F.B.I. Raids Office of Trump’s Longtime Lawyer Michael Cohen

ITS ON AND POPPING NOW





F.B.I. Raids Office of Trump’s Longtime Lawyer Michael Cohen
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The F.B.I. on Monday raided the office of President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, seizing records related to several topics including payments to a pornographic-film actress.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan obtained the search warrant after receiving a referral from the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, according to Mr. Cohen’s lawyer, who called the search “completely inappropriate and unnecessary.” The search does not appear to be directly related to Mr. Mueller’s investigation, but likely resulted from information he had uncovered and gave to prosecutors in New York.

“Today the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York executed a series of search warrants and seized the privileged communications between my client, Michael Cohen, and his clients,” said Stephen Ryan, his lawyer. “I have been advised by federal prosecutors that the New York action is, in part, a referral by the Office of Special Counsel, Robert Mueller.”
Mr. Cohen plays a role in aspects of the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. He also recently said he paid $130,000 to a pornographic-film actress, Stephanie Clifford, who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump. Ms. Clifford is known as Stormy Daniels.

Mr. Ryan said Mr. Cohen has cooperated with authorities and turned over thousands of documents to congressional investigators looking into Russian election meddling.

The payments to Ms. Clifford are only one of many topics being investigated, according to a person briefed on the search. The F.B.I. also seized emails, tax documents and business records, the person said.


The seized records include communications between Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen, which would likely require a special team of agents to review because conversations between lawyers and clients are protected from scrutiny in most instances.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/...-of-trumps-longtime-lawyer-michael-cohen.html


Fucking Called this one....

Like dude basically begged the FBI to raid his shit.

It's like this Michael Cohen dude didn't fucking think that in a case that involves Billionaire Russian kats and an investigation as to if these meddled into the Election.... it might not be wise to admit that you fucking Paid a Porn Star 130K out of your pocket on behalf of Donald Trump..


The fact that they actually Raided his offices leads me to believe that either he refused to turn over tax records to show that he reported the income as a loss or MORE LIKELY... He didn't report the 130K at all....


Cohen indictment watch is officially on...

They are going to Al Kapone dude.
 
Fucking Called this one....

Like dude basically begged the FBI to raid his shit.

It's like this Michael Cohen dude didn't fucking think that in a case that involves Billionaire Russian kats and an investigation as to if these meddled into the Election.... it might not be wise to admit that you fucking Paid a Porn Star 130K out of your pocket on behalf of Donald Trump..


The fact that they actually Raided his offices leads me to believe that either he refused to turn over tax records to show that he reported the income as a loss or MORE LIKELY... He didn't report the 130K at all....


Cohen indictment watch is officially on...

They are going to Al Kapone dude.

It was OVER for Cohen the second Trump came on tv and said "he didn't know anything about any payments or agreements".
 

Meaning that Cohen is going to be set up to be in a position where his communications with Trump are no longer going to be privileged and then shit going to be OVER....

You hit Cohen and Trump with the Crime-Fraud Exception.

Communications between clients and their lawyers aren't protected if the client made the communication with the intention of committing or covering up a crime or Fraud.

The crime-fraud exception applies if:
  • the client was in the process of committing or intended to commit a crime or fraudulent act, and
  • the client communicated with the lawyer with intent to further the crime or fraud, or to cover it up
 
I don't think people even know how fucking Major this is... Dude has been working with Trump for almost a Decade.


I'm also going to Place this story from Last Year... Something tells me.. this is coming to be important.






Trump associate Cohen sold four NY buildings for cash to mysterious buyers (This is before we even knew about the Stormey Daniels payment)

BY PETER STONE AND GREG GORDON
October 25, 2017 05:00 AM

Updated October 27, 2017 09:39 AM

WASHINGTON
[UPDATE: Michael Cohen responded to McClatchy after the publication of this story to provide an explanation of who bought the properties. For more details, read here.]

Donald Trump’s long time business lawyer Michael Cohen may be best known for his aggressive campaign television defenses of the real estate mogul, his role in an abortive effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow and allegations that he attended a meeting last summer with Russians in Europe.

But while serving as a top executive at the Trump Organization for a decade, Cohen himself was a sometime New York real estate wheeler dealer whose companies appear to have netted as much as $20 million in profit by flipping properties to mysterious buyers.

The facts surrounding one of Cohen’s ventures in particular raised red flags for several experts interviewed by McClatchy.

In 2014, a mysterious buyer using a limited liability company that hid the purchaser’s identity paid $10 million in cash for a small apartment building on New York’s lower east side that Cohen had purchased just three years before for $2 million. The handsome appreciation came despite the fact that the assessed value of the property, at 172 Rivington St., hardly budged in these years, hovering around the price Cohen paid for it.

