Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
The National Enquirer has taken a swing at President Donald Trump‘s embattled attorney, Michael Cohen.
The tabloid has long had a reputation of serving as Trump’s media fixer, running salacious headlines such as “Hillary Framed Trump Family!” and “Proof! FBI Plot to Impeach Trump!” however, it is the first time it has turned on Trump’s legal fixer, Cohen.
The publication’s parent company, American Media Inc., run by Trump-pal David Pecker, is also currently being sued by Playboy model Karen McDougal. She claims that AMI offered to buy the story of her alleged affair with Trump for $150,000, to then not publish it — known as a catch and kill agreement.
The headline of the Enquirer’s latest cover, which reads “Trump Fixer’s Secrets and Lies!” also comes in the wake of Trump attempting to distance himself from his longtime attorney.
Make no mistake, if the National Enquirer has turned on Trump's fixer, that is because Donald Trump gave them the go ahead to do so.
Which means that Trump is tossing Cohen under the bus, and any loyalty that Cohen might feel toward his boss is completely misplaced.
So now we just have to wait and see how long it takes before Cohen and Mueller come together for their version of "Let's Make a Deal."
Manhattan federal prosecutors seized as many as 16 cell phones when the FBI raided the home, office and hotel room of President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen.
Prosecutor Thomas McKay made the astonishing revelation while telling a judge Thursday that the feds are on track to hand over seized materials to Cohen’s lawyers by May 11.
In explaining the process, McKay said the feds have already turned over the contents of four phones and one iPad.
McKay said the feds will turn over the “remainder of the phones seized” on Friday — before adding that they have “about a dozen” left.
Among the devices seized are two BlackBerrys, suggesting Cohen has been holding on to his electronics for many, many years.
The startling revelation promptly attracted the attention of porn star Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, who called Cohen’s phone hoarding “BIGLY bad.”
"Bigly bad" indeed. Because you KNOW that stored on those phones is information which will incriminate Donald Trump. Bigly!
Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's embattled personal lawyer, once bragged that he was part of the Russian mob, The Wall Street Journal reported.
According to The Journal, Cohen once told someone at a former friend's wedding that he belonged to the Russian mob.
Now the Business Insider article also contains a quote from a friend of Cohen's who doubts the veracity of this story, which brings me to this Rolling Stone's article:
Cohen joined the Trump Organization in 2006, and eventually became Trump's personal lawyer, a role once occupied by Roy Cohn, Senator Joseph McCarthy's heavy-lidded hatchet man during the Red Scare who advised Trump in the 1980s. Michael Cohen's bare-knuckled tactics earned him the nickname of "Tom," a reference to Tom Hagen, the consigliore to Mafia Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather. He grew up on Long Island, the son of a physician who survived the Holocaust in Poland, and like Tom Hagen spent a childhood around organized crime, specifically the Russian Mafiya. Cohen's uncle, Morton Levine, was a wealthy Brooklyn doctor who owned the El Caribe Country Club, a Brooklyn catering hall and event space that was a well-known hangout for Russian gangsters. Cohen and his siblings all had ownership stakes in the club, which rented for years to the first Mafiya boss of Brighton Beach, Evsei Agron, along with his successors, Marat Balagula and Boris Nayfeld. (Cohen's uncle said his nephew gave up his stake in the club after Trump's election.)
So to be clear, the Feds found more than a dozen phones in Cohen's possession, who clearly has ties to the Russian mob, and whose only real client is Donald Trump. a man who is under investigation for Russian collusion during the election.
Does anybody else see pieces falling onto place here?
Attorney Michael Avenatti appeared Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” where he gave a wide-ranging interview on the lawsuit against the president and a related criminal investigation of Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen — and he said reporting on the case had missed an important detail.
“So, Mika, you are familiar with the fact that a week ago, Judge (Kimba) Wood ordered Michael Cohen’s attorneys to disclose all of his clients for the last three years,” Avenatti said, “and there were three clients listed — three clients listed. Do you recall which three?”
Brzezinski listed Trump, Fox News host Sean Hannity and Republican donor Elliott Broidy — but Avenatti said she was making the same mistake everyone else had.
“No, no, no,” he said. “Mr. Trump, the Trump organization and Sean Hannity. Mr. Broidy was not disclosed in open court as one of Michael Cohen’s clients.”
Co-host Joe Scarborough asked the attorney what that meant.
“I think at some point we are going to find out, if in fact, the client in connection with the ($1.6 million) settlement was, in fact, Mr. Broidy. I’m going to leave it at that.”
