All these deep state Trump appointees
Looks like there might just be an indictment relating to the 2016 election soon.
You need to strap on your goal-post moving shoes again.![]()
All these deep state Trump appointees
Michael Cohen is in serious legal jeopardy
When your lawyers need lawyers, it’s usually a bad sign.
When your lawyers have their offices and homes raided, it’s a really bad sign.
although the investigation is not directly related to the Mueller probe,
it’s yet another example of the legal walls closing in on one of the people closest to Trump —
someone who may have a wealth of information about the president’s own conduct.
This was not just any search warrant; that the raid took place at a lawyer’s office further highlights the seriousness of the investigation. Searches of an attorney’s office are extremely rare and are not favored, due to their potential to impinge on the attorney-client relationship.
Approval of a search warrant suggests prosecutors were able to demonstrate not only the gravity of the potential case but also the risk that evidence might be destroyed or otherwise go missing if they pursued a less aggressive option.
to the extent that Cohen, part of Trump’s innermost circle, might have knowledge relevant to Mueller’s inquiry,
we can’t rule out the possibility that his own legal troubles could induce him to cooperate in the Russia investigation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...nl_most&wpmm=1
I'm sure the Manafort and Cohen have enough dirt on Trash, Jared, DJTjr to put them all in prison, so the plea deals are sure to come.
Mueller already has multiple people spilling the beans. He doesn't need Manafort. Cohen would be useful. Very.
Trump melts down after Cohen raid — and only hurts himself
Trump cannot take much comfort in the attorney-client privilege.
For one thing, it applies to legal communications; if Cohen is acting as a businessman/”fixer,” no privilege may attach.
Moreover, the attorney-client privilege cannot apply to communications that are part of a crime (e.g., a conspiracy to obstruct justice).
Trump once said investigating his finances were a “red line” for Mueller; the latest move in raiding Cohen transgresses any limitation Trump could possibly have dreamed up.
His reaction reflects his fury in not being able to fend off Mueller.
Trump’s response was disturbing on multiple levels.
First, Trump in essence declared war on the rule of law.
“It’s, frankly, a real disgrace. It’s an attack on our country, in a true sense. It’s an attack on what we all stand for,” said the president, who now equates the operation of the criminal-justice system under the rule of law to be an attack on the country.
He is the country in his eyes. Those who challenge him are enemies of the country. There is no better formulation of his authoritarian, anti-democratic mindset than this.
Second, his tirade against Sessions should rekindle concerns that he is contemplating firing him and putting in a flunky to protect himself.
“The attorney general made a terrible mistake when he did this, and when he recused himself,” Trump said. “Or he should have certainly let us know if he was going to recuse himself, and we would have used a — put a different attorney general in. So he made what I consider to be a very terrible mistake for the country.” That, too, is
a picture-perfect distillation of his warped view of the presidency.
He hands Mueller another admission that he thinks the DOJ should protect him from, instead of conducting investigations into criminal and counterintelligence matters.
Third, Trump’s attempts to discredit Mueller’s team and the FBI should highlight the necessity of Congress protecting the special counsel.
Fourth, Trump’s insistence that his campaign has been exonerated from “collusion” (“So they find no collusion, and then they go from there and they say, ‘Well, let’s keep going.'”) is baseless.
More than 70 different contacts between Trump team and Russian-related figures have been found. Multiple indictments and plea deals have been struck. The investigation continues.
Finally, Trump’s rambling, unhinged reaction — after his attorneys no doubt counseled him to keep quiet — should shake his supporters.
The pressure of the investigation and vulnerability to prosecution and/or impeachment are not going to vanish.
His family and his fix-it lawyer won’t stop Mueller.
His TV friends cannot keep the FBI at bay.
He lashes out like a cornered animal.
The angrier and more panicked Trump becomes, the greater chance he will behave in extreme and destructive ways.
he lashes out when he feels personally threatened.”
He adds,
“The president’s words were more befitting a mob don when the feds are closing in.
Given Michael Cohen’s role in Trump’s past, perhaps they are.
The American people will not stand for any Trump attempt to match his hostile words with aggressive action against Mueller, Sessions, Rosenstein or other DOJ officials. If he does, it will be the beginning of the end for his presidency.”But the Repugs and evangelicals will "stand for any Trump attempt" !
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...nl_most&wpmm=1
Why would Manafort NOT flip to shave years, decades, $Ms off his sentence, why not dump on Trash?
‘A bomb on Trump’s front porch’: FBI’s Cohen raids hit home for the president
Cohen is Trump’s virtual vault — the keeper of his secrets, from his business deals to his personal affairs — and the executor of his wishes.
“This search warrant is like dropping a bomb on Trump’s front porch,” said Joyce White Vance, a former U.S. attorney in Alabama.
