Detailed claims about the company’s banking history were made public Tuesday by Michael Avenatti, an attorney for Stormy Daniels, the adult-film star who was paid $130,000 by Cohen’s company shortly before the 2016 election to keep quiet about her alleged affair with Trump.
Inspector General Eric Thorson, who operates independently of the agency’s political leadership, launched the probe in response to media reports, said counsel Rich Delmar. It might — or might not — answer a question that was the source of much speculation Wednesday: How did Avenatti come into hard-to-get information touching on some of the most sensitive issues before the White House, including the probe led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III?
On Twitter, Avenatti circulated a dossier purporting to show that Cohen received $500,000 last year from Columbus Nova, the U.S.-based affiliate of Renova Group, a company founded by Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg. The business magnate attended Trump’s inauguration and has reportedly been interviewed by Mueller’s prosecutors. Columbus Nova confirmed the payment, saying it was for consulting on investments and other matters, but denied any involvement by Vekselberg....
May 9, 2018
"The Treasury Department’s inspector general is investigating whether confidential banking information involving a company controlled by President Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen was leaked..."
WaPo reports.
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1 – 200 of 208 Newer› Newest»...Or confidential banking information involving any or all persons named Michael Cohen.
Or it's just fake news....
Definitely fishy, seems to be a lot of this sort of thing going on. When Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans, I had no idea he would do it with leaks.
Avenatti seems to be a baller.
Not big-time rich. But, he seems like a dude that has sowed seed.
Libs should go more for that sorta role model. Not the whiney SJW rapist type.
Just sayin'.
Oh no, somebody somewhere is investigating something. Will the Republic survive?
We need a fact-check about the constant media repetition that Stormy Daniels was, or is, a porn star. A porn actress she was for sure, and probably a sex worker too. But not every actress is a star. What's the evidence that Stormy was a star?
I am looking forward to Avenetti's offices being raided.
Yeah, $500k for advice.
Must be some freaking amazing advice.
Who is paying Avenetti?
Who is paying Stormy?
"When Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans"
He only promised to start to slow the rate of the rise of the oceans. [Lots of qualifiers in there, a lawyer, like you, should notice that.]
Anywho, if BHO kept one drunk, who, say, was hanging on the Jersey shore, from pissing in the ocean, he would have kept his promise. IOW, low bar.
"Who is paying Stormy?"
Russian oligarchs.
Snatch.
BTW, my "snatches" are an homage to the real Tits.
IOW, nothing to do w/ that cross-dressing tube show.
How come we haven't seen the Podestas bank records?
Manafort worked for them during the time he committed all of the crimes he is being charged for.
Do the Podestas have any lawyers that need to be raided?
It's very odd that the Russians needed to bribe Michael Cohen, an unbelievably worthless individual, for access to Donald Trump! I thought Putin owned Trump and was blackmailing him with the Dossier.
anti-de Sitter space said...
"Who is paying Stormy?"
Russian oligarchs.
I am betting it is more likely US and Hungarian oligarchs.
"Manafort worked for them during the time he committed all of the crimes he is being charged for."
Dude, Mueller worked for the very same Ukrainians as Manafort at the same time!
Literally.
BTW,
Fabi used to display a picture of a Ferrari that Avenatti (and others -- just sayin') actually raced.
Food fer thought.
So is this real news? The report is that there may have been a bureaucratic leak to an attorney-opponent of President Trump. That's a story the papers might like, as Trump Family member Michael Corleone once said.
So here we go; the deep state is out to get Donald Trump.
But wait! This report comes from the Washington Post! The DeepStateJeffBezosAmazonFakeNewsTaxWriteoffWashingtonPost.
Are you guys going to believe this story?!?
Will anything happen if it was? Or like the Tea Party will it just be a historical footnote?
> a lawyer, like you,
Real physicists are used to case sensitive names.
Chuck,
You don't want to try to grasp meaning re my "typos."
No offense. Yer in the 99.9999999%. So, don't feel bad.
Who is paying Avenetti?
Who is paying Stormy?
Oh, I think you know. Begins with a 'G', ends with an 'S'. Hungarian, as you say.
;-)
-sw
Not big-time rich. But, he seems like a dude that has sowed seed.
Libs should go more for that sorta role model. Not the whiney SJW rapist type.
Shiloh likes exposing the bank records of people Trump has no relationship with.
I'll bet you liked the Joe the Plumber defenestration in the Obamedia, too.
I hope some people go to jail but that's seems unlikely with shiloh's love for $150 million baby Hillary.
Chuck, haven't you done enough harm to yourself today ? Self-mutilation is disqualifying if you were planning on joining the French Foreign Legion or another military service where you could hide.
I know. This will be responded to with a stream of obscenity.
That would be his only redeeming trait, Sitter! :-)
If George Soros is funding the Stormy Show, I feel there will be a NDA.
There's no question information was leaked.
The question is: Who leaked it?
So here we go; the deep state is out to get Donald Trump.
So are all the worthless GOPe cocksuckers. Like you.
You know, “Cohen” is not just an extremely common Jewish name, but it and its variants (e.g., Cohn, Kohn) are about as common among Ashkenazi Jews as “Johnson” is among people of English descent. Casting a net for everyone named Cohen is going to have a lot of false positives.
How much money did Val Jarrett collect when she was working for Obama?
Chuck said...
So is this real news? The report is that there may have been a bureaucratic leak to an attorney-opponent of President Trump. That's a story the papers might like, as Trump Family member Michael Corleone once said.
as Trump family member Michael Corleone once said...
Just flat out unhinged today.
I love seeing these (racist)traitors melt down.
Thank you president Trump.
Robert "The FBI Whitewasher" Mueller sure spends a lot of his time leaking.
There is no "meaning" to your typos. You're just not very bright.
