FBI raids Trump lawyer's office

[Yojimbo]

I’ll just leave this here for some light reading.

https://news.google.com/news/amp?caurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2Fpolitics%2Fdonald-trump%2Fstormy-lawyer-transactions-suggest-cohen-was-selling-access-trump-n872731#pt0-380341


For those that don’t click the link, Novartis confirmed that Cohen called them and asked for money to gain access to the President.

[fredtoast]

The swamp is gone.










It has been flooded into a lake.

[*michaelsean*]

(05-09-2018, 04:19 PM)fredtoast Wrote: The swamp is gone.










It has been flooded into a lake.

Well lakes are way better than swamps.

[Belsnickel]

A couple of interesting things happened, yesterday, in regards to this case.

First, Ronan Farrow posted a story for The New Yorker about the person who leaked the financial information that Stormy Daniels' attorney Michael Avenatti brought to the public's attention. These are the documents that showed payments to Cohen by entities that Avenatti and others have implied were bribes or attempts to curry favor with Donald Trump.

The story is an interesting one in which a law enforcement official discusses his decision to release the records. He states that the decision was made out of fear that there were efforts within the Treasury Department to hide the information from the investigations. It's a good read, but just a reminder that one person's whistleblower is another person's criminal. The ethics and morality of his actions are subjective, but he broke the law.

The other news was about a financial disclosure from Donald Trump. The Office of Government Ethics (OGE) has sent the disclosure to the DoJ for criminal investigation because Trump failed to disclose a repayment to Cohen of over $100,000 for a debt. The reason for the debt was not specified, but the OGE has reason to believe that the omission in previous financial filings may be more nefarious than Trump is letting on. There are a lot of people in the media tying this repayment to the payoff to Stormy Daniels, and it very well may be. That's not something we know for certain, though, and will likely be the subject of some of the questions asked by SDNY and/or the Special Counsel.

[GMDino]

(05-17-2018, 09:11 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: A couple of interesting things happened, yesterday, in regards to this case.

First, Ronan Farrow posted a story for The New Yorker about the person who leaked the financial information that Stormy Daniels' attorney Michael Avenatti brought to the public's attention. These are the documents that showed payments to Cohen by entities that Avenatti and others have implied were bribes or attempts to curry favor with Donald Trump.

The story is an interesting one in which a law enforcement official discusses his decision to release the records. He states that the decision was made out of fear that there were efforts within the Treasury Department to hide the information from the investigations. It's a good read, but just a reminder that one person's whistleblower is another person's criminal. The ethics and morality of his actions are subjective, but he broke the law.

The other news was about a financial disclosure from Donald Trump. The Office of Government Ethics (OGE) has sent the disclosure to the DoJ for criminal investigation because Trump failed to disclose a repayment to Cohen of over $100,000 for a debt. The reason for the debt was not specified, but the OGE has reason to believe that the omission in previous financial filings may be more nefarious than Trump is letting on. There are a lot of people in the media tying this repayment to the payoff to Stormy Daniels, and it very well may be. That's not something we know for certain, though, and will likely be the subject of some of the questions asked by SDNY and/or the Special Counsel.

https://www.npr.org/2018/05/16/611660586/trump-acknowledges-financial-liability-for-stormy-daniels-payment

Quote:When a federal official signs a personal financial disclosure, it's a certification that the information is complete and correct. Trump's lawyers initially tried to submit the 2017 report without his signature; they argued it wasn't necessary since the ethics law allows a new president to skip the report due just four months after inauguration. Walter Shaub Jr., then OGE director, pushed back. Trump eventually signed the document and submitted it nearly a month late.


In an interview with NPR, Shaub said Trump's lawyers never asked OGE last year whether the payments to Cohen should be disclosed. He said, "It strikes me as something they didn't want the answer to."

A separate but related question is whether the payment to Daniels, coming just a few days before the 2016 election, was related to Trump's run for the White House.
That would make it a campaign expense — an illegal one because it wasn't made with campaign contributions or disclosed on campaign financial reports.

[BmorePat87]

Stormy Daniels is going to bring this dip shit down.

