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Post by Optimus on Jul 20, 2018 20:46:45 GMT -5
@cassandraw posted about this in the Harvey Weinstein thread, but I have a feeling that this story might be with us for a while, so it probably warrants its own thread. Cass said: Don't have time to find the Stormy thread, so I'll put this here. Michael Cohen, flipping like a gymnast... Cohen flipping is a bad, bad thing for Trump. He knows where a lot of bodies are buried. But wait! There's more... Apparently there are multiple recordings of several people in Trump's coterie:
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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2018 20:57:41 GMT -5
Yep, you're quite right, Opty -- I suspect this is going to be big developing news that is with us for a while. I dumped it where I did because I was in a hurry and just wanted people to see it. But it really does deserve its own thread. And here's the thing, folks. This isn't just about the "oooh, he did the shmexing thing." This is about the campaign finance violations. Remember why John Edwards got off (well, he had to abandon his campaign, but he didn't go to jail)? That was because there was a genuine question as to whether John Edwards's motive for covering up his affair was to save his cancer-suffering wife from grief, or to keep the incident from damaging his campaign. Given his wife had cancer and the affair was current, yeah, he had some solid personal reasons for covering it up that had squat to do with the campaign. Here? These are old affairs Trump didn't bother covering up until they threatened to break just before the election. That alone points to the motive being the campaign. But there are tapes! Cohen may well have him talking about wanting to cover it up because of the campaign, and if so -- yeah, that's really really really fucking bad for Trump.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2018 7:10:25 GMT -5
Btw, one of the things that gives me a gut that this tape is really, really bad (well, besides Trump himself and the tack Michael Cohen is currently taking)? The way Rudy Giuliani keeps talking about it and spinning it. He's supposed to be Trump's lawyer, and one upon a time he was a good one, but yeah, no, lawyers around the country are watching him and going "WTF is he doing? Why is acting like Sarah Huckabee Sanders or Sean freaking Hannity instead of like a lawyer?" See, e.g., ETA: What he's doing, IMO, is prepping the credulous base on how they should respond to the tape, regardless of what is on it. "Pay no attention to the incriminating statements and the law! No need even to listen to it! Remember our spin? That's all you need to know!" Which of course is the way Trump and his cronies are approaching pretty much everything. It doesn't matter that most of the country doesn't buy it--his base does. Every prominent Republican of integrity who rejects the spin and says "enough!", the base is trained to auto-reject as a traitor: "bah, George Will, Steve Schmidt, Bill Kristol, etc. So what if they claimed to work for and support Republicans for decades? Clearly they are really closet libs and traitors! lalalala!" I am sincerely hoping that the percentage of Republican supporting Trump's egregious lies, dubious tariffs, suspicious, disturbing, downright terrifying approach to Russia, etc., is in part the result of a pile of one-time Republicans saying "yeah, this is fucked" and now counting themselves as independents. ETA: And here is Trump this morning: As a lawyer, I tell you--there was NOTHING inconceivable about the search of Michael Cohen's office under the circumstances. Now, Cohen taping the conversation IS surprising, and yes, it raises ethical questions* about him as a lawyer (he's done as a lawyer, IMO). We do have to remember,of course, he's a shit lawyer and always has been, the only kind Trump hires, so, yeah while I wouldn't tape a client, what I'd do is no standard to measure Cohen by. Off the top of my head I can think of two reasons Cohen might have taped the conversation: (1) because he felt Trump was doing/proposing stuff too shady even for Cohen to risk, and Cohen was protecting himself by having an tape of what was actually said, or (2) Cohen was making payments on Trump's behalf, and wanted to have some proof of Trump's promises in case Trump tried to deny it and weasel out of it. Maybe both. Also worth remembering that much of what Cohen did for Trump wasn't legal work-- Trump and Cohen said as much, at various times. Be that as it may, apparently Cohen DID record him, and if the tape reveals an illegal scheme or an attempt at one, I wish Trump luck (not really) in trying to claim it's privileged. "your favorite President did nothing wrong!" Jesus. He's directing this, and every statement he