Carry on (my wayward troll)
Trump should get the Nobel Prize in Literature for his Tweets, in addition to the Peace Prize.
Don't lose sight of 3 facts
Avenatti is a former (he claims) oppo research operative for dem campaigns in43 states
He is closely tied to rahm Emmanuel
Someone else is paying for his services with stormy Daniels (who?)
He is crooked as Hill.
John Henry
He
Comey, Mueller, and Fitzgerald are like Chuck in that you want them in front of you in combat situations.
Seems that Stormy's lawyer got the wrong Michael Cohen. So now we have fake leaks?
Couldn't have come from Mueller anyhow, unless Mueller is transitioning from G-man to G-string stuffer. Well, maybe.
Speaking of crooked hill, she was recently in New Zealand
She was supposedly pimpimg her book on the election. Hard to believe it would sell enough copies to be worth the effort.
While there she said she was thinking of moving there. Joking of course. Or was she?
Is she worried about the posse after her pussy?
John Henry
I noticed you did not use the "Trump Derangement Syndrome" tag. Isn't that supposed to be applied to any comment about Trump that isn't effusively positive?
A few in this thread don't seem to understand that it's disrespectful to Althouse to use extra line breaks between sentences.
Unless yur someone who would like to have everything that you've ever typed here -- and will ever type here -- deleted, don't do that.
Duh.
BTW,
My "duh"s are an homage to Garage.
Gospace said...
The question is: Who leaked it?
Yeah, this is a really interesting question, because the list of payments included a couple mistakes: payments made to accounts of totally unrelated Michael Cohens, at entirely different banks. That means that the leaks could not have come from Cohen's side: neither from his business nor from his bank. And this is not something that you can just go out and google for bank records containing the name Micheal Cohen.
Somebody did a search of a database, a database that is hoovering up confidential financial records. ( At least some of the transactions were small enough that they would not be subject to the standard reporting requirements for large transactions. )
I hope some people go to jail but that's seems unlikely with shiloh's love for $150 million baby Hillary.
You spelled Trump's name wrong and wrote "Hillary" instead of "David Dennison Trump."
You also mistook yourself for shiloh and wrote "unlikely" instead of "likely."
LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP!
I’d bet Val Jarrett has $2b in a Swiss bank account thanks to Iran. A tip, so to speak. Golden crumbs.
My guess is the Washington Post was forced to cover it, after the wrong Michael Cohen is revealed.
It's scary the leaks are still continuing...
Good news is every time something like this is done, it causes more damage to resistance. Great article that articulates this!
The Trump Land Mine By Victor Davis Hanson
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/president-trump-deep-state-critics-risk-blowback
How come we haven't seen the Podestas bank records?
Trump has to be jailed first. Says so in the constitution.
I love these conservatives without a cause and their endless whataboutism. If only no crime could ever be prosecuted until the defendant was satisfied that everyone else had been prosecuted, too.
These losers are literally like the assholes on the highway who get pulled over and then say, "But everyone else drove fast also! How could I keep up?"
Only in these cases they don't have a reason for assuming that other defendants or would-be defendants weren't investigated, pursued by and/or brought to justice. They really think the justice system should be a partisan tit-for-tat game. Like when Israel trades prisoners with HIzbullah or something.
Mob-like mentality through-and-through. Rotten to the core.
I admit I do have some trouble with lefty commenters that keep changing their names.
Maybe it's a habit from avoiding bill collectors.
John Henry, I uploaded the Kindle version of the Medical History book the other day.
I haven't seen it appear on the Amazon page yet,
I admit that I do have trouble with commenters who habitually end sentences with commas.
(,) is not how one ends a sentence.
A high school classmate worked at Columbus Nova. The shithead brought a dictionary into his SAT tests and got away with it.
Ha! Ann has noticed the recent news that the President's personal attorney is a made man in the Russian mafia, and she's shocked -- shocked! -- that that pesky Avenotti and the press keep harping on it. How dare the press expose that the President's personal attorney is literally selling access to ATT etc as a followup to a career as a gangster lawyer and fixer -, why, gosh, where's the goddam respect the President so ably commands?? How the heck could Avenotti find this stuff even out??!!
Ann and some of her readers are genuinely befuddled, because they are sure it's obvious the President is an honorable, decent, reliable and above all honest man -- and besides, in Ann's view, really clever and funny. Look at Michael Cohen and the incandescent Rudy Giuliani and yourselves -- you can tell a man by his friends.
Maybe Ritmo the Asswipe can show us that pee pee tape that Lefties made up. It's important enough to him that he incorporated it into his handle, after all. Do a better job with faking it then you did with Obama's birth certificate, though, if you go that route.
@President Pee-Pee Tape - The notion that the law applies equally to everyone drives the observations that you term "whataboutism". In as much as a shooting civil war is a possibility, as a progressive you should be concerned.
"Ha! Ann has noticed the recent news that the President's personal attorney is a made man in the Russian mafia......."
Technically, she did noticed this a while ago. But, now she's got a bloggable angle. I.e., we can now focus on the idea that it's bad for the public to know about this DJT dilemma.
I'm pretty certain it was leaked..
"American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis warned for years of an impending shift against progressive values in a town long touted as a bastion of liberalism. Following Kanye West's controversial break with liberalism over Twitter and TMZ, Ellis is seeing his premonition unfold.
"As someone who considers themselves a disillusioned Gen-X'er, I think there IS a backlash brewing against leftist hysteria," Ellis told Observer over email. "What I used to semi-align myself with has no answers for anything right now, just constant bitching and finding ways to delegitimize an election."
"That is not a plan for 2020, and if I was a hardcore Democrat I'd be very worried despite the blue wave of 2018, that may or may not fully arrive," added the controversial novelist."
It's as if he peruses the leftist comments on this site...
