Michael Avenatti, Stormy’s lawyer, is suggesting that the FBI found out via the tap that Cohen was discussing destroying documents, hence the raid.
One would think that an attorney who works around sketchy characters would be smarter than to have conversations on his (mobile?!) phone casually discussing obstructing justice…
This administration’s motto: act first, think later (if ever).
It occurs to me that by arranging the reimbursement of the hush money through Cohen invoicing Trump or the Trump Organization for “legal services”, that Trump or the TO could have claimed the “attorney fees” as deductible business expenses, even though payment of hush money is not a deductible business expense.
Yep. Gonna need those tax returns Donnie. This is not a tax dodge that he would have likely missed.
Well, damn. NBC has issued a correction. The feds hadn’t tapped Cohen’s phone. They got a pen register, which AIUI allows them to see the log of numbers called to and from but not listen in to the conversations. The lawyers I follow on Twitter say a pen register is much easier to get. So this is not nearly the bombshell it was believed to be earlier in the day.
https://twitter.com/passantino/status/992148427243896832
Shit.
Trump is still denying any sexual encounter with Stormy.
Thus the theory Trump and his defenders are trying to put across is: ANYONE who appeared in a photo with Trump could approach Trump, say ‘please pay me $130,000 or I’ll say we had sex,’ and walk away with a check.
That’s the “ordinary business arrangement” they’re trying to get us to believe.
Hands up if you find this plausible, Trump fans!
Isn’t that just evidence that at one point the feds got a pen register?
Which would NOT be evidence that ruled out the possibility that at some later point they might have gotten a warrant to listen in.
Especially considering the dozen other public allegations already made against him and that show he put on of women who’d accused Clinton before the presidential debate.
It would be interesting to see polling on the question ‘do you believe Trump had sex with Stormy Daniels?’—but as far as I can tell, the big firms don’t get that specific (or smutty) with their questions.
How many Trump fans could possibly believe he didn’t, at this point (given the facts you mention, especially)?
Trump fans? Two categories…don’t know, don’t care.
I don’t give any shits if he had consensual sex with her. I do care if the payoff was illegal or not though.
Yep. And just how many ‘fixer’ attorneys does Trump have and what has been fixed?
Mueller has just asked for 70 subpoenas that he can fill out. My thought is “is that all”?
They are a bunch of crooks we know that.
In addition to the “loan from Comey” being an illegal campaign contribution (loans are in the same category as gifts), the repayment was “structured” - broken down into many smaller oayments so as to enable scrutiny - this runs afoul of money-laundering laws.
I heard that Giuliani made the claim that it couldn’t be a campaign violation because the money wasn’t part of the campaign.
He did not seem to grasp that if money that’s not part of the campaign is spent to get someone elected, that is the campaign violation. But, as I understand it, a candidate can spend their own money to help themselves get elected. That may be why they’re admitting that Trump made the payment; rather be blatant liars than open Cohen up to a spending violation.
The reimbursement from Trump to Cohen was in the form of his monthly retainer payments to Cohen. How is that a reimbursement; for these four months, all the money Cohen got from Trump was then passed on to Ms. Daniels, the other eight months it paid Cohen’s fees?
As a wise dog once said, it just don’t add up.
I’m guess there’s an understanding that Trump pays Cohen a monthly retainer of $35k, in return for which
(a) Cohen holds himself free to act for Trump - i.e. he refuses any instructions from anyone else in any matter in relation to which he might, at some point, be called up to act for Trump; and
(b) he does in fact act for Trump as and when required,
and the retainer is understood to cover both Cohen’s the charge for any professional services Cohen actually renders, plus any outlay/expenses that Cohen actually incurs (so he doesn’t have to bill an hourly rate or account for outlays).
Thus you can’t say that any particular monthly payment represented a reimbursement of outlay expended on making a payment to Daniels, and yet that outlay (and any other outlay Cohen may have incurred on any other matter) was nevertheless reimbursed by the monthly payments.
That might gain traction of Trump had not signed a document under a false name to avoid political fallout in an upcoming elections. And if the funds were not paid for the sole purpose of helping the candidate win.
Guilty. Lock him up.
Pretty sure you meant Cohen there.
If my father-in-law is any indication, no one in Trump-world cares about any of this. We were discussing this last night. Trump fans don’t care who Trump has sex with. Don’t care who he pays off. Don’t care that he lies about it. Don’t care, don’t care, don’t care. All they care about is this country and they like what Trump has done for the country.
Why should we care about all that?
The seeds for revolution have been planted. But, it’s not Trump Resisters that will revolt. It’s Trump fans. They will see an impeachment as an attack on the duly elected President. Hannity said last night (or was it Sebastian Gorka?), “We won’t be the USA anymore – we’ll be Venezuela or something.” Trumpists are primed to go to war over this.
Mark Levin was also on Hannity last night. He claims that we are headed for a constitutional crisis and that it is solely the Democrats’ fault. The Mueller investigation is run entirely by Democrats and they are hell-bent on bringing down Trump. The fact that this is 100% bullshit is irrelevant. Trumpists believe it. If Trump gets run out of DC, Democrats local and national will be against the wall in front of firing squads.
It is difficult for me to see a way forward from here. If we live in a post-fact world, what do we have? If Trumpists don’t care about any of Trump misdeeds, both great and small, what can we do? They’re nearly half the country. And they’ve got guns.
One could actually make a case for ignoring Trump’s lying and adulterous dalliances if the man was effective at leadership. But nobody, supporters or not, should be willing to overlook emoluments violations. Selling influence and favors to foreign entities in return for personal enrichment of one kind or another should be the final straw. Now there’s no shortage of those who say that they won’t support his continuance if this proves to be the case but there are indeed plenty out there who are even willing to overlook this.