Oh, and the lawyer of trump's who had been making questionable nondisclosure deals with porn actresses just got raided by the FBI with search warrants for his shit (via Talking Points Memo):
Agents reportedly seized materials related to the $130,000 payment Cohen made to porn actress Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 election to prevent her from speaking out about the alleged affair she had with President Donald Trump. The FBI, the Times reported, seized “records related to several topics.”
The law firm where Cohen had an office issued a statement regarding the raid. “The firm’s arrangement with Mr. Cohen reached its conclusion, mutually and in accordance with the terms of the agreement,” said a statement from Squire Patton Boggs LLP. “We have been in contact with federal authorities regarding their execution of a warrant relating to Mr. Cohen. These activities do not relate to the firm and we are in full cooperation...”
Last month, Daniels sued Trump and the company Cohen set up to make the payment, saying that the nondisclosure agreement she signed for the money should be nullified since Trump never signed it.
She appeared on CBS News’s 60 Minutes to tell her story at the end of March.
Trump spoke out about the case for the first time last week, telling reporters on Thursday that he didn’t know about the payment. He referred questions to Cohen...
Well, it looks like Mueller is going to refer questions to Cohen. (Actually, I take that back. Adam Silverman at Balloon-Juice is noting the warrants are coming out of the New York district office, which may be investigating Cohen's matters separate from the Special Counsel. Mueller *did* forward his recommendation through the Justice Department)
Someone on Twitter suggested this Reason article, and it brings up a few points why this is a big fucking deal in the nightmare that is trumpWorld:
1. According to Cohen's own lawyer, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York secured the search warrants for the FBI, based on a referral from Robert Mueller's office. Assuming this report is correct, that means that a very mainstream U.S. Attorney's Office—not just Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office—thought that there was enough for a search warrant here.
2. Moreover, it's not just that the office thought that there was enough for a search warrant. They thought there was enough for a search warrant of an attorney's office for that attorney's client communications. That's a very fraught and extraordinary move that requires multiple levels of authorization within the Department of Justice. The U.S. Attorney's Manual (USAM)—at Section 9-13.320—contains the relevant policies and procedures. The highlights:
The feds are only supposed to raid a law firm if less intrusive measures won't work... (personal interpretation: they know if they ask for it odds are it'll get shredded before the afternoon coffee is finished off)
Such a search requires high-level approval... This is not a couple of rogue (DAs) sneaking in a warrant... (interpretation: this is gonna be so legit even a conservative Supreme Court can't knock it down)
Such a search requires an elaborate review process. The basic rule is that the government may not deliberately seize, or review, attorney-client communications. The USAM—and relevant caselaw—therefore require the feds to set up a review process. That process might involve a judge reviewing the materials to separate out what is privileged... (interpretation: HOLY FUCK THIS SHIT JUST GOT REAL)
3. A magistrate judge signed off on this. Federal magistrate judges (appointed by local district judges, not by the president) review search warrant applications. A magistrate judge therefore reviewed this application and found probable cause—that is, probable cause to believe that the subject premises (Cohen's office) contains specified evidence of a specified federal crime...
I'm not a lawyer but even from this distance I can see Cohen is in a lot of trouble. I'm talking Mount Denali amount of trouble.
I don't think I've commented much on the Stormy Daniels reporting, mostly because I said all that needed to be said about this tiny vulgar lifeform we call the Shitgibbon. But the Stormy stuff points to a key habit of trump relying so heavily on his team of lawyers to brute-force any lesser peon into submission. There is bound to be a lot of questionable and unethical legal behavior involved to the point where any lawyer close enough to trump to pull what he allegedly did - use campaign funds to silence possible witnesses to trump's adulterous behaviors just after the Access Hollywood tape and just before the general election - probably didn't even realize he was breaking laws doing so. He'd been doing it for years. Just never got called on it.
Well, Michael Cohen. You're getting called on it.
And I don't think Fleetwood Mac is hiring at the moment (I doubt Cohen can play the lead guitar on "Hypnotized" anywho).
4 comments:
They had Lindsey's replacements already; we'll see who plays his part.
This being the real news today.
Of course.
How about "Orange Manalishi with a Three-Pronged Indictment?"
He'll try to perform "Silver Springs" but Stevie Nicks will show up and beat him to death for ruining her song like that.
No no. I shouldn't imply Ms. Nicks would be that violent.
She'll just curse him instead thricefold.
Cohen is in deep doo-doo. Remember that whole "letter of intent to build a Trump Tower Moscow" that Fergus signed during the campaign while loudly yawping "I have no Russian deals"? That was Cohen all the way, with close association with high-level Russians, and if I remember correctly, a letter to Putin asking for help getting approval for the project.
Mueller is investigating Fergus' campaign's collaboration with Russia, and that's some attempted collaboration right there, and Cohen's right in the middle of it.
Come to think of it, Cohen is right in the middle of almost every slimy scandal Fergus is slithering through right now, so maybe they should be looking at the wannabe mob-lawyer attempted replacement for Roy Cohn a little closer.
And speaking as a guitarist of forty years, Lindsey's singing will be harder to replace than his playing.
-Doug in Oakland
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