#what?? no way—totally unfounded and implausible

[starlit-eudemonia]

I finally slept; omg life is so wonderful.

[julystorms]

I blame @goodguyjean for this since we were talking about AUs last night, but I was thinking about modern AUs today: specifically how many of them just...fall flat to me. Like in theory they sound easy and fun to write! But you’re transplanting characters into a completely different world, man. You can’t just give them your own interests and let ‘em go??? And I mean, people write these adorable “how they met” stories but none of the characters ever seem to be in character; it’s like the scenario just seems cute so people use it regardless as to whether or not the characters would actually do those things/say that stuff/et cetera.

And of course if you’re writing a long’fic, you have to consider the ramifications of the choices you’ve made, of the lives you’ve plunked the characters down into. Which sometimes means amazing fanfiction but usually means the entire premise the author started with falls on its goddamned face.

I mean you can write artist!Jean! It’s not implausible! But he has to actually feel like Jean. This is one of the reasons businessman!Levi doesn’t jive with me. I can’t see it? I’ve always seen him working lower-profile jobs like being on the janitorial staff somewhere. He’s not the kind of person who wants to be in the limelight. Levi can’t feel like Levi if he’s spiffily dressed with a gold pocketwatch--not unless he’s undercover for some reason (and probably doing a mediocre job of it, tbh). Businessman!Mike makes me kind of uncomfortable, too. He’s another character who doesn’t strike me as the sort of person who would do well in that kind of a position, not generally speaking, anyway. This is YMMV material though, since his character is only barely established and I see him as a very hands-on person: construction, maybe engineering, plumber, carpenter, roofing, et cetera. I think in some situations I could be sold on Mike as a businessman if he’s in a position that makes sense to his character, where he doesn’t have to talk overmuch and mingle for pleasure with random people--and also it works a little better if it’s a job Erwin secured for him via Connections. That said, I think fandom tends to think only skin-deep regarding the characters. Well, Mike’s 6′5′’ and imposing looking, so of course he’d look sharp in a suit! Well...yes. And he’d be a great bouncer. And various other things. But would he actually take a job like that? And what kind of childhood did he have? Teenage years? What kind of personality is he in possession of? Is it one suited for this kind of work or would he lose his job/credibility quickly? 

Fandom likes to dump things like careers and living situations on characters in modern settings without bothering to think about what makes sense for the characters and their finances. Hitch in fashionable clothes only makes sense if she has the means to access this stuff: a really good job? Upper middle class parents? She can sew her own? Like she might seem like the sort of character who wants to look fashionable but that doesn’t mean her upbringing and history and current situation really allow for it. You know?

Like everyone wants to write Petra as a kindergarten teacher, and it’s not that the idea doesn’t work at all: she looks the part and she would be so kind to the kids! It’s that fandom does it because she’s kind of small and she’s a woman and she looks like a kindergarten teacher. Everyone expects it? But it only fits if it’s something she’s extremely passionate about, if it challenges her mind--like she teaches for an inner-city school and she feels needed and necessary and like she’s making a big difference. She’s passionate about trying to get these kids the education they deserve and need, about bringing her own supplies in with money she doesn’t really have, just so that they can have that. Bringing in snacks on her own dime for the little ones who don’t always get enough at home so that they can focus on learning so they can move up in the world. Petra teaching at a ritzy private school doesn’t...work. Not for her character. She’s not that kind of person. It doesn’t fit. She’s more a nosy journalist than a comfortable teacher. She needs to be challenged by her work in a good way.

And I mean, I’m all about turning fandom’s expectations for an AU upside-down, but those have to work, too. Gelgar as a chef of a like greasy spoon sorta place. Nanaba as an editor or college professor. Jean as a police officer. Marco in law. Henning the UPS guy. Nifa a professional volleyball player. Mikasa in accounting. Sasha doing data entry. Eren into programming. Mike as a nurse in a nursing home.

People seem to have very specific ideas of the kinds of jobs that are available in the world, and everyone dives after “generic businessman” because it’s just...easy to be really vague about? Bro, I am not about that life and very few people end up in that kind of a position. Lots of people do CSR work for years and if you can stick that out and get promoted, you’ll probably have an easy job that pays pretty darn well compared to the work you have to put in. There’s no shame in people who manage chain restaurants or supervise second shift in a factory. In fact, those are the kinds of jobs most people end up in. Why not your characters, too? I never imagined I’d end up where I am. There were so many jobs people easily saw me in (teaching, police work, SaHM, veterinary medicine, fitness) and what I ended up doing, in order, was: fast food, factory work, HR assistant/receptionist, CSR, writing/analysis tutor, and billing.