Three other properties Cohen bought and sold in roughly the same time frame followed a similar pattern. Each was purchased by a different LLC, but were tied together by the fact that a lawyer, Herbert Chaves, served as the LLCs’ manager.

“An all cash purchase by an LLC of an overvalued property in Manhattan is usually worth a closer look by federal investigators,” said Jaimie Nawaday, a former federal prosecutor and money laundering specialist who is now a partner with the New York law firm Kelley Drye & Warren. “There are perfectly good reasons to buy and sell through LLCs, but the combination of facts is one that tends to arouse interest.”

Cohen did not answer questions about the buyer’s identity or how the transaction was conducted. Herbert Chaves, a lawyer who served as “manager” for the LLC that paid $10 million for the property, declined comment.

Cohen, who is still one of the president’s private lawyers, has drawn increasing scrutiny in recent months from federal investigators – three congressional committees and Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller – who are looking into Russian meddling in the 2016 elections and whether any Trump associates were tied to it. Mueller is also examining evidence of possible Russian money-laundering in the United States.

Cohen was interviewed Tuesday by House Intelligence Committee investigators. The Trump campaign’s digital honcho, Brad Parscale, was also questioned by the committee, a congressional staff member said.

Cohen will be questioned behind closed doors by the Senate Intelligence Committee this week, too. He was to appear at a public hearing of that panel Wednesday, but the session has been postponed.

The investigations have been digging into Cohen’s role in the abortive effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow that occurred in late 2015 and early 2016 during the campaign, undercutting Trump’s statements about not having any business dealings with Russia. The probes are also looking at Cohen’s part earlier this year in working with a controversial Ukrainian legislator to push a short-lived, pro-Moscow “peace plan” between the two countries, an effort about which Cohen has offered conflicting accounts.

Cohen is also expected to face tough questions about allegations in a dossier compiled last year by an ex-British spy that he attended a secret meeting in Prague in late summer 2016 with some computer hackers and Russian operatives.

Cohen has vehemently denied that he was in Prague last summer or met with Russians. “The #Russian dossier is WRONG!” Cohen has tweeted.

Last month, Cohen told Senate investigators in a broad statement that “I emphatically state that I had nothing to do with any Russian involvement in our electoral process.”

Cohen did not respond to calls for comment or several emails from McClatchy with detailed queries. But he and his lawyer Stephen Ryan have said he is cooperating with the investigations.

Cohen’s real estate deals have until recently gotten less attention.

Besides his Rivington Street property, he acquired three other apartment buildings in the same time period, buying them for a total of about $9 million in late 2012. He sold them two years later for a total of over $20 million, even though their assessed value had hardly changed.

The purchaser in each case was a different LLC managed by Chaves, the man linked to the buyer of the Rivington Street building.

“[W]hat should raise red flags among money laundering experts are purchases way above the assessed value, combined with all cash purchases. These are potential fingerprints of money laundering,” said Louise Shelley, a professor at George Mason University and a specialist in money laundering, “But one needs to carefully investigate these patterns of behavior which, although they arouse suspicions, could be explained by market opportunities.”

And Cohen, a 51-year-old multimillionaire, has never been overcautious about seizing his opportunities. Among other businesses, Cohen has run a mid-sized New York taxi operation that used such colorful names as Sir Michael Hacking Corp. and Mad Dog Cab Corp. And Cohen also was a seven figure investor in 2003 in a floating casino in Florida that soon went bust, leaving in its wake a spate of lawsuits alleging that it stiffed many suppliers and employees.

In addition, Cohen served on the board of an ethanol company in Ukraine, where his wife was born. And the former personal injury lawyer has longtime ties to Felix Sater, the Russian-born operative with whom Cohen explored the Moscow Trump tower deal last year; Sater is a twice-convicted former government informant whose associates were accused of having mob connections.

McClatchy reported exclusively in late June that Cohen led failed efforts by the Trump Organization in 2011 to create Trump Diamond, a glass obelisk tower in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, which has been ruled by strongman Nursultan Nazerbayev since 1989.

This June, at a D.C. fundraiser for the Republican National Committee and his re-election campaign, Trump heaped praise on Cohen, who’s now a national deputy finance chair for the RNC, but hinted at the legal clouds hanging over Cohen. “Michael is a great lawyer, loyal, a wonderful person, talented, loves being on television,” said Trump, according to an audio recording first reported by the New York Times. “I miss you man.”

