Flynn in major trouble for speaking to Russia about sanctions

*ding*

SNL Cold Open

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/15/a...n-mulaney.html

Stormy Daniels' Lawyer Michael Avenatti Drops a Bomb on CNN:

Cohen's Cigar Buddies Have 'Russian Ties'

Avenatti claimed that the men Cohen was seen smoking cigars with outside of a courthouse on Friday afternoon had unspecified ties to the Russian government.

"Michael Cohen was videotaped and photographed sitting with a number of men," Avenatti said.

"We believe that a number of those actually had ties, Russian ties, as crazy as that sounds.

This story gets more strange and more strange by the day.

You couldn't make this up if you wanted to."

Tapper seemed taken aback by Avenatti's allegations and pressed him for more details.

"Can you shed more light on what you said?" he asked. "I mean, I saw a picture of one of the people he was sitting with, and he has ties to one particular Russian wealthy individual. What else are you talking about?"

"I don't want to say too much this morning, but you can't make this stuff up," Avenatti replied.

"I don't understand what he is doing, what Michael Cohen's doing with each passing day.

This is getting worse and worse for him and

getting worse and worse for the president."

https://www.alternet.org/stormy-dani...e-russian-ties

Avenatti is obviously riding his Stormy/Trash/Cohen story into national prominence.

When will Trash tweetshit on Avenatti?

Guess who else was in Prague when Michael Cohen was there ...

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...tail=emaildkre


... unproven, but more believable, probable than the unending shit TSA drags in here.

I wonder if Cohen does have two passports?

GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy Defends Michael Cohen Raid: ‘Nothing to Do With Politics’

Quote:

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A top House Republican on Sunday defended the FBI raid on President Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen’s home and office last week, as the president continues to assail what he views as a breach of attorney-client privilege.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, argued that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein—who is overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and has come under heavy criticism from Trump allies—was right to authorize the raid, and that Mueller was just in referring the matter to prosecutors in New York.

“I don’t know what Mueller was supposed to do other than what he did. When a prosecutor comes in contact with information or evidence of a crime, what are you supposed to do, other than refer to the appropriate jurisdiction?” Gowdy said on Fox News Sunday.

Gowdy characterized the approval process for the raid as arduous and fair, adding that it was ultimately given the green light by a “neutral” judge “who has nothing to do with politics.”

Gowdy, who announced recently that he would not seek re-election, has been one of the top GOP defenders of Mueller and his investigation into Russian election meddling and possible collusion between Trump associates and Russian operatives.

“How this is Mueller’s fault just defies logic to me,” the South Carolina Republican added.

Trump has called the Cohen raid which took place a week ago “disgraceful” and “an attack on our country in a true sense,” and on Sunday it was still on the president’s mind.

---

US Attorney makes the case that Cohen is a fixer, not an attorney...oh, and they've got the proof

Cohen is attempting to stop anyone from looking at what was seized in the raid on the grounds of attorney-client privilege.

The USAO-SDNY’s boils down to: he really isn’t acting as a lawyer...he’s Trump’s fixer. This is a direct quote from their filing:

Cohen claims that the materials seized include “thousands of privileged documents and communications related to numerous clients of Mr. Cohen, as well as Mr. Cohen’s privileged communications with his own attorneys.”

Although the USAO-SDNY and FBI have not yet reviewed the seized materials, there is considerable reason to doubt that assertion….

it is neither apparent

(i) that Cohen, in his capacity as an attorney, has many, or any, attorney-client relationships other than with President Donald Trump (indeed, he does not specifically identify any in his motion and thus far has refused to identify any to the USAO-SDNY),

nor (ii) that the seized communications will include a significant volume of communications with that one identified client.

They proceed to enumerate the reasons.

First “Cohen’s claim that he has confidential communications with multiple clients appears to be exaggerated.

For example, Cohen has told at least one witness that he has only client – President Trump.”

Second, Cohen isn’t really part of the law firm that he says he is.

He has just been keeping an office on their premises since March, 2017.

He keeps no timesheets there, and the firm does not bill anyone for his work.

Then, sadly, there are three redacted lines.

I say “sadly” because the conclusion is “further belying the notion that Cohen is currently engaged in any significant practice of law.

But then comes the really good part:

Fourth, the USAO-SDNY has specific reason to doubt that the seized materials willinclude the volume and nature of attorney-client communications that Cohen claims.