Avenatti wouldn’t say it, but the implication seems clear.
Yes, the implication is quite clear.
And it kind of irritates me because I actually started to write a piece about this in my head while I was driving to an appointment the other day, and decided not to post it because it seemed a little conspiratorial with not much evidence to back it up.
But let me take a stab at it again in light of this new information from Avenatti.
So this Elliot Brody guy is somebody that NOBODY really knows. At least not outside of certain Republican circles.
Though he is wealthy, and produced two b-list movies in 2013, he is not a famous person who typically hangs around celebrities.
He also looks like this.
So in what world does he get his hands on a playmate that looks like this.
I mean I know women are attracted to power and money, but unless this miss Bechard was straight up selling her body for sex, I simply don't see it.
On the other hand we KNOW that Donald Trump has been sleeping with Playboy models and porn stars for years, often did not use protection, and also habitually paid them off using Michael Cohen as a go between.
So the idea that this was HIS child, and that Michael Cohen paid that 1.6 million to buy her silence and arrange for an abortion to protect his boss, fits snugly with what we already know.
Well after it was revealed that Hunter was pregnant, Edwards campaign staffer Andrew Young came forward and said that he was the father.
He wasn't the father, John Edwards was, and that eventually came to light despite their best attempts to push the false story.
So yes, not only is it conceivable, but since as far as we know Michael Cohen provided semi-legal services to ONLY Donald Trump for little over a decade, it is also the most likely scenario.
President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen said in a court filing Wednesday that he would plead the Fifth Amendment in adult film star Stephanie Clifford’s lawsuit over a nondisclosure agreement she signed in 2016.
In a court filing Wednesday, Cohen tied the criminal probe directly to his assertion of Fifth Amendment rights in the civil suit.
“I will assert my 5th amendment rights in connection with all proceedings in this case due to the ongoing criminal investigation by the FBI and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York,” he said in part. Cohen last week asked U.S. District Judge James Otero to delay the civil suit due to its overlap with the criminal probe.
So to be clear Trump's lawyer is refusing to answer questions in court because he is worried those answers will incriminate him in a criminal activity.
Well now, isn't THAT interesting?
Also today Trump called into Fox and Friends, and finally admitted what we have known all along.
The President said Michael Cohen is mainly a businessman and only secondarily a lawyer. That at least undercuts his privilege argument. He says what prosecutors are looking at only has to do with Cohen’s personal business dealings, not with his representation of Donald Trump. He also said that he knows nothing about Cohen’s private business dealings. (“I don’t know his business… They’re looking at something having to do with his business. I have nothing to do with his business.”) That’s almost certainly false.
That is also going to make it hard for Cohen to claim executive privilege to keep the Feds from digging through the files that confiscated.
And then there was also this:
Trump says explicitly for the first time that Cohen does represent him with Stormy Daniels: “He represents me like with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal.”
Boom! There you have it.
I mean WE knew it all along, but Trump and the White House was working hard not to admit this.
I imagine that after this admission Trump's lawyers spent the morning banging their heads against the wall, but is certainly made at least one lawyer very happy.
Thank you @foxandfriends for having Mr. Trump on this morning to discuss Michael Cohen and our case. Very informative.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen previously represented to the American people that Mr. Cohen acted on his own and Mr. Trump knew nothing about the agreement with my client, the $130k payment, etc. As I predicted, that has now been shown to be completely false. #basta
Keith Davidson, the former attorney for two women who were paid to keep quiet about their alleged affairs with Donald Trump, has been contacted by federal authorities investigating Trump attorney Michael Cohen and is cooperating with them, a spokesman for Davidson confirmed.
Davidson was asked to provide “certain limited electronic information” for the probe led by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, spokesman Dave Wedge said. “He has done so and will continue to cooperate to the fullest extent possible under the law,” Wedge said in a statement Friday.
Shortly before the 2016 election, Davidson negotiated a confidentiality agreement with Cohen under which porn star Stormy Daniels was paid $130,000.
Davidson also represented Karen McDougal, a Playboy centerfold, in the $150,000 agreement she struck in August 2016 with the National Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., for the rights to her story. AMI never published the story.
The impetus for this cooperation is likely due to the fact that the records seized from Cohen by the FBI included tapes that he recorded of conversations with Davidson.
I am guessing that Davidson would do almost ANYTHING to keep those records out of the newspapers.