[GMDino]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/07/20/michael-cohen-secretly-recorded-trump-discussing-payment-model/807195002/

Quote:Michael Cohen taped Trump discussing payment to a Playboy model, report says

WASHINGTON – President Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen secretly recorded a conversation in which he and Trump discussed payments to a former Playboy model who claimed to have had an affair with Trump,The New York Times reported Friday.

The Times said that the FBI seized the tape during an April raid on Cohen's office. The tape was made two months before the 2016 election, the paper said.

Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani confirmed in an interview with the paper that Trump discussed the payments with Cohen on the tape, but he said no payment was ever made and Trump did not engage in any wrongdoing.

"Nothing in that conversation suggests he had any knowledge of it in advance," Giuliani said.

Lanny Davis, one of Cohen's lawyers, declined to comment to USA TODAY, citing the ongoing investigation.

The revelation casts a fresh spotlight on efforts before the presidential campaign to put the lid on damaging disclosures about Trump, as well as the trove of information that Cohen might possess as he weighs cooperating with prosecutors.

Federal prosecutors in New York have been investigating whether Cohen's actions, including a payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, violated campaign-finance laws as part of a wide-ranging corruption probe into the longtime Trump fixer.

Daniels, who said she had sex with Trump in 2006, received $130,000 from Cohen days before the election in exchange for her silence. After months of denials, Trump in May filed a financial disclosure report showing he reimbursed Cohen for the Daniels' payment.

The taped conversation now in the FBI's possession involves Karen McDougal, a former Playboy centerfold who said she had an affair with Trump that began in 2006. McDougal received a $150,000 payment in August 2016 from the parent company of the National Enquirer. But the tabloid did not publish the story, keeping it out of public view.

The head of the Enquirer's parent company, David Pecker, is a Trump ally. In a lawsuit she has since settled, McDougal argued that Cohen secretly intervened in the deal she struck with tabloid's owner.

Daniels, meanwhile, is suing to break free of her confidentiality agreement.

Trump has denied the affairs.

Lawyers representing Cohen and Trump have wrangled in court with prosecutors over the millions of items — documents, emails, files and other material — seized from Cohen's office, home and hotel room this year. A lawyer representing Cohen previously has said "audio files" were among the materials seized.

James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

All seriousness aside if Trump claims he is a genius who runs everything (he's the only one who can fix things) why is that he never "knows" about any of these things like a payment made to this women he (allegedly) had an affair with or the payment to Daniels (and repayment to Cohen)?

Maybe he's not that smart?  Maybe he's lying?  Again?

[GMDino]

Ah, never mind.  He knew.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/24/politics/michael-cohen-donald-trump-tape/index.html

Quote:Exclusive: CNN obtains secret Trump-Cohen tape


Updated 9:50 PM ET, Tue July 24, 2018


(CNN)Presidential candidate Donald Trump is heard on tape discussing with his attorney Michael Cohen how they would buy the rights to a Playboy model's story about an alleged affair Trump had with her years earlier, according to the audio recording of the conversation aired exclusively on CNN's "Cuomo Prime Time."

The recording offers the public a glimpse at the confidential discussions between Trump and Cohen, and it confirms the man who now occupies the Oval Office had contemporaneous knowledge of a proposal to buy the rights to the story of Karen McDougal, a woman who has alleged she had an extramarital affair with Trump about a decade ago.

Cohen told Trump about his plans to set up a company and finance the purchase of the rights from American Media, which publishes the National Enquirer.

"I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David," Cohen said in the recording, likely a reference to American Media head David Pecker.

Trump interrupts Cohen asking, "What financing?" according to the recording. When Cohen tells Trump, "We'll have to pay." Trump is heard saying "pay with cash" but the audio is muddled and it's unclear whether he suggests paying with cash or not paying. Cohen says, "no, no" but it is not clear what is said next.

No payment was ever made from Trump, Rudy Giuliani, the President's attorney, has said. Giuliani has previously acknowledged that the recorded discussion related to the buying the story rights.
The recording, which was provided to CNN by Cohen's attorney Lanny Davis, was made in September 2016.

"What is this about? This is about honesty versus false disparagement of Michael Cohen. Why is Giuliani out falsely disparaging Michael Cohen -- because they fear him," Davis said on "Cuomo Prime Time."

