Avenatti says this morning he’s going to release the sketch of the person who allegedly threatened Daniels.
Rachel Maddow is eating his lunch. I want to watch.
It seems Hannity’s use of Cohen is extremely limited. It’s possible that Cohen is up to his eyeballs in sleaze but that doesn’t mean that Hannity’s interactions with him are necessarily sleazy. I hope that Hannity winds up disgraced but I need a little more than that to get my hopes up. It’s already obvious to anyone outside the Fox bubble that Fox is the US version of Pravda, but their viewers do not care nor do their advertisers.
My WAG based on last night’s reporting is that Hannity was seeking advice from Cohen on how to get cut in on real estate scams.
Am I the only one who tripped a bit on hearing that the presiding judge is Kimba Wood? Wood came to prominence when Clinton nominated her for AG in 1993 and she got bumped for the Nannygate scandal - name not mine - for her nanny being an illegal immigrant. This followed first nominee Zoe Baird who hadn’t paid payroll taxes for her nanny.
That led us to Janet Reno. No kids. No nothing, dammit.
Well, if Hannity is telling the truth, Cohen’s lawyers lied to Judge Wood. Judges don’t like that. If Hannity is lying, then he’s lying for a reason.
Don’t forget that she was named to the Federal bench by Reagan. I can’t imagine a cross-party AG nomination in today’s political environment.
^^^ This.
Although I do have a pony already, but why not two?
If this were a movie, it’d be a drawing of Sean Hannity.
This is the part I’m interested in. Cohen’s attorney actually went so far during the discussion with Judge Wood as to put her on notice that if Cohen’s team lost the argument, they had been instructed by the secret client to immediately appeal her decision. The back-and-forth between the attorney and the judge went on for at least 20 minutes, so obviously, Cohen’s attorney had his marching orders: Keep that name secret. So… why?
If Hannity’s “legal advice” was so innocuous, why the desperate efforts to hide the fact of the relationship? I guess I can understand his desire to avoid the embarrassment of 1) being a client of Cohen’s and 2) the fact that he had not disclosed the relationship to his viewers. But the effort seemed so outsized to the disclosure.
Hannity seems to have waived his privilege in any case by stating so emphatically that he never retained Cohen as a lawyer. This of course means that all Hannity information will be provided to federal prosecutors. So how do you go from, “If my name is disclosed, I insist the decision be appealed!” to, “I never had a legal relationship with Michael Cohen, so all my information can be disclosed.”
The whole thing just stinks. But then, what part of this mess doesn’t?
sketch is out but I cannot find a link for it yet.
sketch looks like it could be a lot of guys , nothing real distinctive about it . But it just takes one person to say they know the guy .
Also you have to wonder about her memory of the guy since she saw him in 2011.
My god! She was threatened by the young Willem Dafoe. This goes deeper than any of us thought!
It’s the Mooch!
I’m not sure what to make of this sketch business. It seems like Avenatti and Daniels have been running circles around Cohen lately just on the merits of their case and because Avenatti apparently is a better lawyer than anyone on the other side. Doing this reality show stunt of releasing a sketch, based as it is on Daniels’s memory of that single meeting 7 years ago, just seems really odd to me. What do they gain from this? It strikes me as unhelpful attention whoring.
I’m thought it’s Harry Hamlin … but yeah, could be the Mooch!
Fah! Any NFL fan can recognize Tom Brady when they see him! 
It sounds possible that they set it up that way
I think what is most plausible is that Hannity wanted free advice on real estate deals and he got some from a slimy lawyer he knew from his work on TV. The really embarrassing part might be if Hannity and Cohen had a quid pro quo arrangement whereby Cohen was trading free legal advice (worth every cent he paid for it) to Hannity in exchange for influencing Fox News’ coverage of things. I have no idea if this happened but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least. It’s also the kind of thing that might fall below even Fox News’ standards for journalistic ethics.
No. Hannity might have been lying. Also, from what I can tell, Hannity didn’t say Cohen wasn’t his lawyer. He said that Cohen never represented him. That is, Hannity is claiming that he never asked Cohen to represent him publicly, say in negotiations or in court. Consistent with this statement, Hannity could have consulted with Cohen for legal advice, in which case, Cohen would be his lawyer.
Confidentiality attaches to client relationships and even to relationships with prospective clients. It can sometimes be ambiguous whether a client relationship has been created but the gist of it is that if Hannity reasonably believed that Cohen was his lawyer, Cogen will have to protect Hannity’s confidences accordingly. Lawyers should be careful not to let a person believe they have a confidential attorney-client relationship when they don’t intend to create one.
I think Hannity might just be really embarrassed to be associated with this lawyer. He doesn’t want the public to assume that Hannity, like the lawyer’s other two public clients, are just using him to pay off mistresses. I also suspect that Hannity may have let Cohen influence Fox News’ coverage of things in exchange for the free legal advice. Perhaps that could ruin Hannity’s career.
When did Cohen’s lawyers lie to Judge Wood?
Hannity, to my knowledge, never said Cohen wasn’t his lawyer. He said that Cohen never represented him and that he didn’t pay Cohen (although Hannity later said he paid him $10).
Hannity didn’t waive privilege about his discussions with Cohen. Having publicly affirmed his relationship with Cohen, at most, he has waived any assertion that his identity as Cohen’s client is still privileged, but the substance of their conversation is still privileged.
Even on the point of whether Hannity’s identity as Cohen’s client is privileged, Hannity could still assert that he didn’t waive privilege but that Cohen failed to protect it in court.
Flushing the game. Cohen’s phones and emails and whatnot are certainly tapped by now. If this sketch is accurate enough to identify Mr. Mystery Mook what is he going to do? Perhaps he will call his lawyer for advice.
If Mr. Mook was my fixer, I’d be demanding a refund. You pay I guy (I assume as most people won’t do this for free) to go threaten a porn star to keep quiet. She’s all over the national news talking about the thing you threatened her about. Her story could end the career of the person you are (indirectly of course and as a matter of attorney-client privilege) protecting by employing Mr. Mook. Mook not only fails to get the job done but now his face is all over the news too! Worst fixer ever.