The New York Times and a third rate reporter named Maggie Haberman, known as a Crooked H flunkie who I don’t speak to and have nothing to do with, are going out of their way to destroy Michael Cohen and his relationship with me in the hope that he will “flip.” They use....
A number of articles have been written about Trump's relationship with Maggie Haberman, and the fact that he has her on speed dial.
But just in case you were not convinced.
There’s little evidence Trump has ever even spoken to Haberman aside from the numerous on the record interviews he’s done with her. https://t.co/C7NERDWNYf
Yeah, in fact Trump himself has been identified as the number one White House leaker.
But wait, there's more.
....non-existent “sources” and a drunk/drugged up loser who hates Michael, a fine person with a wonderful family. Michael is a businessman for his own account/lawyer who I have always liked & respected. Most people will flip if the Government lets them out of trouble, even if....
It should be noted that the government does not offer deals, unless the target of the investigation has information about a bigger criminal.
By stating that Michael Cohen will not "flip" Trump is essentially admitting that he has information and evidence about him that he could use to make a deal.
So here we have three tweets that not only contain obvious, and easily verifiable, lies, but also an admission of guilt.
Embattled attorney Michael Cohen has dropped a pair of much-touted libel suits against BuzzFeed and the private investigation firm Fusion GPS over publication of the so-called dossier detailing alleged ties between President Donald Trump and Russia.
Cohen abandoned the suits late Wednesday as he continues to fight to recover documents and electronic files seized from his home, office and hotel room last week by federal authorities as part of what appears to be a broad criminal investigation into his conduct.
"The decision to voluntarily discontinue these cases was a difficult one," Cohen's attorney David Schwartz said. "We believe the defendants defamed my client, and vindicating Mr. Cohen’s rights was — and still remains — important. But given the events that have unfolded, and the time, attention, and resources needed to prosecute these matters, we have dismissed the matters, despite their merits."
The dossier claims that Cohen met with Russian operatives somewhere in Europe, including Prague, to attend a meeting to “clean up the mess” created by public disclosures of other Trump associates’ reported ties to Russia.
That means he would be involved in at least three legal battles at the same time, one of which might see him face time in a federal prison.
That is a lot of money be spreading around. Even if he is rich, there is a limit.
The other reason is discovery in the Fusion GPS and Buzzfeed cases.
Any evidence that Cohen has to reveal to battle them in court is likely going to then be made available to the media, and will definitely be available to the Mueller team.
And as we have witnessed before team Mueller are known for jumping on newly revealed information quickly and decisively.
In response to all of this Cohen might not remain Trump's personal attorney for long.
In fact one of Trump's past legal representatives has reportedly told Trump he cannot Trust Michael Cohen.
One of President Donald Trump’s longtime legal advisers said he warned the president in a phone call Friday that Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer and close friend, would turn against the president and cooperate with federal prosecutors if faced with criminal charges.
Mr. Goldberg said he cautioned the president not to trust Mr. Cohen. On a scale of 100 to 1, where 100 is fully protecting the president, Mr. Cohen “isn’t even a 1,” he said he told Mr. Trump…. In the call, Mr. Goldberg [-] said he told the president Mr. Cohen could even agree to wear a wire and try to record conversations with Mr. Trump. “You have to be alert,” Mr. Goldberg said he told the president. “I don’t care what Michael says.”
Of course IF Trump fires Cohen that would then give him less reason to go out on a limb to protect his former boss.
You know it is almost as if Trump is being outmaneuvered on all sides.
Adult film actress Stormy Daniels and her attorney released a composite sketch of the man they say threatened her in a Las Vegas parking lot to “leave Trump alone” in the wake of an interview she had given about her alleged affair with President Donald Trump.
Daniels and Michael Avenatti, her lawyer, appeared Tuesday on ABC’s “The View,” where they released the sketch publicly for the first time. Avenatti offered $100,000 for information leading to the identification of the man in the sketch and asked members of the public to email tips to IDtheThug@gmail.com.
“We want to get to the bottom of who this is. We think we know who sent him, but we want to confirm it,” Avenatti said. He declined to say whether the sketch has been shared with law enforcement.
In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” earlier this month, Daniels recalled the 2011 incident wherein she said a man approached her and her child as she made her way to an exercise class in Las Vegas. The adult film actress said the man told her to “leave Trump alone” and “forget the story” of her alleged affair with Trump, which she had shared with “In Touch” magazine.
“That's a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom,” Daniels said the man said to her.