I guess...nothing pulls me out of an AU faster than characters who all seem to have high-end jobs they ended up in...by like...some kind of magic? For most jobs there’s schooling, apprenticeships... And even then there’s a ladder to climb. Grades can and do matter in competitive fields. Grades in difficult fields tend to be lower (electrical engineering vs. the liberal arts) and in fields where positions need filled, they hardly matter so long as you get a degree.

Even if they already have the job, I want to see the journey somehow. I don’t want to read a story where it feels like the characters were magically granted their positions as CEOs of some big-wig company.

So like, artist!Jean could be really, really fun to write. He could easily be a brutally honest traditional artist* who does oil paintings and really likes his field and is here for a degree, not to make it rich doing shows or making nice with the wealthy. Art can still be a passion for him. He’s just the sort of person who sees the world as it is and knows how competitive the field is and doesn’t want to struggle for years on the off-chance that he will get established. He’d rather get a boring 9-5 and come home to spend his free time doing art. It stays fun that way; he remains passionate about it. But his day job is like, data entry for a medical company.

Anyway this didn’t have a point to it except to say that I really wish I could enjoy AUs more. It’s just hard for me because I tend to overthink things? Like, to expand a little more, you’re at your job more than you’re at home talking to your significant other before bed, usually. You spend a lot of time there. And lots of people work in unexpected fields but like, their reaction to working in a career that doesn’t fit them needs to actually exist. Maybe Mike is a businessman and hates it or is super uncomfortable in that position because he’s not very good with Words and can’t keep up with the kind of snide office shenanigans that other characters like Erwin might thrive on or find a welcome challenge. He’s still doing it, though, for [insert reason here like he has a kid to support/bills to pay/he failed at doing something else and is afraid of instability]. Mike as a person who relies on people understanding him without him needing to say much wouldn’t do very well in an environment that requires him to talk a lot and be clear and concise. He probably knows this isn’t a good fit for him, it probably makes him anxious, but man what do you do if you have a kid at home depending on you? A mortgage?

Or maybe you have Historia as a pianist but HAHA SURPRISE she actually sucks?? And the support she’s receiving is like...totally unfounded...

And then artist!Jean who works doing data entry for a medical company as mentioned above. He thinks it’s boring AF and he really wants to kick Eren, the company’s programmer, into the dirt for not putting out fixes fast enough for issues in the software he designed... But overall he’s pretty okay with his job because it gives him the money to buy art supplies and pay rent on an apartment that has an extra bedroom--one he uses specifically for his art. He has no splendorous dreams for himself; he doesn’t see his job as “just temporary”; he just lives his life the best way he knows how and the story that’s being told around this backdrop takes into account the fact that he has a job and a hobby that take up a lot of his time.

Because like, people aren’t their jobs...but they do take up a large part of their day. In a romance I don’t need a play-by-play of every single day of work, ‘cause Eren staring at code for 37 pages doesn’t seem like much fun to write or read...but as a writer who is in Eren’s head, you can’t really escape the fact that work is a huge part of his life and probably who he is--to the extent, anyway, that that huge bug fix that needs to be done by Monday? Is something he can’t...escape from. He’s thinking about it all weekend. Even if he doesn’t want to. Because it’s a big part of the life he lives. Even if romance is the focus of the story and the plot, when you forget to include these kinds of things the characters tend to feel ... kind of hollow. Like they couldn’t possibly exist as people because they never seem to be at work or never think about work or don’t really seem to have any real hobbies or interests that don’t move the plot...?

Anyway idk where I was going with this lmao. I love AUs but so many of them just don’t work for me. I’m probably just weird though. :P

*this is basically my brother so i could write this convincingly lmao and lemme tell you what there are a lot of people majoring in art who can’t stand criticism i can practically HEAR critique circles with jean in them as i type this!!

[elizabethrobertajones]

“I can’t believe Dean and Cas made out.”

Cas shrunk back from walking into the library at the sound of Sam ’s voice – for very good reasons.

