That’s hilarious. 
The only sort of real estate question I could see being asked of Michael Cohen would be something like:
“How can I buy an apartment for my mistress without my name showing up anywhere?”
But I guess we’ll see!
At the time Hannity consulted him, he didn’t anticipate that Cohen’s office would be raided and all his files seized. (In addition, it’s also possible he didn’t appreciate the full scale of Cohen’s bagman type work.) Therefore he didn’t foresee this being an issue.
[My father is about the most honest person I know, but he once got summoned to a grand jury for some sort of investigation. He had loaned money to someone being investigated. He (my father) freaked out, because he couldn’t tell for certain whether he was himself a target as well or just purely a witness. (The FBI guy told him he was a witness, but apparently they’re allowed to lie about these things.) I’ve forgotten the exact reason he suspected he might be a target. My brother - who was more heavily involved than I was and knew the actual target - told me at the time that their suspicion was that the FBI suspected that my father’s loan to the guy was really part of some money laundering scheme in which he was a knowing participant. In the end, it turned out that he apparently wasn’t a target, and when the real target made some sort of plea deal they told my father that he didn’t need to turn up. But not before my father paid $5K to a lawyer to consult over it. Point being that honest people can sometimes do business with crooks, and this can have a big downside when the hammer falls on the other guy.]
“Honest”?
Is it honest to do story after story supporting a lawyer and trashing the investigators looking into him without disclosing to your audience that you are a client of this lawyer? Is that ethical? How would you expect something like this to affect the credibility of this reporter? Should anyone take anything they report again at face value?
Again?
Uh, it’s Fox…
If Cohen’s lawyers just used Hannity to pad their client list, it seems Hannity would be pretty pissed off about that. Especially since they told him they would keep his name out of it. But apparently he’s not mad at them. So why not? Shouldn’t he be foaming at the mouth about lawyers incriminating innocent people who just asked for simple advice about innocuous subjects?
Touche. Although I was responding to someone who seems to desperately want to justify extending endless benefit of the doubt to him regardless of his actions.
I read the word “Honest” in one of these posts and near spit my water all over my computer.
Hannity also used Toensing and Sekulow. Sekulow, of course, is Trump’s personal lawyer.
As for Toensing, what the hell does this even mean?
Journalists have ethics. Hannity is not a journalist.
Human beings are supposed to have ethics. Ethics aren’t something that only apply to those with certain careers.
“What’s the difference between morals and ethics?”
“One is something that regular people don’t have, and the other is something that lawyers don’t have.”
As the terms are used, I believe morals are overall principles, and ethics are guidelines specific to a profession and the like.
Journalists have their own set of ethics. Hannity is not quite a journalist, and his ethical requirements would be a bit different. But it’s hard to see any sort of ethics that would let someone issue strong comments on an issue as if it’s a general principle without revealing that this is something which impacts him personally.
What I was meaning to say was, either you’re a client or you aren’t. Hannity is saying he is but isn’t.
I’m starting to wonder why he would be a client of that low class goon Cohen anyway. Is he also in cahoots with the Russians somehow?
To steal some words from Trump,
“Many people are saying” that Cohen etc are seriously worried because they don’t have a Secret Service to protect them from Putin.
Hannity is Schroedinger’s client. Whether he is or isn’t a client depends on what will benefit him at any particular moment.
Mentioning Hannity and journalistic ethics in the same sentence is like taking about the Three Stooges and artistic integrity.
That’s what I said.
Absolutely. I have done some work for people involved in the Russia investigation. I looked back through my records and was very relieved to find out that I had never been paid through the client or any of his LLC’s. — I was paid through the general contractor the client hired.
Manafort used construction companies ( paying them from off-shore LLC’s ) as part of his tax evasion scheme. The companies are not named in the indictment but I’m sure I know some of those people. And they aren’t in any trouble - probably.
You have to be cautious when you’re dealing with shady clients. If a client accidentally sends you a significant overpayment- return the check, don’t cash it. Otherwise he may ask you to return the difference and this could be construed as money laundering. Another scheme would be for them to give you a deposit on a significant order, change their mind and then ask for most of their their money back, allowing you to keep something for your troubles. Now this really could be completely innocent - but you might find yourself in the position of having to prove it was completely innocent.
But there’s a spectrum between completely innocent and partner-in-crime. And you have to be careful and you have to check your greed. Say you have that client that really likes to return expensive stuff and doesn’t mind paying really high restocking fees. Maybe, instead of saying no to the 4th or 5th return, you decide to raise the restocking fees and let him keep doing it. You might be in for some trouble.
Yeah, some kind of Hannity in a box only clients when being observed,
Maybe a bit of Heisenberg too - When measuring the client/not client state of a Hannity there’s a fundamental limit to the amount of precision that can be achieved.
For example, the more precisely you measure the client/not client of a Hannity the less precise your measurement of its position.
Your theory does seem to explain many otherwise-inexplicable elements of this situation.
I just want to emphasize the TAPES aspect (which hasn’t been talked about in depth for a while). A reminder to all that Cohen was in the habit of recording conversations:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/13/politics/fbi-phone-recordings-cohen-daniels-mcdougal/index.html
Nice detail about Cohen playing for Trump conversations Cohen had had with people who apparently had no idea they were being taped.
But, yeah. Hannity coordinating with Trump his coverage of the Russia investigation, etc.–quite plausible.