Leakers should be investigated and jailed. Loss of benefits, loss of union protections, vilified and castigated.
A whistle blower is a variety of leaker...they should 'get away with it' because a public plurality will gut the Congress who does them wrong. You better be THAT sure of your moral position.
Waiting for McCabe to visit Club Fed on the other side of the glass divider.
Democrat generic voter advantage just vanished.....
....I wonder why....
I just realized that the dems losing the generic voter advantage completely explains LLR Chucks flailing performance today.
It makes perfect sense and is perfectly consistent with past performance.
Who is paying Avenotti? Stormy Daniels and his other clients. He also has huge paydays in the future if he wins. Who is paying Stormy? She's making more than ever. George Soros is an unlikely client.
How did he find out what he now says? Because he is an attorney with a stake in the SDNY case against Cohen and access to the results of the FBI raid, and he has consulted with those senior US attorneys, under Mueller, and they have agreed to the disclosure.
Why is the FBI after Michael Cohen? Because he is and has been an important organized crime lawyer and fixer whose relations with the New York City-based Russian mafia predate his 10 or 12-year engagement (!) with the now-President, and may have been a feature in his resume.
"she's shocked -- shocked! -- that that pesky Avenotti and the press keep harping on it." Heh. It's just good to see that some of the partisan warriors hiding in the federal bureaucracy are starting to get exposed, and might eventually be prosecuted.
People like you only care about what your enemies did, but you may find out soon that your friends are even more vulnerable.
Actually she admitted on Instagram she isn't paying there is some speculation Prince talal is as vengeance for his detention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=hlMKEGWghro
“How did he find out what he now says? Because he is an attorney with a stake in the SDNY case against Cohen and access to the results of the FBI raid, and he has consulted with those senior US attorneys, under Mueller, and they have agreed to the disclosure.”
Is it your position that federal prosecutors may disclose any investigatory materials to a private attorney who represents a non-party?
I admit I havent followed the Stormy Daniels story closely. I dont know all the specifics of this or that, what was done when, who said or did something, and then this other thing was said or done, maybe because of that, and money went from here to there, and all these lawyers have an opinion, which is shocking, etc
For whatever reason, just not interested. Cant help it. I see the name "Stormy Daniels" and I think immediately "Stormy Monday" and from that, I meander to one of the old playlists and away we go.
On one of the lists with Stormy Monday, I've got a version of "Where Do You Go To, My Lovely?" Maybe Trump should have sent her a racehorse for Christmas. Just for a laugh. Ha ha ha ha.
Now we know who pays Cohen, Trumps, the Russians, Drug companies etc. so lets see who pays Avenotti to be fair.
Worth adding that AT&T is saying tonight that Mueller asked them about the Cohen payments last November.
Who is paying Michael Cohen? Why does he keep taking money from Russians? Why did he solicit corporate cash for no work? As the detective once said to the prosecutor, "sir, we don't catch the smart ones."
On my, what a coincidence, Marc Kasowitz another Trump lawyer, represented Columbus Nova.
“Now there’s a new wrinkle: Another longtime Trump personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, also represented Columbus Nova in recent years in a commercial case. A spokesman for Kasowitz said the case settled in early 2017.
As ProPublica reported last year, Cohen spent a short period in February 2017 working at the offices of Kasowitz Benson Torres in midtown Manhattan, alarming several lawyers at the firm who worried about the brash attorney’s reputation. That was at the beginning of the period, between January and August 2017, when Columbus Nova made its payments to Cohen.
Cohen told ProPublica last year that he used Kasowitz’s offices “because we were working on several matters together after the inauguration.” Both he and Kasowitz have declined to specify what they collaborated on.”
https://www.propublica.org/article/columbus-nova-russian-oligarch-michael-cohen-trump-lawyer-marc-kasowitz
Suggestion for any Republican appearing on one of those news shows: warmly congratulate the host on not being named in any of those recent sex scandals. If it's an NBC show, congratulate the network for launching an investigation that subsequently cleared the network. Be sincere. Thank the host for his efforts to fight all forms of sexual harassment. Quote Eric Schneiderman on the importance of this struggle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRCsYJ6MSNA&list=RDKnn1Nd_jVWM&index=8
There are three different transactions,out of Singapore Hungary and Canada.
Is this the same propublica which misrepresented the times haspel was in Thailand, likely that came from convicted leaker and sputnik news contributor kirikaou
If you use rhapsody or play daybreak games you too are an honorary russian
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlq9UWWqe44&list=RDKnn1Nd_jVWM&index=7
Speaking of Trump lawyers and influence peddling...
“Trump’s first call with the Vietnamese prime minister was arranged by Marc Kasowitz, a Trump personal lawyer who has another client with business interests in Vietnam.
On Dec. 14, 2016, one month after his election, President-elect Donald Trump had a call with the prime minister of Vietnam. At a time when foreign governments were scrambling to contact Trump, the conversation was a victory for the Vietnamese. State television broadcast footage of the call, with the prime minister surrounded by other smiling officials.
But inside the State Department, officials were puzzled and concerned. Historically, post-election calls to heads of state are choreographed affairs. Careful deliberation goes into who the president-elect speaks to first and career diplomats deliver background briefings on issues to be raised and avoided.
The Trump transition operation ignored those conventions. The contact with Vietnam was not set up by the State Department. Instead, Trump’s personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, helped arrange the call.”
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-inc-podcast-vietnam-casino
I see we have a new leftist troll.
Stormy Daniels’ Lawyer Owes Over $5 Million In Back Taxes. How do you like that?
Actually working in audit, there are a lot of times that something looks questionable on first sight, but once context is supplied, ceases to be so. I would say that at least 90% of the time I flag something, it turns out that everything is completely fine, I just needed more information.