Mark S. Zaid, a Washington lawyer, said the seizure of Cohen’s records “should be the most concerning for the president.”
“You can’t get much worse than this, other than arresting someone’s wife or putting pressure on a family member,” he said.
“This strikes at the inner sanctum: your lawyer, your CPA, your barber, your therapist, your bartender. All the people who would know the worst about you.”
Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a friend of Trump, called the
Cohen raids “a little heavy-handed.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...nl_most&wpmm=1
Bezos' little rag is succeeding in bringing down another Repug Pres.
campaign finance law circle jerk
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2020 election over with by the time the FEC would even rule.
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Is it just a coincidence that the people Mueller is going after all circle back to the Clintons?
"Emails made public Tuesday show a Ukrainian businessman and major Clinton Foundation donor was invited to Hillary Clinton's home during the final year of her diplomatic tenure, despite her spokesman's insistence in 2014 that the donor never crossed paths with Clinton while she served as secretary of state.
Victor Pinchuk, who has given up to $25 million to the Clinton Foundation, appeared on the guest list that was sent between Dennis Cheng, an executive at the foundation, and Huma Abedin, then Clinton's deputy chief of staff at the State Department, ahead of a June 2012 dinner. Abedin noted in a subsequent email that the gathering would be hosted in Clinton's home."
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/e...krainian-donor
I appreciate your trying to change the subject to Clinton but since you brought up Cohen's possible charges, when do you think we would get a ruling on bank fraud and wire fraud for him?
Lordy and found so much more
TSA always has to know more than the next guy.![]()
Uber/Lyft/etc have greatly reduced the earlier $1M value of NYC taxi medallions.
I wonder if Cohen has tried some dirty moves about his dramatically devalued medallions.
Yet never does.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/u...r-pinchuk.htmlWASHINGTON — The special counsel is investigating a payment made to President Trump’s foundation by a Ukrainian steel magnate for a talk during the campaign, according to three people briefed on the matter, as part of a broader examination of streams of foreign money to Mr. Trump and his associates in the years leading up to the election.
Investigators subpoenaed the Trump Organization this year for an array of records about business with foreign nationals. In response, the company handed over do ents about a $150,000 donation that the Ukrainian billionaire, Victor Pinchuk, made in September 2015 to the Donald J. Trump Foundation in exchange for a 20-minute appearance by Mr. Trump that month through a video link to a conference in Kiev.
Michael D. Cohen, the president’s personal lawyer whose office and hotel room were raided on Monday in an apparently unrelated case, solicited the donation. The contribution from Mr. Pinchuk, who has sought closer ties for Ukraine to the West, was the largest the foundation received in 2015 from anyone besides Mr. Trump himself.
but but,... her emails!!!
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/u...r-pinchuk.html
according to three people briefed on the matter,
Rush melting down saying Trump should fire everybody in the DOJ who's a part of any investigation.
Epistemic bubbles also threaten us with a second danger: excessive self-confidence. In a bubble, we will encounter exaggerated amounts of agreement and suppressed levels of disagreement. We’re vulnerable because, in general, we actually have very good reason to pay attention to whether other people agree or disagree with us. Looking to others for corroboration is a basic method for checking whether one has reasoned well or badly. This is why we might do our homework in study groups, and have different laboratories repeat experiments. But not all forms of corroboration are meaningful. Ludwig Wittgenstein says: imagine looking through a stack of identical newspapers and treating each next newspaper headline as yet another reason to increase your confidence. This is obviously a mistake.
https://aeon.co/essays/why-its-as-ha...to-flee-a-cult
Luckily, though, epistemic bubbles are easily shattered. We can pop an epistemic bubble simply by exposing its members to the information and arguments that they’ve missed. But echo chambers are a far more pernicious and robust phenomenon.https://aeon.co/essays/why-its-as-ha...to-flee-a-cult
Jamieson and Cappella’s book is the first empirical study into how echo chambers function. In their analysis, echo chambers work by systematically alienating their members from all outside epistemic sources. Their research centres on Rush Limbaugh, a wildly successful conservative firebrand in the United States, along with Fox News and related media. Limbaugh uses methods to actively transfigure whom his listeners trust. His constant attacks on the ‘mainstream media’ are attempts to discredit all other sources of knowledge. He systematically undermines the integrity of anybody who expresses any kind of contrary view. And outsiders are not simply mistaken – they are malicious, manipulative and actively working to destroy Limbaugh and his followers. The resulting worldview is one of deeply opposed force, an all-or-nothing war between good and evil. Anybody who isn’t a fellow Limbaugh follower is clearly opposed to the side of right, and therefore utterly untrustworthy.
I may have to stop being a to TSA. He really can't see the echo chamber he operates in.
Fascinating article.
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