He heard the unconvinced noise Mary made as she shrugged before replying. “It broke the spell and saved the town – it’s not hard to believe they’d do it… For the greater good.”

Sam still sounded agitated although Cas agreed with Mary – and he should know better than them about it. “No, Mom, we were all in the room. All the ritual asked for was a kiss… I mean what if all we needed to do was something like me giving you a peck on the cheek? It was a vaguely phrased spell.”

“I suppose so…”

Sam had gone into full ranting mode – “And – even if it had to be a kiss on the mouth – Cas could have kissed any of us. There were options. He could have kissed you, or, well, he was standing right next to me when Dean read the thing out, and a lot of people were going to die really soon. I’d take one for the team.”

“Are you going somewhere with this?” Mary sounded far more amused than Cas had expected. He supposed the kiss might have broken the ice – with time it had become something they could laugh about, at least when he and Dean weren’t in the room; they had a little more reason to be haunted by it.

Sam, though, seemed to be giving Cas a run for his money on that front. “Just – if I was gonna kiss Cas to save a ton of people and break a spell – in front of my entire family – I think I’d be fine with smushing our lips together and checking out the corner of my eye to see if the glowing orb on the altar had turned off again… Maybe chance some tongue if it hadn’t…”

“You have given this a lot of thought.”

Cas smiled to himself at Mary’s teasing tone. He did agree with Sam that if they had to kiss for the greater good, it wouldn’t be so terrible… If, of course, not for…

“I’m sorry, but it’s driving me crazy.”

“That they kissed?”

“No… But I mean, I still need brain bleach after what I saw. I’m working through the trauma. They were knocking books off the altar. Cas had his knee on it. Dean had fistfuls of trenchcoat. I know you were kind of concussed at the time, but do you remember how many times I had to clear my throat and tell them it was over and they could stop making out? I’ve suffered.”

There was an awkward pause, or at least, to Cas, as he spent it fighting a surprise blush, the heat of that moment returning to him fiercely, though he’d tried to put it out of his mind. Then Mary cleared her throat.

“Are they –?”

“No. And that’s what’s killing me. You don’t know how long I’ve been dealing with their UST.”

Cas rolled his eyes at that, just on the principle of if they had been able to see him.

“Trust me,” Sam continued, “Our lives would all have run a lot smoother if they’d got their crap together immediately. And, also, they have the collective emotional intuitiveness of a tank of goldfish. They’d never be able to hide it long if they had… They just… Make so much drama all the time. I have a feeling we’d find out some way or another.”

Mary made an odd snorting noise trying to contain laughter aimed at her own child, while Cas bristled at the totally unfounded accusations.

“I think they’ll be okay,” she said. “Perhaps they’ll work it out in their own time.”

“Mom, no. It’s been three months since they made out, and they haven’t talked about it. I can tell.”

“How?”

“How? They make just being in a room with them unbearable, ever since, with all the side-glances and sighing. I mean it – I can’t believe they made out because it didn’t fix anything. We’re living in a world where Cas shoved Dean against the nearest piece of furniture and kissed him so hard he could barely stand after, and nothing happened. We had that one long awkward drive back – and thanks for sleeping through it and leaving me to enjoy that pained small talk – then the next day it’s all back to normal like it never happened. Except for Cas’s sighing and Dean’s stammering, and how they always keep getting coffee to bring to the other so they’re carrying mugs all over the Bunker and not bringing them back to the kitchen…”

Cas glanced guiltily down at the mugs of now cold coffee in his hands.

“And you’re sure they’re not… Together?” Mary sounded nervous of even voicing the concept, but at least not openly disapproving. Small mercies.

“I know Dean, when he has a secret. He gets really weird about everything. I could accuse him of using up the milk and putting the empty bottle back in the fridge and he’d take the moral high ground asking, well what about your secret angel boyfriend or something. And Cas… I think he’d look happier.”

That brought a longer and more contemplative pause from Mary. “Is there anything we can do?” she asked.

He had heard enough – or didn’t want to hear what they’d plan for him and Dean. Cas slipped away back to the kitchen to wash up the mugs and get fresh coffee.