Anybody who would threaten a mother in front of her child is just the kind of scum that you would assume would be associated with Michael Cohen and Donald Trump.
So I certainly hope that somebody sees this sketch and that this guy gets picked up by the cops.
And just in case anybody is unsure that Donald Trump would actually use violence against his enemies, here is a former employee of the Trump Organization confirming that he most definitely would.
Avenatti & Stormy Daniels released a sketch on The View. Send tips IDthethug@gmail.com
Former Trump Organization EVP, Barbara Res, says she heard Trump ask security: “Would you kill for me?”
Fox News star Sean Hannity was just revealed to be a secret client of Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen. Here are basically all the times Hannity has defended Cohen on his show since the FBI raid last week. https://t.co/XFdnAQ965Tpic.twitter.com/tWuMagPtqv
Okay the above is video of Hannity essentially freaking out after the FBI raided Michael Cohen's office and homes.
At the time it seemed a little weird, but now it sort of makes a certain kind of sense.
Here is how CNN's Brian Stelter addressed this issue:
Something isn't adding up in the case of Michael Cohen and Sean Hannity.
For now Hannity's employer, Fox News, isn't commenting on the issue, but even some fellow Fox hosts are raising questions.
There were audible gasps in court on Monday when it was revealed that Hannity was the mystery third client that Cohen was trying to keep secret. Stormy Daniels' attorney Michael Avenatti, who was in the room, said it was like "a bomb went off."
Hannity scrambled to respond -- first on his radio show, then with tweets, then on his TV show. On Monday evening, Hannity downplayed the legal relationship, saying, "Cohen never represented me in any legal matter."
He said the two men chatted occasionally, and his questions "focused almost exclusively" on real estate.
Hannity said "I never retained his services, I never received an invoice. I never paid Michael Cohen for legal fees."
But if that's true, why did Cohen's lawyer identify Hannity as a client in federal court?
On his radio show Hannity downplayed the crap out of this, suggesting that he might have handed Cohen ten bucks for shits and giggles, but that he was never an actual client.
But here's the thing, Cohen's attorney identified Hannity as a client while in a courtroom standing before a judge. where lying is a punishable offense.
Hannity denied the whole thing on this radio show and on Fox News, where lying is a way of life.
And if Hannity used the services of Michael Cohen, "The Fixer," what did he need them for?
Sean Hannity is the latest Fox News personality facing allegations of inappropriate behavior after he was accused of propositioning a guest on his show.
This article came out almost exactly a year ago during the same time that Bill O'Reilly was facing scrutiny for paying off women who accused him of sexual misconduct.
In Hannity's case the allegations seemed to simply fade away.
And making THAT happen is Michael Cohen's specialty.
Right now there is no evidence that this is the reason that Hannity was named as a Cohen client, but there was certainly SOME reason that they both did not want his name identified in court.
Another day, another story Trump lawyer Michael Cohen had to kill about a Trump family member having a scandalous affair.
This time, the Wall Street Journal reports that Cohen killed an Us Weekly story being prepared in 2013 on Donald Trump Jr.’s alleged affair with pop singer Aubrey O’Day.
Don Jr., President Donald Trump’s adult son, was a year earlier a judge on Celebrity Apprentice while O’Day was a contestant.
Here is how the US Weekly staff characterized their interactions with Cohen:
“We were all on speakerphone and huddled around the phone,” this person said. “He was just one of these New York characters where he was just like swearing at us and totally over-the-top threatening.”
The magazine’s staff didn’t believe it was a big story that would be worth a legal fight and had a good working relationship with the elder Mr. Trump on stories related to the TV show “The Apprentice,” so they dropped the story.
So verbal abuse and threats, that sounds like the Michael Cohen method.
Speaking of Michael Cohen, his lawyers are flipping their proverbial shit about that FBI raid.
Lawyers for President Donald Trump's personal attorney say investigators "took everything" during raids last week on his residence and office.
The lawyers wrote in a court filing Monday that the raids a week ago to gather evidence from attorney Michael Cohen were "completely unprecedented."
They said investigators seized more than a dozen electronic devices and other items including documents and data unrelated to the probable cause upon which the search warrants were based.
The letter demanded Trump and Cohen's lawyers be allowed to decide which items seized are protected by attorney-client privilege before criminal prosecutors see them.
Gee I wonder if that bit about Junior's extramarital affair is part of what got scooped up?
The hearing over this is scheduled for today, and rumor has it that a Miss Stormy Daniels may be in attendance.
Should be a fun day for one and all.
