Cohen-Hannity threads combined

And then there's Trump's related civil court problems, as described by a  former US Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney-General:

Her legal position, in brief, is that the agreement was never formed because the parties never actually came to an agreement. It’s an unusual argument that would normally seem to be a dead loser because few lawyers fail to stitch up the basic requirements of a fairly simple contract such as this one. But it turns out that Mr. Trump and his lawyer Michael Cohen...have blundered their way into giving the argument a strong prospect. First, Mr. Cohen insisted, through his own lawyer, that the president was never aware of the agreement and that Mr. Cohen acted wholly on his own...Mr. Trump, echoing Mr. Cohen, said that he knew nothing about the arrangement. In saying so, he walked directly into the buzz saw of the legal position of Ms. Daniels and her attorney, Michael Avenatti...since he insists he didn’t know about the agreement, there’s no way he could have entered into it. Moreover, Mr. Trump’s avowed cluelessness implies that Mr. Cohen induced Ms. Daniels to sign the agreement through fraud — a lie about Mr. Trump’s performance of reciprocal obligations. Both of these circumstances invalidate the hush agreement’s very formation under basic contract law principles.

Inconveniently for the president, Ms. Daniels’s position turns on questions of fact. Did Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen ever discuss Ms. Daniels? Was Mr. Trump aware of the obligations he had ostensibly undertaken? Why did Mr. Trump not sign on the signature line? Was he 100 percent ignorant about the agreement? And there are a similar series of crucial factual questions for Mr. Cohen, such as where the $130,000 payment came from. The standard course for resolving these sorts of factual disputes is to first permit the parties to take discovery...Worse still for the president, because the hush agreement provides for compulsory arbitration, both sides are relying on the Federal Arbitration Act. That law provides for an expedited jury trial to decide whether the agreement was formed...The president cannot remotely afford to testify under oath under either of these settings. The potential for perjury is rife. Indeed, while there would no doubt be a major dust-up in court, the question whether he had sex with Ms. Daniels is probably fair game. That’s because it would be highly relevant to the issue of whether he knew about the agreement at all...

But this wouldn’t be remotely the end of the road for the duo, whose litigants’ embrace is likely to continue for years. Once the hush agreement is a dead letter, Ms. Daniels would be able to go on the offensive, suing Mr. Trump for defamation. And why wouldn’t she? The legal dispute has been the biggest boon of her career, and both Mr. Cohen (whom she already is suing for defamation) and Mr. Trump have treated her like dirt. All of this arises while Mr. Trump is facing, with no legal team to speak of, the all-consuming distraction of the most formidable criminal probe any president has ever faced.

Trump called raiding his private lawyer's offices, with a warrant issued by the federal prosecutor in New York that he personally interviewed and appointed, who reports to the Attorney General in DC that he also personally appointed, an "attack on America." You know what he's never called an attack on America? The surreptitious Russian intervention in the 2016 election. Hmmm... Even his aide are concerned that he's about to go around the bend: link.

Today's telecast before the meeting on Syria "was a photo-op meant to portray President Donald Trump at his most commanding: Flanked by senior military leaders, Trump was there to plot America's response to a suspected chemical gas attack in Syria. Instead, his boiling display in the White House Cabinet Room on Monday evening only served to underscore the President's most visible weakness: his ambient rage over Robert Mueller's Russia investigation...Trump made the decision on his own to directly -- and bluntly -- address the FBI raid of Cohen's office during his meeting with top military brass and his national security advisers. One White House official said there was no discussion among aides about the President not talking about it at his event. " Even in a setting where Trump could act uber-presidential, normally a gimme for anyone in the Oval Office, he could not manage to pull it off. 

So, at a meeting to deal with perhaps the most serious foreign policy crisis of his Administration to date, he used precious media time to vent about Mueller. Why, aside from his lack of adult discipline, did he do that? What made him so angry? Well, it's probably about what Cohen knows and has: "The news that FBI agents had carted away documents and records related to, among other things, the adult film actress Stormy Daniels from Cohen's office prompted the type of emotional diatribe that his allies and advisers have long sought to head off." Basically, he's acting the way Sonny Corleone would react if the feds had raided the offices of Consigliere Tom Hagan. (Not Don Vito; he was much too level-headed and strategic to explode into foolish action. But Sonny was all raw emotion, just like Trump.) In other words, Trump has a pretty good idea what those guys were after, and what they likely got, and it's got him running very scared, indeed. And so he came as close as he ever has to firing Mueller: "Why don't I just fire Mueller? Well, I think it's a disgrace what's going on. We'll see what happens And many people have said, you should fire him." Yeah.

Meanwhile, how did the people there to discuss Syria react? "Defense Secretary James Mattis sat stone-faced across the table, his hands folded and his eyes cast downward. Bolton, sitting to Trump's left, adjusted his glasses and fiddled with his pen. Vice President Mike Pence, at Trump's right, stared ahead with an unchanging expression of concern. Other military leaders looked on silently as the commander in chief attacked his attorney general, deputy attorney general and special counsel in a blistering partisan attack that stood out even by Trump's standards." Basically, none of them wanted to be in the room with the crazy old man they work for, but were trapped.

