Tag: Michael Cohen

What a tangled web we weave

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Our Mikey’s been very busy and it’s very bad — watch for Trump to change the subject by starting a war soon:

Whoa!

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

FOX NEWS: Stormy Daniels' attorney Michael Avenatti an 'adrenaline junkie' with a keen intellect and liberal stripe

So it looks like that Essential Consulting LLC set up by Michael Cohen to pay Stormy Daniels was also used to collect large sums for influence peddling — excuse me, consulting fees — from corporations with pending government cases. Hmm. I wonder if there’s a connection? Ha ha, just kidding! This was out-and-out graft.

https://twitter.com/FlitterOnFraud/status/993991364923789314

https://twitter.com/AdrienneLaF/status/993992696300744715

https://twitter.com/gregpinelo/status/993971566038921217

https://twitter.com/TXsnark7/status/993992831885889536

Is that the sound of Michael Cohen flipping?

Rudy, Rudy, Rudy!

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

US-GIULIANI-TESTIFIES-AT-HOUSE-CMTE-FIELD-HEARING-ON-SECURITY-IN

Not sure of the details, but I’m going to assume if Rudy says something, he’s lying:

President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said on Thursday he doubted the veracity of a bombshell NBC News report from earlier in the day that federal authorities wiretapped the president’s longtime counsel, Michael Cohen.

“Us lawyers have talked about it, we don’t believe it’s true,” Giuliani told The Daily Beast. “We think it’s going to turn out to be untrue because it would be totally illegal. You can’t wiretap a lawyer, you certainly can’t wiretap his client who’s not involved in the investigation. No one has suggested that Trump was involved in that investigation. So they’re going to wiretap the lawyer, his client, and his client the president of the United States? I don’t think so, not if they want to stay out of jail. Disclosing a wiretap is a federal felony. I never took ‘em home when I was a U.S. attorney.”

Giuliani said that he found out about the wiretap news from NBC News’ report, which cited “two people with knowledge of the legal proceedings,” and not from Cohen himself. He believed someone in the Justice Department was behind the leak.

“Nobody else would know about it,” Giuliani said. “Cohen didn’t know about it, so it has to be the FBI, the independent counsel, or the Justice Department.”

“Anybody who says that I’m exaggerating when I say that this is an out-of-control investigation and they’re acting like storm troopers—give me a break, baby! They prove it every day.”

The former New York City mayor is in the midst of a media blitz that has upended previous Trump-world talking points and caused ripple effects across a variety of legal and political fronts. Only recently added to Trump’s legal team, Giuliani said that the Cohen news makes him even more hesitant to let the president sit down for an interview with Special Counsel Robert Mueller for his separate probe into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.

“Right now, the odds are against it,” he said. “Look at all of the bad faith we’re seeing here. And whether this wiretap story is true or not true, it’s bad faith to leak it. We should find out about this with a notification from the Justice Department, they’re wiretapping the pres of the United States, they’re wiretapping a man talking to his lawyer and then they want us to cooperate? We’re not suckers.”

Oh my (UPDATE)

~ susie

UPDATE:

NBC News issued an on-air correction to their bombshell story Thursday reporting that a federal wiretap was placed on Michael Cohen’s phone. NBC said federal authorities were “monitoring” phone calls of President Trump’s lawyer, but not listening to them as previously reported.

Michael Cohen’s phone lines were tapped for several weeks before the FBI raid:

Just want to point out that it is EXTREMELY difficult to get a wiretap approved for a lawyer!

Is Cohen cooperating?

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

What a tangled web we weave! Why is Trump’s legal team freaking out?

“MSNBC chief legal correspondent Ari Melber tweeted the feds now have everything from michael cohen’s office, do they have something that’s forcing Trump’s lawyers to admit he’s behind the Stormy Daniels’ payment, after all his public denials? Joe?” Mika Brzezinski said.

“There’s no coordination on anything that’s said,” Scarborough said. “They’re constantly changing their story. This is the sort of thing again that Donald Trump may be able to get away with when he’s sending out tweets and he talks about fake news.

“But as you’ve seen, when you go into court proceedings, they have timelines, and they have statements, and they write down the statements: ‘This is what he said on January the 5th. This is what he said on, you know, February 2nd. This is what he said on March –‘ I mean, you go through the timeline of this, this is going to be devastating for whomever the defendant is when they finally get in court. Whether it’s Donald Trump, whether it’s Michael Cohen. They can’t keep their stories straight and for now, it’s just baffling. A Little League baseball team would be able to get their story more straight than the president’s team and this confederacy of dunces.”

Mike Barnicle said he was told last night that the legal strategy of Trump and Rudy Giuliani “is fear. They are desperately afraid that Michael Cohen is cooperating with the special prosecutor.

“And they are also convinced that the special prosecutor might have Donald Trump’s tax returns. which would be a lethal weapon in terms of matching the president’s rhetoric, against actual fact-based stuff. What did he spend the money on, what was the $400,000-plus spent on. did he deduct it, things like that. They are in a world of hurt and they’re waiting for Emmit Flood to come through the door.”