Update: Let's also keep this in mind.
Remember why Trump and Elliott Broidy needed Michael Cohen's legal services. https://t.co/Fb6cOtihhX
The “fixer” Mr. Cohen (aka the real Ray Donovan) organized a protest - BIGLY - in Florida last night against my client. As usual, his execution was flawless. #impressivepic.twitter.com/4ADeM9rzeD
I think Daniels often has more people than that participating in her adult movies scenes.
And Avenatti was not done there.
The WH just confirmed that this is the largest protest of its kind in American history. More people tuned-in across ALL PLATFORMS than ever before. Not even close!!!!!!
Lawyers for President Donald Trump and his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, have told a federal judge in New York that they believe some of the documents and devices seized from Cohen during an FBI raid are protected by attorney-client privilege, and they want a chance to review the material before prosecutors get to examine them.
Prosecutors and the attorneys for Cohen and Trump appeared before U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood on Friday in Manhattan.
Cohen’s attorneys say they want a chance to review documents seized in the raid on Monday and specify items they believe aren’t relevant to the investigation.
An attorney for the president, Joanna Hendon, told the judge that Trump has “an acute interest in this matter.”
Oh yeah, I'll bet.
Here's more:
Federal prosecutors say in a court filing that the criminal probe that led them to raid the offices of Donald Trump’s personal lawyer this week is focused on his “personal business dealings.”
In the filing with a court in New York, prosecutors blacked out a section describing what crime they believe Trump attorney Michael Cohen has committed.
But they provided new details on the investigation, which they said has been going on for months.
They said agents had already searched multiple email accounts maintained by Cohen.
The filing said none of those emails was exchanged with Trump.
(Quick note, Trump does not use email.)
Ultimately the judge granted Trump's "right to intervene," a move that allows his attorneys to review the seized documents in order to protect Trump's rights, but demanded that Cohen show up for a hearing on Monday.
And she was not at all happy.
Judge isn't denying motion now. But she isn't pleased.
"If you don't have the answers by 2 p.m. on Monday, I’m likely to discount the argument that there are thousands or more privileged documents," she tells Cohen's attorneys.
Part of the Fed's argument against the executive privilege claim is that Cohen is a fraud of a lawyer:
Michael Cohen is a fraud of a lawyer who works exclusively for President Trump, federal prosecutors charged Friday.
“Cohen has told at least one witness that he has only [one] client — President Trump,” the lawyers wrote in court documents, challenging Cohen’s claims that records seized in raids on his home and office Monday should be protected by attorney-client privilege.
And he’s barely doing any “legal work” for Trump, either, they claim.
“[Reviews of the records] indicate that Cohen is in fact performing little to no legal work, and that zero e-mails were exchanged with President Trump,” according to the brief, filed in Manhattan federal court.
In fact, the criminal investigation into Cohen isn’t about his work as a lawyer, “but rather relate[s] to Cohen’s own business dealings,” the feds argued.
According to Michael Avenatti there is a "very good chance" that some of the siezed documents pertain to his client, Stormy Daniels, and he suggests that she might just show up on Monday to observe the hearing.
Sure, why not?
After all it really isn't a party until the porn star shows up, right?
President Trump’s advisers have concluded that a wide-ranging corruption investigation in New York poses a greater and more imminent threat to the president than even the special counsel’s investigation, according to several people close to Mr. Trump.
As his lawyers went to court on Friday to try to block prosecutors from reading files that were seized from his longtime personal lawyer and fixer this week, Mr. Trump found himself increasingly isolated in mounting a response. He continued to struggle to hire a new criminal lawyer, and some of his own aides were reluctant to advise him about a response for fear of being dragged into a criminal investigation themselves.
The raids on Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, came as part of a monthslong federal investigation based in New York, court records show, and were sweeping in their breadth. In addition to searching his home, office and hotel room, F.B.I. agents seized material from Mr. Cohen’s cellphones, tablet, laptop and safe deposit box, according to people briefed on the warrants. Prosecutors revealed in court documents that they had already secretly obtained many of Mr. Cohen’s emails.
Mr. Trump called Mr. Cohen on Friday to “check in,” according to two people briefed on the call. Depending on what else was discussed, the call could be problematic, as lawyers typically advise their clients against discussing investigations.
Mr. Cohen has publicly declared that he would defend the president to the end, but court documents show that prosecutors are building a significant case that could put pressure on him to cooperate and tell investigators what he knows.Mr. Cohen has publicly declared that he would defend the president to the end, but court documents show that prosecutors are building a significant case that could put pressure on him to cooperate and tell investigators what he knows.