*

Cas wished he wasn’t giving Sam the satisfaction, but another two weeks passed while he mulled over what he had heard. In a way, implausible though it felt, he’d almost stopped thinking about the kiss of death spell, and how they had broken it. It was the change between Dean and himself that was more troubling…

Sam was also right that they hadn’t talked about it. That long car ride after, he had wondered for hours how this would change things between Dean and himself. The answer was not a lot, really. He wasn’t asked to leave, or invited into Dean’s bedroom, or any extreme reaction Cas could have expected. Of course he had healed Mary’s concussion as soon as the danger had been over, but the next day after getting home, when it seemed like old news, Dean had immediately found another case as his morning greeting, along with a suggestion Mary stay back to rest up and Cas to look after her.

They’d watched daytime TV and Mary hadn’t commented on how absorbed in the kiss Cas had been. Cas wondered long and hard if he should ask her for advice, but even he knew that was a strange and uncomfortable position to put her in. So things went unsaid, and Dean kept finding reasons to drag Sam or Mary off on quick and easy salt and burns, or send one of them with Cas, and so he grew more and more certain that Dean was avoiding him.

Things were easier after the first month, and Dean stayed home a few more days at a time, as well as working with Cas again though with a buffer of Sam or Mary with them… It seemed like Dean had forgotten after the second month, and finally started hanging around Cas more and having fun like they used to. There was an uneasy tension still, an uncertainty in the way he spoke to him. A nervous buzz between them if they were left alone unexpectedly.

Cas didn’t like the change, but he hadn’t known what to do about it until he heard the disbelief in Sam’s voice as he said, “I can’t believe Dean and Cas made out.”

It took all of those two weeks, though.

*

Finally, Cas found the Bunker mostly deserted, Dean at the map table, reading, and Cas himself bringing coffee.

“Oh, hey Cas,” Dean said, as if genuinely surprised to see him. Alarmed, perhaps. That edge of nervousness to everything between them was already present.

Cas put the coffees down and watched Dean smile gratefully. It was late for humans with normal circadian rhythms. Dean seemed far from turning in, reading something from one of the big Men of Letters tomes of lore with no real urgency, as they were between cases and drastic end of the world problems.

“Uh,” Dean said after a moment, risking a glance up at Cas. “You planning on lurking there all night?”

Cas continued standing still but more intentionally. When Dean was shifting uncomfortably from the suspense, Cas finally broke the silence. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Who died?” Dean said, sarcastically, so Cas assumed his tone of voice was being mocked, not that Dean was waiting for bad news.

“No one – I… I was thinking about the kiss.”

Dean’s eyes flickered wide with surprise – perhaps a fraction of a second of a fond smile, before his bashfulness disappeared into the more familiar guarded expression that Cas had been expecting.

“Well… Yeah, same, but do you see me running around chatting about it with everyone?” Dean had shrunk back down, and Cas felt almost guilty to unsettle him like that. Almost. This was getting ridiculous.

“I wanted to talk because it’s frustrating. Do you really want to live the rest of your life pretending that it didn’t happen?”

Dean looked away, picked up his coffee and put it down again immediately. “I just… Wanted to wait for a better time to, you know…” He gestured vaguely at Cas, who scowled harder at him. Dean huffed out a sigh in defeat. “To recreate the exact make out session but without Mom and Sam there.”

“They’re not here now.”

Dean looked around, at the doors, into the library, up at the balcony. Cas felt reasonably sure he could sense both in their rooms, asleep or at least sequestered away at the end of the day.

“No, I guess not,” Dean agreed. He looked caught out, but less and less reluctant in the face of Cas obstinately standing there waiting for a response he wanted – and that he knew from Dean’s passionate response last time, he wanted too.

Dean pushed back his chair and stood, an action that had him abruptly swaying into Cas’s space. “Can’t believe I’m going to make out with you,” he muttered, as Cas reached out to place a hand on Dean’s cheek, as cautiously as he’d done that day at the site of the spell.

Dean had made the next move, leaning forward to seal their lips together, so Cas waited, as Dean leaned into his touch, eyes dropping closed. Instead of making a move, he let out a soft breath, as if letting go of the last of his resistance, and allowing himself to enjoy the touch and the closeness. It was much slower, more gentle than that urgent rush to save the town, a ticking time bomb waiting for their lips to meet. Dean had grabbed Cas by the tie, tugged him closer with the same fierceness he fought with, and kissed him with a certainty that it was what needed to be done…

Not that making out with Cas could have been an unwanted side effect of saving everyone, but now, when they had time, Dean reached for him like he was a mirage in the desert that would disappear when his hands passed through the seemingly real image in front of him. Dean ended up holding the lapels of Cas’s coat, gathering them into tight fists and clutching the fabric apparently just to hold it for a long time before he gave in and pulled.

