Obama Was Accused of Offering Hush Money to Jeremiah Wright... and No One Cared
Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., pastor of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ & former pastor of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. |
For the moment, let’s put aside the obvious problems with Cohen’s credibility and assume he’s telling the truth. According to a Reuters article about the Cohen pleas:
That’s right, Barack Obama also offered an individual hush money "for the principal purpose of influencing the election,” but you probably never heard about it. It wasn’t to silence a mistress though, it was to silence his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Wright’s inflammatory, anti-American rhetoric caused Obama significant headaches during his first presidential campaign, and he tried to contain the damage to protect his chances of winning the White House.
Edward Klein broke the story in the New York Post on May 13, 2012—the same year Obama was reelected—that Obama’s team tried to buy Wright’s silence during the 2008 campaign. According to Wright, he was offered $150,000 through an Obama intermediary (one of Obama’s closest friends), and Obama himself tried to persuade him to keep quiet.
“Yes,” Wright said. “Barack said he wanted to meet me in secret, in a secure place. And I said, ‘You’re used to coming to my home, you’ve been here countless times, so what’s wrong with coming to my home?’ So we met in the living room of the parsonage of Trinity United Church of Christ, at South Pleasant Avenue right off 95th Street, just Barack and me. I don’t know if he had a wire on him. His security was outside somewhere.
“And one of the first things Barack said was, ‘I really wish you wouldn’t do any more public speaking until after the November election.’ He knew I had some speaking engagements lined up, and he said, ‘I wish you wouldn’t speak. It’s gonna hurt the campaign if you do that.’
And yet no one cared. Outside of conservative media and blogs, the story was dismissed or downplayed by those who deigned to cover it. This was during an election year, no less. The allegations against Trump by his former lawyer are as serious as the allegations made against Obama by his former pastor. If Obama’s actions weren’t worthy of a federal investigation, then neither are Trump’s. Either both men violated the law, or both men didn’t. Which is it? If the former, Obama should be investigated—better late than never, after all.
It never ceases to amaze me how serious accusations against Barack Obama often failed to spark much controversy because the media either refused to cover it or pushed the Obama White House talking points on the matter. Sadly, Obama offering hush money to Wright is probably the least serious thing he did to “influence an election.” There are many examples of obstruction of justice, manipulating intelligence, and outright lying to the American public with the sole purpose of protecting Obama’s chances of reelection 2012, or to influence the 2014 midterms. When the Obama campaign was fined $375,000 by the FEC for concealing donations, no one called for impeachment.
There shouldn’t be one set of rules for Republicans and another set of rules for Democrats. Cohen may just be trying to score a big payday by going after Trump, but I’m tired of the double standards and hypocrisy of Trump’s enemies.
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Matt Margolis writes for PJMedia. He the co-author of the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama and the author of the book The Scandalous Presidency of Barack Obama.
Tags: Matt Margolis, PJ Media, Obama, Accused, Offering Hush Money, to Jeremiah Wright, No One Cared To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
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