The documents seized by prosecutors could shed light on the president’s relationship with a lawyer who has helped navigate some of Mr. Trump’s thorniest personal and business dilemmas. Mr. Cohen served for more than a decade as a trusted fixer and, during the campaign, helped tamp down brewing scandals about women who claimed to have carried on affairs with Mr. Trump.
There are reports that thousands, if not millions, of documents were seized, which clearly has Trump shitting bricks.
As indicated by the lawyer for Stormy Daniels.
A considerable amount of electronic data has been obtained by federal law enforcement in connection with the investigation of Mr. Cohen. Some might describe it as a "mountain of evidence". And I’m not just talking about a few days ago on Monday … #basta
I think it is pretty clear Robert Mueller KNEW that the information in Michael Cohen's possession was potentially explosive and that was why he contacted Rosenstein and told him he needed to get a subpoena.
It was also just reported tonight by McClatchy that Mueller has information which confirms Cohen was in Prague back in 2016, just like it says in the Steele dossier, which Cohen vehemently denied:
The Justice Department special counsel has evidence that Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and confidant, Michael Cohen, secretly made a late-summer trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Confirmation of the trip would lend credence to a retired British spy’s report that Cohen strategized there with a powerful Kremlin figure about Russian meddling in the U.S. election.
It would also be one of the most significant developments thus far in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of whether the Trump campaign and the Kremlin worked together to help Trump win the White House. Undercutting Trump’s repeated pronouncements that “there is no evidence of collusion,” it also could ratchet up the stakes if the president tries, as he has intimated he might for months, to order Mueller’s firing.
Right now Trump is getting hit from literally all sides and I don't think he will be able to stand up to the barrage for much longer.
At this point I do not know how his breakdown will manifest itself, whether it be firing Rod Rosenstein, orchestrating a military strike, or simply holding a rally for his followers during which he can vent his frustrations.
But whatever he does it will certainly not be nearly enough to calm his nerves for long.
President Trump’s personal attorney Michael D. Cohen sometimes taped conversations with associates, according to three people familiar with his practice, and allies of the president are worried that the recordings were seized by federal investigators in a raid of Cohen’s office and residences this week.
Cohen, who served for a decade as a lawyer at the Trump Organization and is a close confidant of Trump, was known to store the conversations using digital files and then replay them for colleagues, according to people who have interacted with him.
“We heard he had some proclivity to make tapes,” said one Trump adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. “Now we are wondering, who did he tape? Did he store those someplace where they were actually seized? . . . Did they find his recordings?”
Cohen did not respond to requests for comment. Stephen Ryan, an attorney for Cohen, declined to comment. A White House spokeswoman referred a request for comment to Cohen and his attorney.
HOLY.....SHIT!!!
Now this may turn out to be nothing, many things do.
But HOLY SHIT!!!!
If in fact Cohen taped conversations he had with Trump, with Stormy Daniels' former attorney, with other women that he has paid off in the past, and those recordings are now in the possession of Robert Mueller, that raid of Cohen's office and home may prove to be the most devastating thing that has happened to Donald Trump yet.
Have I said HOLY SHIT yet?
Which may be why Trump is no longer interested in voluntarily sitting down to talk with Robert Mueller.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s office and President Donald Trump’s legal team are now proceeding with strategies that presume a presidential interview will likely not take place as part of the Russia investigation, after months of talks between the two sides collapsed earlier this week, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
On Monday Trump’s lawyers were discussing a possible interview with Mueller's team and had begun to hash out the final sticking points, including the timing, scope and length, according to people familiar with the discussions. One person familiar with the strategy said the president’s lawyers had sought over the weekend to expand his legal team to include individuals who would prepare him for an interview. Another person familiar with the matter, however, said preparations had not yet gone that far.
But the prospects for a presidential interview drastically dimmed once the FBI raided the home, office and hotel room of Trump’s long-time personal lawyer, Michael Cohen on Monday, these people said. The president criticized the raid as out of bounds in Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with Trump aides.
"I just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys. Good man. And it's a disgraceful situation. It's a total witch hunt," Trump said Monday, referring to a lawful FBI raid.
"It's an attack on our country," Trump said. "It's an attack on what we all stand for."
Trump lamented what he called a "witch hunt" that has dogged his term in office, slammed Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia probe and argued that investigators on Mueller's team are "just about" all Democrats -- which is false.