Cas let Dean fall into him, lips meeting lips, gentle and pressing a dozen small kisses to test the waters, stopping to marvel at each other that they’d broken such a long and fraught silence – not just between the Kiss of Death spell and now, but all the time they’d spent avoiding mentioning whatever it was between them before that. Dean’s eyes were full of awe, and Cas didn’t even stop to remember the original kisses, to replicate how he pulled Dean closer, now securing him against him with a hand in his hair, holding it tight enough that Dean wouldn’t move away even if he wanted to.

The glowing orb on the altar had already lost its shine and sunk harmlessly back onto the table at this point, the threat clearly over, but Dean had suddenly lost all inhibitions, like the kiss had wiped from his mind any thoughts that weren’t about the next kiss… Going from powerful kisses to indulgent, hungry… His mouth hot as he pushed his tongue deep into Cas’s mouth, drew back to tease Cas’s lower lip between his teeth before he let go and grinned up at Cas. Dean had years of kissing experience, knowing just how to wind up his partner and leave them desperate for the next kiss, but then as now, Cas wasn’t going to let Dean run away with it – the thought of the spell, the orb, the others in the room, had left him behind too, and he’d wanted to kiss the smirk off Dean’s face…

Now it was a dazed, happy smile, Dean pulling away from Cas to bite his own lip, as if tasting it for confirmation that it had been against Cas’s mouth. Though they were lost in the moment, it was one of calm, and understanding, and Dean looked at Cas like he could barely believe this was happening, not just awe but relief in his eyes. Then he laughed, which hadn’t happened at all at the altar; there had been no time, not with Cas grabbing him by the front of his t-shirt, scrabbling to pull him in with a fist in his hair, so Dean stumbled into him, and with his knees buckling and his hands failing to get purchase on Cas’s coat at his shoulders, they’d stumbled against the altar and –

Dean laughed harder, clutching at Cas’s shoulders, falling forward again to laugh against Cas’s neck, pressing kisses slowly from under his ear to his collarbone – Cas could feel Dean working his tie loose, and was lost in marvelling at Dean’s sudden change to tender and gentle. It broke the script of their previous kiss, left Cas feeling uncertain to do more than slide a hand through Dean’s hair up from the back of his neck, letting Dean’s hair slide between his fingers, a promise he could grip harder, but that he wasn’t yet. Dean shivered at the touch, breath hot against Cas’s neck where he had left wet kisses.

“Cas –”

“Yes?”

“We were really stupid to leave it this long to try again.”

Cas felt Dean’s lips turn to the crook of his neck again, nuzzling against it, then licking curiously, a hand skating up to cup Cas’s neck on the other side so he could push more insistent kisses there… Cas dropped his head back and closed his eyes, reaching blindly for the table beside them as Dean pushed Cas back; he stumbled into it, suddenly realising the roles had reversed from his desperate push back at Dean that had left him leaning back across the altar, pushing books and spell ingredients and candles aside as, lost in the intensity of their first kisses. He remembered the feeling of his coat pulling almost to tear at the seams on the shoulders as Dean grabbed at the back of it – made Cas think that if there were no layers between them Deans hands would have been kneading the bare flesh of his back… He’d pushed against Dean, feeling the hardness between his legs, been rewarded with a groan and Dean trying to hook a leg around Cas, to pull them back onto the altar, and Cas had been desperate to follow…

Back then, Sam clearing his throat had been enough to pull Cas back to reality, to try and disentangle himself from a Dean who was far too addled to put himself back in the scene for a moment, and then so embarrassed he’d gaped around at everyone for a moment and then walked straight out of the room…

That had all flowed too quickly from Cas and Dean instinctively turning to the other when they realised what broke the spell, the sureness and unspoken agreement they wanted to try.