"What do they fear, Chris? Why am I representing him? They fear that he has the truth about Donald Trump.
He will someday speak the truth about Donald Trump. The truth is that when Donald Trump said 'cash,' which Rudy Giuliani knows that only drug dealers and mobsters talk about cash, it was, you heard Michael Cohen ... say what? 'No, no, no, no.'"

Davis later added: "Ladies and gentlemen, if you voted for Donald Trump, listen to the tape and ask yourself: Is Donald Trump lying when he said he didn't use the word 'cash' and accuses Michael Cohen of using the word 'cash'? Cohen has been disparaged. Cohen has been insulted and called all sorts of things by people around Donald Trump."

Alan Futerfas, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, refuted that the tape shows Trump was offering a cash payment.

"Whoever is telling Davis that cash in that conversation refers to green currency is lying to him," Futerfas told CNN. "There's no transaction done in green currency. It doesn't happen. The whole deal never happened. If it was going to happen, it would be a payment to a large company that would obviously be accompanied by an agreement of sale. Those documents would be prepared by lawyers on both sides."

Cash, in the conversation, was in reference to how a deal would be financed, Futerfas added.

"The word cash came up in the context of the distinction between financing, which is referenced, and no financing, which means a full payment, a total one-time payment. That's the context in which the word cash is used," he said. "Anyone who knows anything about the company or how the President does business knows there is no green cash. Everything is documented. Every penny is documented."

Court filings said federal prosecutors have obtained 12 audio recordings from the FBI raids on Cohen earlier this year. CNN previously reported that Trump's lawyers waived attorney-client privilege on the President's behalf regarding the recording involving him personally.

The discussion relates to whether Trump should buy the rights of the story from American Media, which paid McDougal $150,000 in August 2016 for her story about an alleged 10 month affair with Trump. The story was never published by AMI.

In addition to discussing the McDougal payment, Trump and Cohen are overheard running through a list of potential legal issues, including contesting a New York Times request to unseal divorce records from Trump's first wife Ivana as well as more mundane matters such as polling numbers and Trump surrogate Pastor Mark Burns.

[jj22]

The Cohen tapes highlight the level in which Trump and the WH will lie (like how they delete key things in Transcripts to hide from the public).

But that isn't the real problem. The real problem is Trump treats his supporters like fools and they show no signs of proving him wrong.

The rest of us know he's lying.

His supporters on the other hand. Will find some excuse to attack Cohen who knew who he was dealing with, knew Trump was a con who would throw him under the bus for all that he was covering up for him, and protected himself like any smart man would when dealing with a man with the character of Trump.

[GMDino]

(07-26-2018, 08:51 AM)jj22 Wrote: The Cohen tapes highlight the level in which Trump and the WH will lie (like how they delete key things in Transcripts to hide from the public).

But that isn't the real problem. The real problem is Trump treats his supporters like fools and they show no signs of proving him wrong.

The rest of us know he's lying.

His supporters on the other hand. Will find some excuse to attack Cohen who knew who he was dealing with, knew Trump was a con who would throw him under the bus for all that he was covering up for him, and protected himself like any smart man would when dealing with a man with the character of Trump.

Yes, but Clinton's emails!!!!


It's hard sometimes to realize I am living through this in real time.  That actual, functioning human being completely deny the lies and the actions of Trump and still want to attack the other candidate over something long investigated and settled.

We often talk about how Trump has lowered the bar...for everything.  The next POTUS will be able to get away with everything while their supporters say "Well look what Trump did!" lol

[Belsnickel]

(07-26-2018, 08:55 AM)GMDino Wrote: Yes, but Clinton's emails!!!!


It's hard sometimes to realize I am living through this in real time.  That actual, functioning human being completely deny the lies and the actions of Trump and still want to attack the other candidate over something long investigated and settled.

We often talk about how Trump has lowered the bar...for everything.  The next POTUS will be able to get away with everything while their supporters say "Well look what Trump did!" lol

The erosion of norms is one of the biggest things damaging our democracy. Trump is just the most recent result. Let's hope we have learned our lesson after this.