My name is on CTRs in the government's database too, for the absolutely mundane reason that I was the one who deposited money collected from properly registered non-profits that held public fundraisers. If somebody were to leak those, people would probably question where I had gotten tens of thousands of dollars in cash. The bank's records and deposit receipts would be needed to show I had no connection to the money apart from documenting its receipt and taking it to the bank.
It is known Avenatti didn't vet this information and didn't have the context to do so, as he leaked at least 2 transactions known to be tied to 2 unrelated Michael Cohens per Daily Caller. Essentially it looks like somebody did a Michael Cohen search, didn't bother to check that they were all Trump's Cohen, and then passed it on to Avenatti to leak. I hope the two other Michael Cohens sue Avenatti for releasing their private information. Discovery at the very least would be amusing to see where he got the information.
Meanwhile, as everybody should by now be aware, your personal information is perfectly safe in the hands of the government, unless of course the Democrats feel they can gain politically by leaking them.
Meanwhile what if the obama administration that were negotiating deals with Iran for a Taiwanese company, that's how they came to black cubes attention.
"Stormy Daniels’ Lawyer Owes Over $5 Million In Back Taxes. How do you like that?"
Good thing he's not POTUS.
Four different transactions from Hungary Taiwan and Singapore as well as israel
The notion that the law applies equally to everyone drives the observations that you term "whataboutism".
Did he and whomever else (everyone else) have the same prosecutors?
Get accused of the same crimes?
Reveal the same findings of fact?
This is real life. Not a fucking board game for three-year olds.
The only country not controlled by the the Central Bank loans happens to be Russia. This cannot stand.
Maybe Ritmo the Asswipe can show us that pee pee tape that Lefties made up. It's important enough to him that he incorporated it into his handle, after all.
Open your mouth, Dorky Darrell.
Here is a thing that Inga doesn't realize:
She, unlike several commenters, does provide links and quotes from things. Generally horribly biased and lefty think tanks who have very few moral qualms about...stretching the truth, but hey, she is providing SOMETHING.
It is what her side represents.
They are anti free speech. They are, in general, anti Western Culture. They are anti family (Hey, Trump has had SEVERAL families! Rimshot!) and they are FOR women being able to express their sexuality...but not with men and not to their mutual satisfaction. They are, when the rule of law gets in their way, anti rule of law. They are anti Christianity but very pro some made up religions of their own, including climate science, biological equality, Marxism and Feminism.
Compared to a corrupt politician, she is a far more dangerous person to what I believe made this country great.
Trump might be bought...but he will leave office.
The changes Inga and her ilk want to impose against the electorate, mostly in a non-democratic fashion with Giddy Ginsburg leading the way, are far more long lasting and dangerous.
Well, another point:
Somehow I am supposed to believe that Trump is bought off with $500,000. Actually far less since a lawyer is involved.
Sure he is.
So keep posting that stuff from Vox or Jezebel, or WaPo. They are all unpersuasive because they are all my cultural enemies.
The gist of it:
https://mobile.twitter.com/abdullahalsaleh/status/994213021089230848
Talal allegedly funded Obama s education through a cutout, don warden
"they are all my cultural enemies."
CJW.
The confidential banking information came from the same place that the Ryan's sealed Divorce Court Papers came from.
The Democrats.
"Unfortunately, the Obama Administration's mis-deal had other flaws. The wicked nature of the Iranian regime may appear extrinsic to the mis-deal's advocates, benighted actors like former Secretary of State John Kerry. Well, it isn't. Failing to account for the regime's corrupt nature is one of the stupid pact's more serious flaws. Britain's Neville Chamberlain learned that the hard way in 1938, when he made a deal with Adolf Hitler in Munich that supposedly guaranteed Western Europe "peace for our time."
"Unfortunately" Qu'est ce que c'est? What? One day he called John into The Oval because he was torn about the mullah deal; 'John,' sez He; flip a coin and I will call it. I mean it's a fifty fifty deal. John flips the coin, Barry calls heads, John looks at the coin, puts it back in his pocket and says, Heads It Is, Sir!
C'est vrai?
Or, maybe Barry trusted the good intentions of mullah for the Mullahs and was surprised as anyone that the were really bad boys.
Naw.
Barry is too smart for the likes of me; nothing he did was "unfortunate" because dudes like him are Counters. They count and calculate everything.
He just did not have his facts straight and really thought he could outrun us all.
Idiot.
http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/lg/public/2011/08/28/1337256000000.cached_8.jpg
The IG of the Treasury Dept. is looking into this. Avenattiis starting to look like a guy with a problem, a problem that can be made to go away by flipping on someone. Question is who? Mueller or the Us Attorney for the SDNY?
Oh my, turns out AT&T paid Cohen $50,000 a month for an entire year.
Novartis now says it paid Cohen $1.2 million, not the $400,000 originally reported. For “nothing”. Oh my.
Guy made money.
Inga is angry.
Novartis Corp Total...........................$8,640,000
Alston & Bird ................$100,000
Brownstein, Hyatt et al ........$30,000
Capitol Counsel.......... $180,000
Capitol Hill Consulting Group $120,000
East End Group ................$180,000
McManus Group ................$200,000
Monument Policy Group ........$120,000
Podesta Group ................$180,000
Scully, Roskey & Missmar $160,000
Thorn Run Partners ........$210,000
Tiber Creek Health Strategies $240,000
Williams & Jensen ........$200,000
Inga discovers that corporations pay lawyers big retainers.
Oh My!
I bet that people who clean bedpans for a living are jealous.
We should all make a lot of money, regardless of the value we add, because ... it feels right.
Darrell,
For a guy who wasn't much of an attorney and had few clients, this Cohen guy got paid by a lot of law firms.