Now, Dean kept stopping to smile dazedly at Cas before leaning in to steal another kiss. He’d worked Cas’s tie loose, but after that changed course to run his hand through Cas’s hair with a determination to mess it up but no… forward momentum. Cas knew he was fairly close to an immovable object if he wanted to be, but he was leaning slackly into Dean’s embrace and he was still barely pushed up against the table after several minutes of exchanging kisses, and the memory of the previous time was haunting him, a moment they had to pass and recreate for themselves in a way that worked out…

It was pleasant though, having Dean leant against him almost like they’d been dancing, murmuring pleased disbelief into Cas’s shoulder – not that he couldn’t believe Cas liked him, but that they’d somehow managed to act on it.

Cas led the way into the next kiss, pushing at Dean gently at first, exploring how much Dean would let him lead, in case it had been a fluke at the altar that Dean had been swept away so completely. The answer was that he shuddered pleasurably at Cas taking hold of his waist and stepping back into Dean’s space with a fierceness to his kisses. Dean melted into it, pressing himself firmly against Cas. Cas pushed back, and in moments he had Dean sitting on the table – his chair knocked over, the sound of a cup smashing on the floor ignored as Cas slid his hands down from Dean’s shoulders, along his back and past his waist, to lift Dean against him. Dean moaned loudly enough for him to freeze and listen.

“It’s okay, it’s just us. This time it’s just us,” Cas murmured, and stole Dean’s lips before he could argue.

Instead he pulled at Cas until he stumbled against Dean and the table, not sure what Dean was doing until Dean pulled him into a controlled fall; Dean scrambled back to let Cas clamber on top of him, books and instruments from the map table falling to the floor. Cas looked down at Dean and found him grinning up at him, flushed and out of breath and reaching for Cas’s shirt buttons.

“You do have a room,” Cas reminded him.

“I know,” Dean said. “You’ve left me hanging with thoughts about tables for months.”

Cas couldn’t argue with that, and leaned down to continue the make out session.

*

Eventually, Cas did lead Dean back to his own bed; morning came and Cas escaped Dean’s sleeping vice grip when the sun was barely up somewhere beyond the protective wall of the Bunker, to tidy up the chaos from the night.

Some things couldn’t be fixed though – an hour or so later Sam stumbled into the kitchen, yawning, and stopped short at the stack of glasses moved next to the coffee machine. He shuffled around to squint at Dean, sitting on the end of the table (Cas absolutely not paying him any attention despite the enticing set up) and Sam’s eyes finally found the whiskey glass Dean was holding that contained a suspiciously coffee-like liquid.

“Where are all the mugs?”

“Yeah, Cas finally smashed the entire set,” Dean said, and took another sip of coffee. Cas, leaning on the kitchen island, averted his eyes as Sam turned to look at him, and then back to Dean.

“Oh my god. I can’t believe you two finally made out.”

[marymosley]

Reality Check: Why The Latest Filing Is Neither Clear Vindication Nor An Imminent Conviction

Below is my column in The Hill Newspaper on the unrestrained hype on both sides after the recent filings by the Special Counsel and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. 

Here is the column:

In Washington, both sides appear intent on putting the hype back into the hyperbole. Faced with a serious charge that he directed the commission of a federal felony through attorney Michael Cohen, President Trumpimplausibly declared the filings “totally clears” him. Conversely, incoming House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) declared that Trump is now looking at the “real prospect of jail time” and the “bigger question” of pardons is whether the next president would pardon Trump. Incoming House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) declared that the filings establish that Trump is at the center of a “massive fraud.”

So the public can choose between imminent vindication or conviction, or it can choose reality. The fact is these filings present a serious threat for Trump but do not yet establish a clear likelihood of imprisonment or even impeachment of the president. Here are the reality checks for both sides.

For Republicans 

Trump explained on the weekend that the White House is “very happy with what we are reading because there was no collusion whatsoever.” Yet, if anyone in the White House is “happy” about these filings by the special counsel late on Friday, they are engaging in denial bordering on delusion. It is certainly true that the filings conspicuously omit any evidence of collusion with the Russians, let alone a crime connected to collusion.

Indeed, while Robert Mueller references additional efforts of the Russians to reach out to the Trump campaign promising some “campaign political synergy,” nothing apparently came of those queries. Indeed, Cohen does not even appear to have followed up with the newly disclosed offer. However, the documents clearly implicate Trump in directing a campaign finance violation. More importantly, the special counsel suggests that Cohen may have coordinated his efforts as well as false statements with people in the White House, including his perjury before Congress.