Cohen was arguably best known during the 2016 campaign for some testy interviews defending Trump. In one case, Cohen became agitated as an interviewer cited poor polling numbers for the candidate. In response, Cohen kept barking “says who?,” bolstering his notoriety as a pitbull for Trump.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/congress/article180701541.html
 
He going to fire Mueller

Believe it or not, at this point, this may be his best move. It seems all but certain if he allows Mueller to continue it's just going to strengthen Meuller's case and likely evidence he has against Trump.

By firing him it creates 1)Delay and 2) Muddiness.

Obviously, a delay buys Trump time. But more importantly, the "muddies" is what he really needs. If Mueller gets fired what happens next?

That, I'm not sure anyone can say for certain.

Will congressmen come together and demand he's reinstated and the investigation continue?

My guess is there would be a lot of huffing and puffing resulting in nothing really.

Sure, Trump gets labeled as guilty and likely foiled everything so the full results of the investigation didn't come out.

But, at least he's not getting a recommended indictment by Mueller's direct investigation.




Side Note: I'm kinda shocked that Cohen/Trump didn't get a heads-up about this raid? Or did they?
 
Trump:
"the stock market was up...way up....and now it's dropped because of this nonsense..."

fucking stock market has been tanking ever since he shot his "tariffs gun" !!! He's hugging himself and riffing bout e-mails and Obama again !!!

:roflmao:

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Believe it or not, at this point, this may be his best move. It seems all but certain if he allows Mueller to continue it's just going to strengthen Meuller's case and likely evidence he has against Trump.

By firing him it creates 1)Delay and 2) Muddiness.

Obviously, a delay buys Trump time. But more importantly, the "muddies" is what he really needs. If Mueller gets fired what happens next?

That, I'm not sure anyone can say for certain.

Will congressmen come together and demand he's reinstated and the investigation continue?

My guess is there would be a lot of huffing and puffing resulting in nothing really.

Sure, Trump gets labeled as guilty and likely foiled everything so the full results of the investigation didn't come out.

But, at least he's not getting a recommended indictment by Mueller's direct investigation.




Side Note: I'm kinda shocked that Cohen/Trump didn't get a heads-up about this raid? Or did they?


It came out in the the last charges filed against I think Manafort, that getting rid of Mueller accomplishes nothing. They have other counsel lined up to take over in the event he is fired.
 
I'm kinda shocked that Cohen/Trump didn't get a heads-up about this raid? Or did they?
I don't think they did. They said 45 was unraveling watching this shit go down. But then again, I put nothing pass them.
 
Remember this raid ain’t apart of Mueller investigation but info he obtained through his investigation and made a referral to NY Prosecutors and a judge signed off on the warrant

Meaning NY AG bout to get in Cohen’s ass and Trump can’t pardon him :lol:
Why couldnt he pardon him??
 
Trump can only pardon for federal charges, not state.
Isnt the feds involved, so wouldnt that be federal charges??

I believe that personal must be convicted first and If pardoned, the person who received the pardon must admit to the wrong doing.
and yes the person has to be convicted first; but I didnt know a person has to admit guilt before a pardon can take place...
 
It came out in the the last charges filed against I think Manafort, that getting rid of Mueller accomplishes nothing. They have other counsel lined up to take over in the event he is fired.

Right now Mueller is the "guy" and he seems to be on his game. He's got the "hot hand" and everything he's shooting or throwing is finding it's way in the basket and/or the endzone. In sports, you can't set back and hope the person "cools" off. You have to disrupt that flow and force someone else to beat you.

Trump MUST do this if he hopes to increase his already small chance of surviving this relatively unscathed, considering!

He has to fire Mueller and hope between Congress and/or someone else on the legal team isn't as competent.
 
Right now Mueller is the "guy" and he seems to be on his game. He's got the "hot hand" and everything he's shooting or throwing is finding it's way in the basket and/or the endzone. In sports, you can't set back and hope the person "cools" off. You have to disrupt that flow and force someone else to beat you.

Trump MUST do this if he hopes to increase his already small chance of surviving this relatively unscathed, considering!

He has to fire Mueller and hope between Congress and/or someone else on the legal team isn't as competent.




.
 
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Right now Mueller is the "guy" and he seems to be on his game. He's got the "hot hand" and everything he's shooting or throwing is finding it's way in the basket and/or the endzone. In sports, you can't set back and hope the person "cools" off. You have to disrupt that flow and force someone else to beat you.

Trump MUST do this if he hopes to increase his already small chance of surviving this relatively unscathed, considering!

He has to fire Mueller and hope between Congress and/or someone else on the legal team isn't as competent.

The cases against Manafort and Gates would proceed, those are already on the docket. We have no idea what Mueller already knows or what other indictments may be sealed. All the bombshells we've been hearing except for today's raid, are normally dropped 3-6+ weeks after the fact. I'm pretty sure they already have a contingency plan should Trump fire him.
 
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