“Columbus Nova is currently scrubbing all past mentions of their Russian affiliation, which is also Really Damn Curious. Until the end of 2017 they were listed as one of the companies of the Renova Group, Viktor Vekselberg's conglomerate; they're now insisting to reporters that such ties are untrue. No matter—federal investigators have almost certainly sorted all of that out many months ago.”
The same Columbus Nova that is defending itself in court?
(Eaglebeak)
You keep saying "oh, my," Inga--oh, your what?
That's the Novartis Corp's lobbying expenses for 2017, btw.
"Guy made money."
I often worry that there'll be a point where folks hit a breaking point.
Initially it seemed like DJT was buying some time (maybe eight or twelve years). But, now I'm thinking we could go for decades.
a) Now "drain the swamp" is replaced w/ "Guy made money, so F-ing what?".
b) Look at folks in Cuba, Iran or many other countries. They're humans, like us. It seems like it's not very hard to get folks to capitulate to their betters.
I'm looking at two (three?) decades.
“You keep saying "oh, my," Inga--oh, your what?”
Oh my goodness!
ADSS,
Is that 30 years of Republican governance or conservative governance?
Birk,
Call it whatever makes you feel better.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, AT&T has confirmed, uh, the payments. Novartis has confirmed, uh, the payments. Columbus Nova has confirmed the payments, although they said it had nothing to do with Russia. What is illegal, uhhh, about that? Michael Cohen, attorney for the president, close to the president, sets up a firm in Washington, D.C., gives strategic consulting advice. What’s wrong with that?
AVENATTI: Each company has given a different reason for retaining Michael Cohen — real estate, business consulting, health care consulting, the list goes on and on. Michael Cohen —
STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay. But nothing wrong with any of that.
AVENATTI: We don’t know where this ends, but it doesn’t smell right.
LOL
Michael Zeldin (big Clinton Supporter): "ZELDIN: Cohen’s his right-hand man, he sets up a limited liability corporation in Delaware with his name fully transparent on it. These companies hire him to gain insight into what’s the Trump administration position is on issues that affect their companies. That’s all business as usual in Washington. I don’t see anything on the face of it that’s wrong about that."
LOL
It's emoluments all over again, only more "emolument-y".
ADSS
The onus is on those who want to change, not those who want things to stay the same.
and when that group uses non-democratic means to make the change, they break the law and ruffle feathers.
We peck back.
Bribery is still illegal.
DRAIN THE SWAMP! LOCK HIM UP!
FIDO,
Makes sense to me. Keep pecking.
Thanks for the newsflash, Inga.
How about armed robbery?
https://theredlist.com/media/database/muses/couples/art_culture/jane-birkin-serge-gainsbourg/044-jane-birkin-serge-gainsbourg-theredlist.jpg
"Seems that Stormy's lawyer got the wrong Michael Cohen. So now we have fake leaks?"
-- Just like the news had the wrong date on the WikiLeaks email; the wrong information about foreign banks; etc.; etc.
Why do the media consistently get snookered by bad sources when it comes to Republicans?
Blago is still in prison.
"Ha! Ann has noticed the recent news that the President's personal attorney is a made man in the Russian mafia,"
-- Do... do you know what that even means? Do you really think Cohen has murdered someone for the mob?
The lefties are out on force, I see.
What entertains them is a mystery to adults.
Inga,
Do you have the ever-pressing Mumia update?
"Because he is an attorney with a stake in the SDNY case against Cohen and access to the results of the FBI raid, and he has consulted with those senior US attorneys, under Mueller, and they have agreed to the disclosure."
-- If so, that's highly unethical and probably illegal.
"Why does he keep taking money from Russians?"
-- Why does it matter? We know it isn't a crime, since Clinton did, even while part of the government. If Russians are paying Cohen, there's no reason for it to be more inherently criminal than paying Clinton.
The right-wingers are being dense, incoherent and stupid, I see.
What they take responsibility for is a mystery to adults.
BACK TO REALITY:
The Treasury Department IG is investigating a criminal leak of private banking transactions.
Forget partisan bull shit!
Is leaking private banking information really ok by you Lefties?
If I may be direct, and you really believe that, you need to buy arms and schedule range time.
“Columbus Nova is currently scrubbing all past mentions of their Russian affiliation, which is also Really Damn Curious."
-- It is not Really Damn Curious. The left will destroy their lives to get at Trump; this is a perfectly rational action by rational actors, no matter what their relation to Russia.
"AVENATTI: We don’t know where this ends, but it doesn’t smell right."
-- This sort of totalitarian, fascist thinking needs to be shut down.
Do... do you know what that even means? Do you really think Cohen has murdered someone for the mob?
Trump killed Hillary's career and left her with a warehouse full of unused fireworks. Cohen is an accomplice before the fact.
"Is leaking private banking information really ok by you Lefties?"
-- Of course. That's why nothing happened when Tea Party members had their information leaked; when Proposition whatever in California supporters had their information leaked; etc., etc. This is the normal level of weaponizing the media and government against the left's enemies that we've seen time and time again, from Wisconsin, to Ted Stevens, and on and on, where private documents mysteriously, sometimes with context missing or being completely fabricated, are released to ruin people's lives for daring to think differently.
Most Democrats, and most people on the left, simply don't think about these tactics because the right rarely, if ever, doxes people like this. But, the part of the left that uses this weapon to cow and attack their political opponents need to be checked, and jailing whoever stole this private data and made it public, and breaking their wallet, should send a strong message.
Too bad all history shows that won't happen.
“AVENATTI: We don’t know where this ends, but it doesn’t smell right."
-- This sort of totalitarian, fascist thinking needs to be shut down.”
News Flash:
Matthew Sablan says “thinking” that he doesn’t like must be shut down. Matthew is concerned about fascism, yet he seems to want to shut down “thinking”, hmmmmm....