"This is ridiculous. This is now getting ridiculous," Trump said, pointing to a "whole new level of unfairness."
Asked why he hasn't moved to fire Mueller, Trump again said the situation is a "disgrace."
"Why don't I just fire Mueller? Well, I think it's a disgrace what's going on. We'll see what happens," Trump said. "Many people have said you should fire him. Again, they found nothing. And in finding nothing, that's a big statement."
Oh yeah, somebody's about to snap.
For the record the attorney-client privilege is NOT dead.
It just does not apply if your lawyer is breaking the law on your behalf.
The F.B.I. on Monday raided the office of President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, seizing records related to several topics including payments to a pornographic-film actress.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan obtained the search warrant after receiving a referral from the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, according to Mr. Cohen’s lawyer, who called the search “completely inappropriate and unnecessary.” The search does not appear to be directly related to Mr. Mueller’s investigation, but likely resulted from information he had uncovered and gave to prosecutors in New York.
“Today the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York executed a series of search warrants and seized the privileged communications between my client, Michael Cohen, and his clients,” said Stephen Ryan, his lawyer. “I have been advised by federal prosecutors that the New York action is, in part, a referral by the Office of Special Counsel, Robert Mueller.”
Mr. Cohen plays a role in aspects of the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. He also recently said he paid $130,000 to a pornographic-film actress, Stephanie Clifford, who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump. Ms. Clifford is known as Stormy Daniels.
The FBI on Monday raided the office of Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, seeking information about a $130,000 payment the attorney made to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election, sources said.
Several law enforcement officials confirmed the search of Cohen's office was not the work of Mueller's prosecutors. It involves a matter that the Mueller team came across, concluded did not fall under their mandate and passed on to the U.S. Attorney's office in New York.
Legal sources familiar with the nature of the search said it involved the $130,000 payment to Daniels, who alleges that she had an affair with Trump. The sources did not say whether it might have also involved other matters.
So the Mueller team found some incriminating information about this payoff to Stormy Daniels during their investigation of Trump and his associates, decided it did not fit comfortably with the focus of their investigation so they handed it off to the New York Attorney General, who was convinced that the evidence was sufficiently concerning enough to get a warrant to raid Cohen's office.
And that is not all. According to Vanity Fair the FBI also raided Cohen's hotel room.
And whatever is in that office clearly has Trump concerned.
Trump has been watching TV reports of the FBI raiding Cohen's office, per @jeffzeleny.
Did I not say earlier that today was going to be stressful for Donald Trump?
That might have been an understatement.
Now the question is will this be the thing that freaks Trump out so much that he finally fires Rod Rosenstein and starts working to close down the Mueller investigation?
President Donald Trump said on Thursday he did not know about a $130,000 payment made to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels for her silence, his first public acknowledgment of the scandal surrounding an alleged sexual affair that has plagued him for months.
"No," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One when questioned about his knowledge of the payment, which was made by his private attorney Michael Cohen in the month before the 2016 election.
Asked why Cohen made the payment, Trump said: "You'll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney. You'll have to ask Michael."
He said he didn't know where the money came from and ignored a question about whether he set up a fund for Cohen to draw from in making the payment.
I believe this is the first time that Trump has addressed the Stormy Daniels situation directly.
She of course shares the same rarefied space as Vladimir Putin as one of those who must never be criticized by Donald Trump.
I don't know about all of you but I seriously doubt that Michael Cohen made his payment on his own without his client knowing anything about it.
That seems preposterous and would make Michael Cohen one of the biggest schmucks in recent history.
What's more the lawyer for Stormy Daniels is not buying it either.
We very much look forward to testing the truthfulness of Mr. Trump's feigned lack of knowledge concerning the $130k payment as stated on Air Force One. As history teaches us, it is one thing to deceive the press and quite another to do so under oath. #searchforthetruth#basta
Good (actually GREAT) things come to those who wait!!! The strength of our case just went up exponentially. You can't have an agreement when one party claims to know nothing about it. #nodiscipline#thanksforplaying#basta
We know that Avenatti is really looking forward to getting the opportunity to cross examine Donald Trump, and you can bet your ass that if he does he is going to ask him about this money.
In fact only an hour or so after Trump made those remarks to reporters, I saw this:
Michael Avenatti tells @AriMelber that, following Trump's new remarks about Stormy Daniels, he'll be making a petition on Monday to depose Trump.