Trump rant puts him in legal jeopardy

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Oh, what fun! Joe Scarborough was interviewing Stormy Daniels attorney Michael Avenatti this morning when they got to show a clip of Trump calling into Fox & Friends, just minutes before:

“Do you want to hear what the president said? Take a listen,” Mika Brzezinski said.

F&F: How much of your legal work was handled by Michael Cohen?

TRUMP: A percentage of the legal work, a tiny, tiny fraction, but Michael would represent me, and represent me on some things. He represents me with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal. He represented me and, you know, from what I see, he did absolutely nothing wrong. There were no campaign funds.

F&F: Then why is he pleading the Fifth?

TRUMP: Because he’s got other things. He’s got businesses. From what I understand, they are, I hope he’s in great shape. Je’s got businesses and his lawyers probably told him to do that. I’m not involved and I’m not — I have been told I’m not involved.

“You brought up a great point. The president just admitted something, he always does this,” Scarborough said. “So, the president just said that Michael Cohen represented him on the Stormy Daniels case.”

“Another gift from the heavens in this case. They keep coming. I don’t know how I’ve fallen into such good luck in this case, but I’m going to take it,” Avenatti said.

“Joe, that’s a very dangerous, hugely damaging admission by the president. According to what he said on Air Force One, he didn’t know about the agreement or about the payoff. Michael Cohen went off and did this on a lark. Mr. Trump knew nothing about it. We now find out, that is bogus, That is a lie on Air Force One. He just admitted and tripped himself up. He admitted that Michael Cohen represented him in connection with the Stormy Daniels situation.”

“When the president contradicts himself like that on Air Force One, how does that affect your case?” Scarborough said. “He is not under oath. Yes, it’s embarrassing for him and we are pointing it out. What does that mean in terms of what you are trying to do?”

Ha, ha! Emperor Caligula trips himself up again. Legal details here.

And here’s the entire half-hour. Note the looks on the faces of the hosts as Trump talks: “Uh oh, we bought a lemon!”

Here’s Charlie Pierce’s take, too.

The company Michael Cohen kept — “Trump, Inc.” podcast

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

A federal judge denied Trump’s and Cohen’s request to block the DOJ from reviewing documents seized by the FBI

If you’ve seen video or images of Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, they’ve probably been set in locations that exude power and importance: Cohen berating a CNN anchor in a TV studio, for example, or striding across the sleek marbled interior of Trump Tower, or more recently, smoking cigars in front of Cohen’s temporary residence, the Loews Regency Hotel on Manhattan’s Park Avenue. Continue reading “The company Michael Cohen kept — “Trump, Inc.” podcast” →

Sean Hannity is Michael Cohen’s third client!?!?

~ susie ~ 4 Comments

Isn’t that interesting.

https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/985970632201564161

Uh huh.

But former spy and journalist John Schindler thinks there’s much more to the connection:

A stand-up guy

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Factbox: Does attorney-client privilege apply to Trump lawyer raid?

Better get jumping, Mikey!

Heh, heh: Chris Christie said ‘taint committee’

~ susie

https://crooksandliars.com/cltv/2018/04/christie-no-attorney-client-privilege

My late mother used to say, “Thank God for unanswered prayers.”

I have to think Chris Christie says that to himself a lot these days. What a lucky guy, to sidestep the public shitstorm that is the reckless and lawless Trump administration. And after his own shady Bridgegate scandal, something on the scale of the Mueller investigation would have been a daily cluster migraine.

See, Chris? Being pushed out of the transition team by Mike Pence was a blessing in disguise!

Today Christie and Dan Abrams appeared on Good Morning America, talking to George Stephanopoulos about the raid on Michael Cohen’s office yesterday.

“The attorney-client privilege is not dead,” Christie said in response to Trump’s early-morning tweet. “There is an exception which means that if the authorities believe that the president and his lawyer or anyone and their lawyer are together engaged in a possible crime or fraud, then the attorney/client privilege doesn’t necessarily apply. We don’t know exactly,” he said.

“We heard from the president on this right now. He said the attorney/client privilege is dead, total witch-hunt,” Stephanopoulos said.

“It is not dead because the way the Justice Department will approach it,” Christie said. there will be a taint team because you don’t want to taint the prosecutors investigating it by seeing potentially privileged information they have no right to see.”

(Heh, heh. He said “taint”!)

“They’ll separate it into stuff that’s privileged and stuff that isn’t and then of the stuff that’s privileged is in any evidence of a crime or fraud, that’s an ongoing crime or fraud.

“It would have to be between the two of them,” Abrams said. “If they think President Trump may have committed a crime, there’s still an attorney-client privilege there.”

“It’s got to be a conspiracy-like situation, George, that they see clear evidence,” Christie said.

“And let’s remember one other thing: people will try to jump to conclusions about a lot of things. The only thing we know for sure is what I said a long time ago to you, which is there’s no way you make this investigation shorter, but there’s lots of ways you can make it longer.”