Matthew Sablan,
I understand. But the Leftists here should stand firm on their BAMN totalitarianism.
The conservatives I know are aware of the existential threat from the Left.
Matthew Sablan said...
This sort of totalitarian, fascist thinking needs to be shut down.
With jackboots.
“Is leaking private banking information really ok by you Lefties?"
Is hacking into the DNC really ok with you Trumpists?
“Wikileaks, I love Wikileaks!”
Donald Trump
Inga,
Classic whataboutism.
You never fail to fail.
Is hacking into the DNC really ok with you Trumpists?
Define hacking.
Define whom?
"Matthew Sablan says “thinking” that he doesn’t like must be shut down. / With jackboots."
-- Not with jack boots, but it probably is a good idea for someone who thinks that the government should be able to ruin your life because they don't like how something looks should maybe not be allowed to act on that thought.
Or, I mean, if you're OK with racist cops pulling over black drivers because their gut says, "something doesn't smell right," then sure, cool. I mean, I'm against corruption in the legal system, and think it should be stamped out. But, hey. If you don't -- fine.
"Is hacking into the DNC really ok with you Trumpists?"
-- We have no proof the DNC was "hacked." At the moment, more evidence points to an inside person walking out with the data as opposed to external hacking.
@Inga, you can’t possibly be that lacking in elementary common sense.
"Why does he keep taking money from Russians?"
I don’t accept the premise, but let’s run with it anyway.
What have the Russians got for all their money?
"-- Not with jack boots, but it probably is a good idea for someone who thinks that the government should be able to ruin your life because they don't like how something looks should maybe not be allowed to act on that thought."
Like POTUS threatening to take away press credentials. Remember when BHO made that threat?
Hillary's home brew bathroom server: totes secure.
DNC computers: completely unsecured.
Government databases: completely unsecured.
Odd.
Again, Aveanti, or however it is spelled, isn't just saying, "This looks weird and should be investigated." He, as a lawyer, is promoting that Cohen's life be ruined because a perfectly legal thing doesn't feel right to him. Not because he has evidence, or that a crime has been committed. But because he, in a position of power, can ruin someone's life just because his gut feels something is off. That's wrong, and we do need to stop that. Just like we need to stop people from beating up homosexuals just because their gut feels something is off. Sure, fine. They can hate them all they want; when thoughts/beliefs turn into action, you have to stop the action, which necessitates engaging both with the bad behavior -- in this case, finding the leaker and having them face the legal penalties -- and by exposing the emptiness of the thought.
If y'all can be convinced that poor old NYer crook Cohen is yur martyr, I'm definitely goin' w/ 20+ years, as a floor.
"Like POTUS threatening to take away press credentials. Remember when BHO made that threat?"
-- I remember when he illegally spied on reporters, but I don't recall him specifically threatening to take away credentials. And, that's perfectly fine. The Executive Branch is not required to give people access to them solely because they sell media. As a nation, we have a free press; that does not mean the press gets access when it wants, where it wants.
Nice one, Sitter.
But why would Obama interrupt a journolistic blowjob?
NOTE: I will cash all checks from any entity. I do not discriminate based on race, color, creed, nationality, country of origin, gender, disability, family status, sexual orientation, age, or military service.
I will cash ALL YOUR FUCKING CHECKS. All of them.
Russian money spends? Da?
Honestly, if anyone ever asks why I accepted money from some unsavory source, my response is: "They're assholes. I don't want them to have more money."
Why are we back on Russia, Russia, Russia?
Mueller handed Cohen off to the SDNY, because... His Jurisdiction touched no part of Cohen's suspected crimes. If all these ties to Russia are so evident, why did Mueller run away from the facts?
Right Matt,
Lock up BHO.
[If y'all do that, put the clock at 30 years [And, I need more (than three already) alt[US]houses]].
modified limited hangout. Trump and family will be spared but some minor functionaries will be sacrificed so both sides get their nothingburger with fries.
Deal was done a couple months ago. Mueller will fold by Memorial Day.
FURTHER NOTE:
If you receive a check that you don't wish to cash because of the source of the money, I will cash that check for you. My fee is 100% of the money up to $100 and 105% past that.
Pay in U.S. dollars only.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7LmGaTNfCM
The time to punish Obama was when he was president. As it is, we now have precedent that the executive branch may be used to spy on and pressure unfriendly reporters to shut up, and that this is legal. Obama also set precedent that you can fire inspectors investigating your campaign and close the investigation, though Trump seems to only be embracing the firing part, not the ending the investigation into yourself part, of that precedent.
Honestly, in 50 or 60 years, Obama's going to be viewed as a pretty terrible president.
If you have spare foreign currency, I will take that too.
"[If y'all do that, put the clock at 30 years [And, I need more (than three already) alt[US]houses]]."
WTF
Mueller: No Cohen Russian connections. Passed to SDNY.
Avenetti: Muh Russia!
Lefties: That damned Republican Mueller knows nothing! Muh Russia!
"Honestly, in 50 or 60 years, Obama's going to be viewed as a pretty terrible president."
So, according to you, the most accepted assessment of him will be very good, compared to yur contemporaneous POV.
Got. it.
I remember what all the kids were singing a couple of Summers ago--
Hillary Clinton took a gat
And gave Seth Rich som' .40 caps
And when she's seen what she had done
She gave ol' Comey a .41
ADSS,
Only 3? It's the internet, bro. Lie bigger.
Again, Aveanti, or however it is spelled, isn't just saying, "This looks weird and should be investigated." He, as a lawyer, is promoting that Cohen's life be ruined because a perfectly legal thing doesn't feel right to him. Not because he has evidence, or that a crime has been committed. But because he, in a position of power, can ruin someone's life just because his gut feels something is off.