Trump clearly does not want his historic 2016 election victory to be tarnished by collusion allegations. However, collusion is not a crime, whereas federal campaign violations are, and the Justice Department has now accused Trump of directing the latter. That becomes more serious if the Justice Department has evidence that the president or his staff sought to conceal the crime or to suborn perjury or to tamper with witnesses.

Finally, Nadler indicated that he may seek to “toll” or to extend the statute of limitations for crimes by Trump to allow for him to be charged after leaving office. The Justice Department has long held the position that a sitting president cannot be indicted while in office. It is a constitutional interpretation I have long rejected as unfounded, but its effect is that a president can run out the period to be charged with crimes. The proposal by Nadler is a fair one so long as it applies to all presidents. If the Justice Department is going to hold to this interpretation, Congress has the authority to guarantee that no president can effectively hold out in the White House until the clock runs out. It would mean that even if Trump is elected to a second term, he still could be charged after leaving office.

For Democrats

There are a couple of threshold observations warranted for the way the Democrats reacted. First and foremost, Trump is correct that the alleged campaign finance violation has nothing to do with the original purpose of the Russia investigation. This special counsel investigation has jumped the rails, and it is really not clear where it is headed. I should note that I have always maintained that the payments to two women who alleged having affairs with Trump have represented a more direct and serious threat to him, and that Cohen himself was also a growing threat. However, if Schiff is referring to the campaign finance violation as posing the first “real prospect of jail time,” it would prove the exception rather than the rule.

Such violations are rarely prosecuted as criminal matters, though it would not be unprecedented, and the vast majority are resolved by fines. For example, the Obama campaign committed a finance violation that was almost 10 times larger at nearly $2 million, but the Justice Department declined to prosecute while President Obama was in office. Of course, there was no evidence that Obama himself directed the violation or sought to conceal damaging information. The Clinton campaign was also accused of violations in hiding millions paid for the controversial Steele dossier as “legal services” while denying the funding of the dossier.

The last such prosecution involving this type of finance allegation was brought against former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards after his campaign finance chairman and a friendly heiress paid off his mistress. In 2012, he was found not guilty on one count while the jury deadlocked on five others. It is often difficult to prove that payments were made for political as opposed to personal reasons when it is meant to hush up an affair, particularly affairs with a porn star and Playboy bunny.

Again, the greater threat would be efforts during the administration to conceal or tamper with evidence or witnesses. Nadler has a legitimate interest in extending the statute of limitations, but he has overextended the meaning of these filings in describing a “massive fraud.” Indeed, the Justice Department has engaged in an unusually prosaic narrative that portrayed as Cohen conspiring “from the shadows” to undermine the democracy. Putting aside the purple prose, Cohen may have violated federal law, but concealing these payments hardly changed the outcome of the election or represented a “massive fraud.” Prosecutors describe the crime as violating the intent for election transparency, but Trump is widely viewed as an adulterer and his affairs already were widely reported.

Payments to conceal an affair before an election would present a weak case for impeachment without additional criminal acts. Not only is the basis for the charge debatable but it turns on motivation and knowledge. Moreover, many presidents from Thomas Jefferson to Bill Clinton had affairs, before and after elections, that were actively concealed and kept quiet. Nevertheless, Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) declared over the weekend that the filings show the actions of President Trump are now “beyond the stage” of what led to the impeachment of former President Clinton. This is simply not true. Clinton had lied under oath “at this point,” an act that a federal judge later said had clearly constituted perjury.

The fact is Trump could be criminally charged with a federal campaign violation. The real threat, however, is not that allegation but secondary crimes linked to obstruction or subornation or tampering. These are crimes that are parasitic, in that they rest on or feed off original crimes. Ultimately, they can prove more serious for prosecution or impeachment. The continued effort to play the public will only undermine the credibility of our system as a whole. A president has been accused of directing a federal crime. That is neither a vindication nor a conviction. It is serious, and the last thing Americans need is more hype from both sides.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He testified on the Bill Clinton impeachment standard, represented former attorneys general in that litigation, and served as the lead defense counsel in the last impeachment trial.TAGS

Reality Check: Why The Latest Filing Is Neither Clear Vindication Nor An Imminent Conviction published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/