This is because the USAO-SDNY has already obtained search warrants – covert until this point – on multiple different email accounts maintained by Cohen, and has conducted a privilege review of the materials obtained pursuant to those warrants.

The results of that review, as reported by the USAO's Filter Team, indicate that

Cohen is in fact performing little to no legal work, and that zero emails were exchanged with President Trump

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...tail=emaildkre

Gotta love Gowdy giving the Libtards lip service while hunting down documents with Nunes.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chris

Gotta love Gowdy giving the Libtards lip service while hunting down documents with Nunes.

---

:lmao

You cant have it both ways, dude.

‘All lawyers are deflated and concerned!’: Trump panic tweets the FBI may come after his other attorneys

Trump expressed concern the FBI may come after his other attorneys — adding that he has “too many!”

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/04/law...ome-attorneys/

The legend of Don The Con Trash will live forever for possessing a reverse-Midas touch, everything touched turns to shit.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Reck

:lmao

You cant have it both ways, dude.

---

Gowdy playin y'all nigs :lmao

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chris

Gowdy playin y'all nigs :lmao

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:lol white Chris using racist language.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pavlov

:lol white Chris using racist language.

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lol triggered

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chris

lol triggered

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How is laughing at your racism being triggered, white Chris?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chris

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First they said Trump could not fire him, now he can so they need money to keep the collusion fairy tale going on(¿?)

Sick people.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mikeanaro

First they said Trump could not fire him, now he can so they need money to keep the collusion fairy tale going on(¿?)

Sick people.

---

You don't make any sense.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mikeanaro

First they said Trump could not fire him, now he can so they need money to keep the collusion fairy tale going on(¿?)

Sick people.

---

They don't know whether they are coming or going at this point. DNC's recent bankruptcy has them scrambling!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chris

They don't know whether they are coming or going at this point. DNC's recent bankruptcy has them scrambling!

---

:lol Yet they keep winning those special elections.

Without mentioning Mueller, Trump lawyers urge high court to bolster his power to fire executive officials

The Supreme Court is set to hear a seemingly minor case later this month on the status of administrative judges at the Securities and Exchange Commission, an issue that normally might only draw the interest of those accused of stock fraud.

But the dispute turns on the president's power to hire and fire officials throughout the government. And it comes just as the White House is saying President Trump believes he has the power to fire special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

Trump's Solicitor Gen. Noel Francisco intervened in the SEC case to urge the high court to clarify the president's constitutional power to fire all "officers of the United States" who "exercise significant authority" under the law.

"The Constitution gives the president what the framers saw as the traditional means of ensuring accountability: the power to oversee executive officers through removal," he wrote in Lucia vs. SEC.

"The president is accordingly authorized under our constitutional system to remove all principal officers, as well as all 'inferior officers' he has appointed."

In addition to representing the administration before the Supreme Court,

Francisco, a former law clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, could be in line to oversee the Mueller inquiry if Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein is fired.

Atty. Gen Jeff Sessions has recused himself from the investigation.

Peter Shane, a law professor at the Ohio State University, called

Francisco's argument a "radical proposition," and one that goes beyond what is at issue in the case.

The justices said they would focus only on how the SEC in-house judges are appointed. But Francisco is asking them to go further and rule on the "removal" issue.

"The solicitor general is obviously trying to goad the court into a broad statement about the removability of all officers of the United States,"

Shane said.

"Were the court to make any such statement, it would surely be cited by Trump as backing any move by him to fire Mueller directly."

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-court-trump-fire-20180415-story.html#nws=mcnewsletter

extreme ideologue oligarchy tool Francisco just one of 100s of attacks on US govt in the oligarchy's coup d'etat to create a one-party authoritarian govt, in classic fascism where the oligarchy/BigCorp power is amalgamated intimately to govt power.

Donald Trump's attorney seeks to go through seized evidence to pull 'privileged' materials

Late Sunday night, Donald Trump’s new attorney, Joanna Hendon, asked U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood to grant a highly unusual request—

let Michael Cohen pour through it all to pull any evidence they consider to be off-limits due to attorney-client privilege. From the Washington Post:

She added that “the president respectfully requests” that the judge issue an order barring the taint team from conducting an initial review of the seized material and require the government to turn over a copy of that material to Cohen’s lawyers.