Welcome to the Republican version of the Clinton years.
Payback's a bitch.
And no, Avennatti has done nothing wrong. Neither has the SDNY. Nor the special counsel. These people's jobs are not to just sit around and lazily lallygag while their clients' or appointments' interests wallow and suffer. If that were the case they'd be Republican politicians!
They're doing what they're supposed to be doing.
"So, according to you, the most accepted assessment of him will be very good, compared to yur contemporaneous POV."
-- Measuring him on his own goalposts? The ACA was a failure; the cost curve did not bend down, and we came nowhere near the benefits promised. The stimulus also failed, performing worse in almost every way than the Obama White House predicted the economy would do *without the stimulus.* His two signature domestic policies flopped, using his own metrics.
Foreign policy, he did best when he followed the standard U.S. foreign policy procedures. His fumbling of the red line, and allowing Russian influence to spread, including deliberately not intervening in Russian election meddling so that Hillary Clinton could handle it instead, shows that he had poor judgment and was poorly served by his staff. But, he did get Bin Laden, so, kudos there.
Pee Pee goes explicitly whataboutistic.
Well played, TTR.
"They're doing what they're supposed to be doing."
-- Leaking private, privileged information about people not related to the case in question to attempt to slander someone is what you think lawyers are supposed to be doing?
I'm starting to see *why* we disagree on so much.
Where you live the kids were probably still singing Obama.... mmmm...mmm....mmm, though.
Actually, I have ten!
C'mon Matt,
Cash for Clunkers was awesome.
Same as my size.
Flaccid.
Not commie/metric.
Hah. I forgot about that. I thought: "Won't that just make it harder for marginal purchases of automobiles, say by poorer people or young workers who rely on used cars to establish themselves or to increase the area of influence they can have or work in?" And then, what do you know, reducing supply drives up cost and prices people out of the market.
Big Dong:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALGkQq3RJ7k
Even Politico accepted Cash for Clunkers as a failure.
I see nothing here of interest but I thought I would take the chance of posting a little reality amongst all the leftist self congratulation.
Better brag, ADSS. Kudos. Next time without coaching. Ok?
I find my 2 on the East Coast, plus the yacht and the income properties plenty for now. But I do hate to pay the management fees on those few dozen. Barely leaves me $60k a month to get by on. And who can enjoy Breckenridge when you are tight on money?
(See how it's done?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FdP0eS47ts
Nobody copies and pastes YouTube links.
Please stop.
I don't use href cause I want folks to see the link (w/o needing to hover over the text).
Don't wanna hide links to evil lib sites like Wapo/NYT.
An interesting thing about a target more recently noted by Mueller Elliot Briody, it turns he was part of the shame insurance scam that morning joke emeritus and fmr auto czar Steven rattner paid 10 million dollars.
TO RECAP:
Leftist Collectivists are fine with the Treasury Department leaking banking records.
Rivalry between federal agencies being what it is, I wonder whether responsibility for investigating how Avenetti came to receive protected financial data ought to be given to the Drpartment of the Treasury and the Secret Service. They are responsible for investigating white collar financial crimes, after all, and it’s not as though anyone in the White House should be ready to trust the FBI.
@Birkel, I don’t think it was Treasury. I suspect the FBI.
"TO RECAP:
Leftist Collectivists are fine with the Treasury Department leaking banking records."
BTW, weird that the evil BHO IRS didn't manage to leak DJT returns. We got one year from Tiffany's mom. That was it.
Weird.
Anywho: DEEEEEP STATE!!!11!!!1!!
-- Leaking private, privileged information about people not related to the case in question to attempt to slander someone is what you think lawyers are supposed to be doing?
Oh, shut up you PUSSY. They're representing the interests of either their own clients or those of the people who appointed them. You elevate everything to the level of "state secret" worse than Stalin. What about what your man Cheney did to Plame - or how Trump pardoned the hit man for that one?
We agree on nothing. YOU disagree with most of the country because they get the concept of an "interest" and you suckers don't even know what your own fucking interests are.
"What about what your man Cheney did to Plame - or how Trump pardoned the hit man for that one?"
-- You do realize Plame's name wasn't leaked by Libby, but rather by Armitage -- right?
Also: Someone's financials aren't a state secret. Are you sure you fully understand what we're talking about?
Yeah, I know what we're talking about: Technicalities.
The way your bozos think they apply to everything except, oh... you know. Different accusations, different facts, different prosecutions, and all sorts of other individual facts that account for the reasons that some people get convicted of a crime and some don't.
"Yeah, I know what we're talking about"
Biggest lie of any thread Piss For Brains posts on.
Get back in your basement, Kyzer. The big kids are talking now.
If you need a teddy bear while you're down there, go order one online.
How do the parents you live with stand being around you? FFS.
I was actually in my basement about 2 hours ago.
The bottles in our wine racks needed their quarterly half-turn.
Takes longer than you'd expect to get to all 218. But then, I also did some light rearranging. Some sweet reds were mixed with some full-bodied, spicy reds, and that just. wont. do.
Avenetti soon enough will be flipping to avoid being someone's prison bitch. If the Treasury Dept. IG is looking into this there is a turf war going on and and things are starting to not look so good for the wannabe coup plotters.
Thanks Michael.
I knew if I hectored you long e ough you would do it. You're the second out of print author I've bagged.
Not yet available on Amazon but I'll keep checki g back and buy it when it is.
Through the portal, natch. Two good deeds for the price of one.
John Henry
Seems unlikely that Time Warner wasn't aware of at&t's payments to Cohen's LLC. I'm sure CNN is on top of the story.
