FBI raids Trump lawyer's office

[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.