Then, the president wants the court to direct Cohen “to identify to the president all seized materials that relate to him in any way and to provide a copy of those materials to him and his counsel,” according to the letter.

Any disputes about what material was or wasn’t covered by the attorney-client privilege would then be decided by a judge, under the president’s proposal.

LOL!

They want the person under criminal investigation to have the ability to go through the evidence that was lawfully seized in a criminal investigation and keep it from prosecutors under a pinky swear it is covered by attorney-client privilege.

On Friday, prosecutors went hard, telling Judge Wood that Michael Cohen may not be a lawyer at all. From CNBC:

But the prosecutors say they have already conducted searches of Cohen's email accounts, "covert until this point,"

which they say "indicate that Cohen is in fact performing little to no legal work, and that

zero emails were exchanged with President Trump." [...]

"(1) Cohen did not have an email address associated with the firm;

(2) Cohen did not have access to the firm's shared drives or document systems—and vice versa;

(3) Cohen's documents were to be kept in a locked filing cabinet; and

(4) Cohen did not have access to any of the firm's client files."

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/4/16/1757379/-Hail-Mary-Trump-s-attorney-seeks-to-go-through-seized-evidence-to-pull-privileged-materials?detail=emaildkre

Michael Cohen and the End Stage of the Trump Presidency

I am

unaware of anybody who has taken a serious look at Trump’s business who doesn’t believe that there is a high likelihood of rampant criminality.

In Azerbaijan, he did business with a likely money launderer for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

In the Republic of Georgia, he partnered with a group that was being investigated for a possible role in the largest known bank-fraud and money-laundering case in history.

In Indonesia, his development partner is “knee-deep in dirty politics”;

there are criminal investigations of his deals in Brazil;

the F.B.I. is reportedly looking into his daughter Ivanka’s role in the Trump hotel in Vancouver, for which she worked with a Malaysian family that has admitted to financial fraud.

Back home, Donald, Jr., and Ivanka were investigated for financial crimes associated with the Trump hotel in SoHo—an investigation that was halted suspiciously.

His Taj Mahal casino received what was then the largest fine in history for money-laundering violations.

Listing all the financial misconduct can be overwhelming and tedious.

I have limited myself to some of the deals over the past decade,

thus ignoring Trump’s long history of links to New York Mafia figures and other financial irregularities.

It has become commonplace to say that enough was known about Trump’s shady business before he was elected;

his followers voted for him precisely because they liked that he was someone willing to do whatever it takes to succeed, and

they also believe that all rich businesspeople have to do shady things from time to time.

In this way of thinking, any new information about his corrupt past has no political salience.

Those who hate Trump already think he’s a crook;

those who love him don’t care.

I believe this assessment is wrong.

Sure, many people have a vague sense of Trump’s shadiness, but once the full details are better known and digested, a fundamentally different narrative about Trump will become commonplace.

The narrative that will become widely understood is that Donald Trump did not sit atop a global empire.

He was not an intuitive genius and tough guy who created billions of dollars of wealth through fearlessness.

He had a small, sad global operation,

mostly run by his two oldest children and

Michael Cohen, a lousy lawyer who barely keeps up the pretenses of lawyering and

who now faces an avalanche of charges,

from taxicab-backed bank fraud

to money laundering and

campaign-finance violations.

Cohen, Donald, Jr., and Ivanka monetized their willingness to sign contracts with people rejected by all sensible partners.

It was not a company that built value over decades, accumulating assets and leveraging wealth.

It burned through whatever good will and brand value it established as quickly as possible, then moved on to the next scheme.

There are important legal questions that remain.

How much did Donald Trump and his children know about the criminality of their partners?

How explicit were they in agreeing to put a shiny gold brand on top of corrupt deals?

Trump is raging and furious and terrified.

Prosecutors are now looking at his core.

Cohen was the key intermediary between the Trump family and its partners around the world;

he was chief consigliere and dealmaker throughout its period of expansion into global partnerships with sketchy oligarchs.

He wasn’t a slick politico who showed up for a few months.

He knows everything,

he recorded much of it, and

now prosecutors will know it, too.

It seems inevitable that much will be made public.

it seems likely that, when we look back on this week, we will see it as a turning point.

We are now in the end stages of the Trump Presidency.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-...M4MTQwMDA5MAS2

Godfather Trash's consigliere "Tom" Cohen :lol

DJr meeting with Russians was a set up. There goes that narrative.

whats that ticking sound?