makes, not at the American people as a whole, but at the 1/3 who would excuse him and blame Nancy Pelosi if he roasted babies on the White House lawn. ETA: *Note that I said ethical questions, not legal questions. FYI, in New York, it is legal for one party to a conversation to tape the other without the other person's knowledge, so if you see someone arguing otherwise on Twitter or Facebook, tell them Cass the NY Lawyer said "pfft." It's just that ethically, lawyers have duties to their clients beyond those an ordinary person has to another ordinary person. So yeah, he's not going to jail for taping the phone call, but unless he had a very very very good reason for making the tape, it feels icky for a lawyer to do it with a client. ( The ABA Standing Committee is split on whether it is an ethics violation or not.) But as I said before, I think Cohen is done as a lawyer in any case. Who the hell would hire him as an attorney after all this? And as I've commented in other threads, I think he's done some other stuff that may well get his law license yanked. IMO, his best bet, going forward, is to cooperate fully with authorities because it's just the right thing to do, and then perhaps write a book to supplement his (very likely drained) bank account. ETA: Also worth noting -- Trump has waived any privilege claim he might theoretically have with regard to the recording. But that said, if the conversation involved Trump attempting to commit a crime/fraud with Cohen's help, the conversation wasn't privileged to begin with. So if any of your Trump-loving Facebook or Twitter friends yell "PRIVILEGE!", tell 'em Cass the Lawyer said "pfft."
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2018 17:09:42 GMT -5
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Post by gaild on Jul 22, 2018 3:36:50 GMT -5
Apart from the fact that I don't believe a word that comes out of Rudy Giuliani's mouth, is it possible that Cohen taped the conversations simply as a means of keeping notes? A kind of audio file - to make sure he had the information correct? I understand that it's common practice (maybe not with lawyers)to record a conversation and later have it transcribed and filed. Or am I being ridiculously naive?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2018 6:56:53 GMT -5
Apart from the fact that I don't believe a word that comes out of Rudy Giuliani's mouth, is it possible that Cohen taped the conversations simply as a means of keeping notes? A kind of audio file - to make sure he had the information correct? I understand that it's common practice (maybe not with lawyers)to record a conversation and later have it transcribed and filed. Or am I being ridiculously naive? Well, it's possible (though I've never recorded a client...). But the only difference that would make here is to make it sketchy that Cohen didn't tell Trump he was doing it in that event. ff you have a benign reason for recording a benign conversation, you should inform the client you're doing it. See the ethics stuff I cited. But, see, most of us don't care much about whether what Cohen did was an ethics violation except as a question of whether that means the tapes couldn't be used against Trump. Here's the thing-- the mere fact of the subject matter tells us the conversation is a problem for Trump. Trump has denied repeatedly that he knew nothing about these payments--that if Cohen made them, he did it on his own. But if Trump was talking to Cohen about them a month before the election, well, that's a freaking lie. And if Trump knew about the payments, and they were being made to hush up the story before the election, well, not only is he a lying liar who lies, but he's likely guilty of violating campaign finance laws, at a minimum.
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Post by gaild on Jul 22, 2018 17:03:18 GMT -5
Apart from the fact that I don't believe a word that comes out of Rudy Giuliani's mouth, is it possible that Cohen taped the conversations simply as a means of keeping notes? A kind of audio file - to make sure he had the information correct? I understand that it's common practice (maybe not with lawyers)to record a conversation and later have it transcribed and filed. Or am I being ridiculously naive? But if Trump was talking to Cohen about them a month before the election, well, that's a freaking lie. And if Trump knew about the payments, and they were being made to hush up the story before the election, well, not only is he a lying liar who lies, but he's likely guilty of violating campaign finance laws, at a minimum. That's what I understood from the CNN discussions. But I'm curious as to whether violating campaign finance laws is an impeachable offense.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2018 17:23:05 GMT -5
Well, here's the thing, Gail.