Stormy Daniels ramped up her legal battle against President Trump on Monday, alleging in court that his personal attorney Michael Cohen defamed her by insinuating that she lied about an affair with Trump more than a decade ago.
Daniels amended her existing lawsuit against Trump, adding Cohen as a defendant in the pending case. The expansion of the lawsuit in a California federal court comes one day after the adult-film actress’s widely watched interview on “60 Minutes.”
Now this is very problematic because Trump is also being sued by alleged sexual harassment victim Summer Zervos for defamation of character as well.
That would be two different women, with two entirely different experiences, suing Trump, or a Trump lawyer, for defaming them.
And at this point I should add, so far.
Now interestingly enough Michael Cohen's lawyer sent off a cease and desist order last night essentially accusing Daniels of defaming HIM by suggesting that he sent the thug that threatened her back in 2011.
Cohen’s lawyer fired back almost immediately after the Daniels interview with this letter saying allegation of goon threatening her was false >> pic.twitter.com/TWH2djrFPq
Stormy Daniels: I was in a parking lot, going to a fitness class with my infant daughter. T– taking, you know, the seats facing backwards in the backseat, diaper bag, you know, gettin’ all the stuff out. And a guy walked up on me and said to me, “Leave Trump alone. Forget the story.” And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, “That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.” And then he was gone.
Anderson Cooper: You took it as a direct threat?
Stormy Daniels: Absolutely.
Stormy Daniels: I was rattled. I remember going into the workout class. And my hands are shaking so much, I was afraid I was gonna– drop her.
Anderson Cooper: Did you ever see that person again?
Stormy Daniels: No. But I– if I did, I would know it right away.
Anderson Cooper: You’d be able to– you’d be able to recognize that person?
Stormy Daniels: 100%. Even now, all these years later. If he walked in this door right now, I would instantly know.
At no point in her answers to Anderson Cooper does Stormy Daniels suggest that the thug was sent by Cohen.
The attorney for Stormy Daniels also responded with this to questions about whether threats are still being directed at his client:
"Absolutely. She receives threats on a near-hourly basis. Now, we don't have anything tying those to Mr. Cohen or Mr. Trump, to be clear, but she's certainly scared for her safety and the safety of her family."
You know it seems more and more like this attorney for Stormy Daniels just casually sets up a tripwire for Donald Trump and his attorneys, and they clumsily stumble into it every time.
There are a lot of trolls out there working overtime to convince us that this is a nothing burger, and that it will have no impact on Donald Trump whatsoever, but I disagree.
In fact this story seems to be metastasizing. and public interest remains high.
And things may continue to ramp up from here. According to one of Daniels' best friends, there is a dress:
During a much longer interview with CNN's Jim Sciutto, Stormy's friend Alana Evans told him she was unaware of any texts, pictures or video but there was one thing. One little thing.
"All I know is that Stormy still has the dress that she wore from that night," Evans told Sciutto
They may come to this story for the sex, but they leave recognizing that the guy in the White House is vulnerable to blackmail, and is almost certainly compromised by foreign agents.
The president’s personal attorney Michael Cohen interceded in 2011 to prevent porn star Stormy Daniels from airing her story about an alleged affair with Donald Trump, telling the agent who arranged for its publication that he could harm her career, according to a person involved in the discussions.
Randy Spears, the ex-husband of agent Gina Rodriguez, told The Washington Post he answered the phone when Cohen called Rodriguez after she arranged for Daniels to earn $15,000 by telling her story to a celebrity publication.
“You tell Gina that if she ever wants to work in this town again, she’ll call me immediately,” Spears said Cohen told him. He said Rodriguez, who declined to take Cohen’s call, contacted her lawyer instead.
Spears’s account offers the first look at the original effort by Trump’s lawyer to silence Daniels, who resurfaced again in 2016 as Trump ran for president. Cohen has acknowledged arranging a $130,000 payment in October 2016, using money from his own home equity line of credit, to ensure her silence. Cohen did not respond to questions from The Post.
According to Spears, Stormy Daniels, who was a friend and fellow adult film actor, told him about her affair with Trump right after it happened, and he even took a lie detector test about that in 2011.
The agency that Rodriguez worked for was also threatened with a lawsuit, and this story was essentially killed.
Unfortunately for Donald Trump, and his attack dog lawyers, that story did eventually come out within the pages of In Touch Magazine this last January.
However this is yet more proof that Trump has been trying to keep this story quiet for years, and it provides even more credibility for Stormy Daniels.
