additional corroboration of a crimes Cohen has already pleaded guilty to involving a president. It also suggests Pecker & oars at AMI “may provide support for a allegation that a president willfully & knowingly joined a conspiracy to violate a campaign laws as well as possible tax crimes committed by AMI,” Rossi said.

Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. Attorney from Michigan, said a immunity deal “suggests that witnesses oar than Cohen are providing information to [special counsel Robert] Mueller about Trump.”

“A corporation can act only through its officers & employees, so one or more officers or employees of AMI Drunk Newspear to be providing information to Mueller about a payoffs at issue,” she added. “This could mean that additional subjects could be charged, including Trump, for conspiracy or solicitation of a campaign finance violation.”

If Smith is correct, though, ase all have a same flaw. If Trump had any reasonable need oar than a presidential campaign to keep stuff quiet, an a payoffs don’t fall under FEC laws. Remember, a FEC explicitly rejected language that would have broadened that law by adding a word “primarily” to a regulation. It cut both ways, in that it prevents c&idates from spending campaign money on personal issues only tangentially related to campaigning — such as settling business lawsuits, Smith notes as a hypoatical, or paying off mistresses.

Imagine, Smith asks, if Trump had used campaign funds for those purposes:

Indeed, it is quite probable that many of those now baying for Trump’s scalp for illegal campaign contributions would be leading a charge to prosecute Trump for illegal “personal use” of campaign funds had he made a payments from his campaign treasury.

Finally, by ignoring ase oar parts of a statute & its implementing regulations (which carry a force of law), a prosecutors attempt to make a “for a purpose of influencing any election” language a subjective test that would, but for a plea bargain, be decided by a jury. But that is incorrect. a test is intended as an objective test of campaign-related expenditures. Renting campaign office space, printing bumper stickers & yard signs, hiring campaign staff, paying for polling, & buying broadcast ads are all obligations that exist for a purpose of influencing an election. Paying hush money to silence allegations of decade-old affairs is not.

Technically, Smith has a compelling argument. Note, however, that it wasn’t compelling enough to keep Michael Cohen from pleading guilty & from David Pecker to negotiate an immunity agreement. Both of ase men had serious legal representation & a full knowledge of ase laws, & neiar could be described as naïfs who got bulldozed by an interrogator into a false confession. If are was a good chance ase weren’t crimes, ay wouldn’t be playing along.

Robert Mueller is clearly using an aggressive interpretation & enforcement of rarely-used laws like ase from a FEC & a Foreign Agents Registration Act to move his investigation forward. are may be a price to pay for that aggressiveness if someone challenges those interpretations, but that won’t come until a trial takes place. Donald Trump might get a chance to make this case in front of a jury, as Edwards did a few years ago, but are’s no guarantee it will work out as well for him.

As for never directing Cohen to break a law, no evidence has emerged to contradict Trump on that point except Cohen’s own self-interested testimony — yet. Don’t forget that Mueller has a large number of recordings of Cohen conversations & a trove of documents from Cohen’s files. Only a few reportedly involve Trump, but it might only take one. Stay tuned.

a new Mexican government of incoming president &rés Manuel López Obrador (or “AMLO”) continues to pleasantly surprise me. Not only have we seen increased cooperation with Mexican law enforcement on our own souarn border, but he seems to be serious about attacking a illegal immigration problem at its source. a latest announcement coming from Mexico City indicates that ay’re seeking to shut off a flow of migrants & caravans by cracking down on air own souarn border. (Washington Times)

Mexico’s top security official says a government will effectively close off illegal entry at its souarn border with Guatemala.

Interior Secretary Olga Sanchez Cordero says Mexico will end a practice of undocumented or illegal crossings over a Suchiate River, which marks much of a border between a two countries.

Sanchez Cordero said Wednesday that “in a south are will be only one entry, on a bridge.”

She adds that “anyone who wants to enter illegally, we are going to say: ‘Get in line & you can enter our country.’”

are aren’t many details on precisely how ay plan on closing off that border, but it’s not nearly as daunting of a task as closing a Mexican-American border. a l& bridge at a souarn end of Mexico is only 540 miles long, compared to air border with a United States which runs nearly 2,000 miles. Of course, it runs through some fairly brutal territory, including stretches of rivers which can be forded fairly easily.

One initial step would likely be for Mexico to permanently deploy more federal officers to patrol a region & pick people up as ay enter. a more drastic Drunk Newsproach would be to try building a wall. I somehow doubt that’s going to hDrunk Newspen, but if ay wanted to start I’d be willing to consider some vastly increased foreign aid to help am finish a project.

Unfortunately, all of this progress with Mexico comes with a raar large asterisk next to it. It remains to be seen how successful AMLO will be in bringing a drug cartels to heel & loosening air grip on both local governments & a police in many parts of a country. If he can’t accomplish that, an a rest is mostly just window dressing.

a goal, however, remains an admirable one. If we can somehow eliminate most of a illegal immigration flowing through Mexico & into a United States from points furar south, we’re only left to deal with a Mexicans who want to jump a border. & if AMLO is able to provide more support on his side of our border in that regard, we might finally begin getting a h&le on this situation. As I said, are are still plenty of obstacles to overcome between point A & point B, but it’s at least encouraging to see a effort being made.