Impeachment is a political thing. Basically, Congress can decide to impeach or not impeach for, well, largely anything it likes. It's not like impeachment is a criminal statute that sets out a specific standard that needs to be met first or requires impeachment if it is met.
It's quite safe to say the Republicans would have impeached Barack Obama a zillion times over if he'd done a tenth of the sketchy things Trump has, long before this. It's also safe to say that if Democrats take back the House and Senate, Trump is gonna have himself a problem. (The Dems just need a majority to vote to impeach in the House. They likely will get that, I think. But they can't possibly gain two-thirds of the Senate seats in 2018, which is what is required for the Senate to convict on impeachment charges. But you know, if they got back the majority, and if things keep spiraling for Trump, and the House votes impeachment, I'm not so sure Trump can count on all the GOP senators to stick with him. I think a number of them already think he's a liability). But in any case, things will get seriously ugly for Trump on that front if the Dems take back Congress in the midterms.
Also -- if the economy tanks, I think Trump is in big trouble, whatever happens in the midterms. And those tariffs...
Violating campaign finance laws IS a crime, though. Trump won't be tried for it while he's President. But even if he's not impeached, when he's out of office, my bet is he's facing that charge and others. Notably, money laundering and fraud with regard to the Trump Foundation. I also, at this point, think he likely engaged in a conspiracy with Russian agents to interfere with the election (I think it's now beyond a doubt members of his campaign did, and Trump's own behavior with Putin becomes harder and harder to understand unless Putin has some dirt on Trump somewhere). But my gut is, that may not be what hits him in the face. It's going to be his grifting, fucked-up money dealings.
That's my prediction. I know a couple of you are nodding and a couple others are scoffing. Only time will tell.
ETA:
It is now clear that a certain percentage of Trump's hardcore fan base, which alas, include some folks in the government, will stick by him even if he boils and eats babies on the White House lawn. But others, those sticking by him strictly as a political strategy, calculating they'll get more policy goals and judges -- as more things hit the fan, I think a lot of them are going to start thinking he's more liability than he's worth. (I have to think they'd prefer Pence.)
Taking aside our usual suspect GOP Trump critics like Flake and Sasse, a lot of other GOPers like Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are not really Trump lovers. They're diehard party guys who will do what they think is good for the GOP. Right now (or until now), their calculation has clearly been "okay, he's a loose cannon who says and does horrible things and oh jesus what was that he just did now, but judges and tax policy we like", so they suckle him to their bosom. But at some point? If it looks like Trump is going to blow the GOP to pieces? Yeah, they're not loyal to him, and they'll throw him under the bus.
I think things are starting to spiral that way now, to tell you the truth, between the tariffs, the Russia stuff, the immigration stuff, and the Cohen-related stuff. But as I said, time will tell.
If he's still in office in 2020 and runs again, I think someone will primary him from the GOP side. Scoff if you will.
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Post by gaild on Jul 24, 2018 3:33:07 GMT -5
Thanks, Cass. That does fill in some blanks for me.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2018 21:08:29 GMT -5
Well. The recording is out. First, to give context, it's important to remember what the Trump team originally said about the whole MacDougal story being bought from her and then squashed by American Media. In November 2016, when the story first came out Hope Hicks, speaking for Trump denied that Trump had any knowledge of any such payment. www.wsj.com/articles/national-enquirer-shielded-donald-trump-from-playboy-models-affair-allegation-1478309380So, um, yeah. The tape shows that Trump not only knew of the payment American Media made to McDougal, but also that the payment came from Trump. So whatever else we can say, the above was a fat lie. The CNN report, which includes the audio of the conversation between Cohen and Trump, is in the tweet below (note that the audio starts with them talking about other stuff, though that's kind of interesting and fun, too, and the bit about the payment to American Media doesn't come until the end): "Friend David" is the American Media guy who paid McDougal, by the way. The company Cohen was setting up to handle the transaction -- yeah, he used that to pay off Stormy, too, and who knows what else. The