What Ritmo and the other leftists here are studiously ignoring is that there is no plausible legal way that Michael Avenatti could have Michael Cohen’s bank records. None. Maybe someone on Mueller legally acquired them (through presentation of a warrant duly issued by a federal district court). But passing them on to Avenatti would, of course, be a felony. So, again, we very likely have Deep State operatives committing what for anyone else would be felonies, but in this case doing so with impunity, without actually getting getting any closer to getting convictions for what the Mueller investigation was supposed to find (criminal collusion with Russia).
But if this is the wrong Michael Cohen. They have, again, screwed up, and got themselves caught illegally accessing federal databases. And joy plausible answer, because the only way to get the accounts of someone with the same name is to search using that name. My guess is that that banking information is in the FISA 702 databases. Regardless, the important point is that the only likely place to get that information is from a secure federal database.
Avenatti's mistakes are interesting. It looks like he was given information on several different Michael Cohens, including the one who is Trump's lawyer. I am guessing all of this information comes from somewhere inside Mueller's team, but it isn't impossible that the leak was done by a Trump sympathizer looking to make Avenatti look stupid, which it has. It now appears that the allegation that Vekselberg was linked to the firm giving Cohen money was also a mistake. By all accounts, the company has no connection to Vekselberg at all- they were paying money for the same reasons ATT and Novartis and others did.
All of the payments made to the Cohen who is linked to Trump seem like simple intelligence gathering operations done at the corporate level- in other words, Cohen quite cleverly sold himself to these companies for a few million dollars, thus monetizing his publicly known connection as Trump's personal lawyer. Novartis seems to have wised up at some point when they realized that Cohen had little real insight into the Administration and its policies- being Trump's personal attorney isn't all that useful if you don't have clearance to the White House level info, and no really legal way to get it. Did Cohen commit fraud in selling himself this way? Possibly- he must have made some sort of sales pitch to them, and that could be the basis of a fraud charge or a tort action. It is also possible that Cohen didn't handle the taxes correctly. It is hard to know exactly what he is being investigated for, but it does appear that it has literally nothing to do with Trump at this point- why it was given over to the New York office. If I had to guess, it is probably a fraud investigation at this point- selling something he didn't really have.
One last thing, though- the payment to Daniels now shows in a different light- Cohen seems have had this new line of business ready to go before the election and just needed for Trump to win the election to get a big payoff- keeping Daniels quiet just before the election suddenly has a big financial incentive to Cohen personally. This could be why Trump wasn't informed, if he really wasn't, and why Cohen paid the money from his own account- he never intended to submit an invoice to Trump. It will be interesting to find out exactly when Trump reimbursed him- there are good reasons that Trump might want to reimburse Cohen even if he never authorized the payment in the first place, and may well have declined to do so in October of 2016 if told about the negotiations.
All in all, Cohen could be in some trouble depending on how he sold himself as a consultant with inside info, how he handled the taxes, and whether or not he lied about this when questioned. The one thing that seems clear right now, though, is that this has nothing to do with Trump or Russian collusion. Avenatti has been used by someone, and has stepped in it. Right now it it is IG investigation, but a criminal probe would force Avenatti to spill about his source.
And the idea the left is floating that this was a money scam being orchestrated by Trump is laughable nonsense- the amounts involved would be the equivalent of my scamming someone out of dollar over the course of year- I wouldn't waste my time or my freedom in the attempt and neither would Trump. This was Cohen enriching himself at the expense of some probably foolish and naive corporate managements who were looking to get inside info on the Administration's policies. As long as Cohen didn't misrepresent himself and paid the taxes in the correct way, he won't face any prosecution either.
Someone who actually presents himself as a guy who went to law school uses the term "Deep State." Hilarious. And not just in the context of the generalized hysteria and conspiratorial yelping that we're used to from the right, but in the sense of an actual agency. "Deep state operatives." You can't make stupidity of this sort up.
That 12:30 personal attack is pretty weak. I suspect even the author knows it.
This Stormy lawyer is looking pretty stupid if in
fact he mixed up Michael Cohen identities.
Ritmo scoffs at the notion of “deep state” because he knows that the real operative is George “turtle eyes” Soros.
President Pee-Pee Tape said...
-- Leaking private, privileged information about people not related to the case in question to attempt to slander someone is what you think lawyers are supposed to be doing?
Oh, shut up you PUSSY. They're representing the interests of either their own clients or those of the people who appointed them. You elevate everything to the level of "state secret" worse than Stalin. What about what your man Cheney did to Plame - or how Trump pardoned the hit man for that one?
Cheney did absolutely nothing to Plame. Scooter Libby said absolutely nothing about Plame. It is open public knowledge that Armitage was the leaker and that Fitzpatrick knew this before he started his investigation.
We agree on nothing. YOU disagree with most of the country because they get the concept of an "interest" and you suckers don't even know what your own fucking interests are.
Exactly.
You are Stalinists. You think leaking private bank records of political opponents is ok. You think spying on political opponents with the NSA is ok.
We don't like Stalinists.
I love how you say most of the country. You are a fucking idiot. There are going to be little blue dots on the coasts surrounded by a sea of red in November.
Now get along with your little coup so we can get this over with.
Shove it up your ass, Achilles. We know you like that sort of thing.
Trump World is like a big ole tree where every time you shake it, a Russian falls out. Funny yet grim.
Shove it up your ass, Achilles. We know you like that sort of thing.
I wake to find the last post on this topic is a homophobic slur by an anti-Trumper.
Typical.
Can Cohen do a Hulk Hogan / Gawker thing here? 100 mil? Or does that only work for sex tapes?
By the way, I called it (but then again, a 12 year old could call it)
Once Cohen's office was raided, BOOM! Leaks galore about his stuff by Mueller.
Granted, the wide eyed ingenues ARM, Inga and Chuck are TOTALLY surprised and find nothing suspicious, noteworthy or investigatory about such actions.
Nope...
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