audio is a little muddled, but then Trump says "[something] cash", and Cohen says "no, no" It sounds to me like Trump suggests that the payment be made in cash ("we'll pay with cash," is how it sounds to me") and Cohen doesn't think it should ("no, no no"). That is how Cohen claims the conversation went, and I think the tape backs him up. Now given the quality of the audio at that point, I suppose it's possible, if we give Trump every benefit of the doubt, disregard Cohen's story, and listen only to the tape, that Trump said the payment should not be made in cash, and Cohen insisted it should. That's what Guiliani is now claiming. But ya know, I don't buy it. It's a $150,000 payment. If it's an innocent, normal payment, the assumption would generally be that such a large payment would be via check or bank transfer, not cash, no? So why would there be a special need for Trump to suggest it NOT be in cash? And what kind of people make big ass cash payments to a media outlet that just paid off a woman claiming to have an affair with them? Guilty people. OF COURSE Trump had an affair with her (and then lied about it). And pretty obviously, American Media was enough in cahoots with Trump to squash the story. Even if you wanna think he did it out of pure loving kindness, to squash an evil evil false story about poor Donald (the kindest face you can put on it), the fact remains that Trump reimbursed them for it -- and with discussion of doing it in cash. And it sure as hell sounds on the tape like this payoff idea initiated with Donald. All of that is Cohen's current story (oh, he's flipping!) -- but it's not his unsupported word anymore. We have the tape. Come on. It's guilty as fuck. It shows Trump lied from beginning to end. The whole transaction reeks. And with Stormy Daniels, that's now TWO payments Trump made just before the election to shut up women from blabbing about affairs with him. Sorry, it reeks of them being made to prevent the stories from influencing the election. Why else? Seriously, why else? ETA: It's worth noting, by the way, that Trump, via Giuliani has ADMITTED that the tape pertains to the payment to American Media to buy the McDougal story, and that this is the payment they are talking about at the end of the tape. There isn't an argument that the David was some other guy and the payment was for a dining room table. The only thing Giuliani disputes, bless his heart, is whether it was Trump or Cohen suggesting the payment be made in cash. Listen to the audio closely, remember that Giuliani was not there for the conversation and Cohen was, and you can judge for yourself. But what is certain -- Trump lied about not knowing about the payment. In fact the payment came from him. (BTW, I don't know what the hell is going on with 'ol Rudy. He used to be a good lawyer. But I've been watching him handle the Trump stuff, and jesus, is he making a mess.)
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2018 22:06:31 GMT -5
Sometimes Twitter is just godawful. And sometimes it is the only thing that makes me laugh all day:
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2018 23:07:13 GMT -5
oh goody! Wapo did a transcript of the full tape and annotated it to provide context!
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Post by poetinahat on Jul 25, 2018 0:02:17 GMT -5
<clipped> But my gut is, that may not be what hits him in the face. It's going to be his grifting, fucked-up money dealings. That's my prediction. I know a couple of you are nodding and a couple others are scoffing. Only time will tell. <clipped> If he's still in office in 2020 and runs again, I think someone will primary him from the GOP side. Scoff if you will. 1. Agree - in the way that Al Capone was nabbed for tax evasion, and the way that OJ was sued for violations of civil rights. 2. My prediction for 2020 is a little weird: Trump ditches the GOP and runs for re-election as the Trump Party candidate. I agree - his supporters care about him, not the GOP. And he doesn't need the GOP anymore, not as much as they need him. Whether the GOP stands without him anymore - or whether they'd suddenly find themselves free to go after him in a way they can't now - is another thing. Jeez, I miss normal dirty politics.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2018 21:36:14 GMT -5
The number one rule about hiring Michael Cohen as an attorney is not to hire Michael Cohen as an attorney. For one thing, odds are good he's taping you.
Of course, if you're the kind of person who is hiring Michael Cohen as an attorney, you are probably the kind of person it is wise to tape, so, yeah, there's that.
MORE THAN 100 TAPED CONVERSATIONS?!?! Not enough popcorn in the world for this.
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Post by Optimus on Jul 25, 2018 22:00:43 GMT -5
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