Two important legal points about this:

First, "if a client is using an attorney’s services for the purpose of engaging in crime or fraud, there is no privilege. The very aggressive search of Mr. Cohen’s office for attorney-client files suggests that the prosecutors believe they can convince a judge that communications between Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen fall under the crime-fraud exception. If you think they can’t pull that off, think again — they’ve already done it once. Mr. Mueller persuaded a judge to apply the crime-fraud exception to compel testimony from Paul Manafort’s lawyer, arguing successfully that he engaged her services in order to commit fraud." link

Second, "The Stormy Daniels payout may be outside the scope of the Russia investigation [hence the referral to the NY federal prosecutor], but it’s possible that Mr. Cohen’s records are full of materials that are squarely within that scope. And the law is clear: If investigators executing a lawful warrant seize evidence of additional crimes, they may use that evidence. Thus Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen, with their catastrophically clumsy handling of the Daniels affair, may have handed Mr. Mueller devastating evidence."

The odds that Cohen's records are bereft of information relevant to the Russia investigation are vanishingly small. In effect, the DOJ just attacked Trump on two fronts in a brilliant surprise pincers move reminiscent of the Red Army's envelopment of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad. Trump's problem is that he can fire Mueller, but at this point the investigation has gotten so far in the judicial process--multiple federal and state grand juries, outstanding judicial subpoenas, guilty pleas, etc.--that all he'd do is open himself to (further) charges of attempted obstruction, without actually ending the investigation. Basically, he's trapped, and his behavior since yesterday shows that even he understands that. The only real question that remains is whether Cohen will be "going down fighting alone or saving his own skin by giving the wolves what they want."

Tick-tock...tick-tock...tick-tock.

Even Red State gets how sleazy Trump and Cohen are:

"Can we talk about Michael Cohen’s specific field of legal expertise?...In what is breaking news, it appears Cohen’s experience in the field of paying off porn stars isn’t limited to Trump, but also, for Trump’s friends and associates. Elliot Broidy, a prominent GOP donor, took advantage of Cohen’s mud-dwelling and had the shifty character negotiate a $1.6 million settlement for his particular “indiscretions.” Broidy is a venture capitalist out of Los Angeles, and the current deputy finance chair for the Republican National Committee. In today’s news, it is revealed that Cohen made the arrangements, and delivered the payment to a Playboy model impregnated by Broidy...

"It always smacks of hypocrisy – and definitely damages the message – when someone with a prominent position in the Republican structure pays for a porn star to get an abortion. So much for the pro-life right image...Paid her? There’s a name for that. It slips my mind, at the moment. Part of the deal drawn up by Cohen is that Broidy denies he had to pay this woman, and agrees he’ll not seek any legal retribution. But why Cohen?  Cohen knew the woman’s attorney and had a previous association with him...Quite the sordid entanglement to come on the heels of everything else Cohen’s hands are in. His offices were raided on Monday by FBI agents, said to be investigating for potential wire fraud, bank fraud, and campaign finance violations." link

Of course Cohen is a sleazy lawyer. He started out as an ambulance-chaser, literally, and then wound up working as Trump's fixer-in-chief. It hardly gets sleazier than that. So here he is back to ambulance-chasing, cold-calling a potential client to make him an offer, according to Broidy himself: “Mr. Cohen reached out to me after being contacted by this woman’s attorney, Keith Davidson. Although I had not previously hired Mr. Cohen, I retained Mr. Cohen after he informed me about his prior relationship with Mr. Davidson.”

And just as the RNC started its disinformation campaign against Comey and Rosenstein in preparation for Trump's obstruction of justice actions to come (firing Mueller and trying to close down all the investigations, giving advance pardons to Manafort and others, cowing the spineless GOP Members of Congress into nothing more than thoughts and prayers) we get the hypocrisy of the Party of Trump on full display, with the RNC Chair going on TV assailing Comey just has her deputy is being forced to resign for arranging a $1.3 million payoff to silence the Playboy model he got pregnant, who in turn had an abortion (oh, my!).

Oh, and that court hearing did not end well for Cohen, Trump, or Hannity:

"A federal judge on Monday rejected an attempt by President Trump and his longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, to block prosecutors in Manhattan from immediately reviewing a trove of materials seized in F.B.I. raids last week on Mr. Cohen’s office, home, hotel room and safe deposit box.  But feeling her way toward a resolution of the clash involving Mr. Trump and prosecutors investigating Mr. Cohen, the judge, Kimba M. Wood, signaled that she was considering appointing a special master to assist prosecutors if and when they cull through documents seized in the raids." link

If you close your eyes you already can hear the chorus building:

LOCK THEM UP!

LOCK THEM UP!

LOCK THEM UP!

LOL! Yeah, just keep telling yourself that. 

More fun: Stormy's lawyer, Avenetti, was on CNN tonight with three additional thoughts:

1 - How surreal it was being in a federal courtroom where the President's attorney was arguing that the DOJ--which is under the President's control--could not be trusted to be honest with the Court.

2 - If given a choice between betting on the Sun rising and the morning or Cohen flipping on Trump, he'd go with Cohen flipping.

3 - It's not going to end well for Cohen, but it's going to end even worse for Trump.

You are so right Professor!  But of course Hannity is not an elected official and it is not like Hannity killed somebody for politics or anything that disgusting...

I would agree that Hannity is not someone to be admired - not something like a "Lion King" who drones & sheep would worship for decades...

So...  Who do the parties admire?



Boy...  You are really, really, really, bad at this stuff...

Or perhaps you are just crippled by the world's most failed ideology?

>O

“While Fox News was unaware of Sean Hannity’s informal relationship with Michael Cohen and was surprised by the announcement in court [Monday], we have reviewed the matter and spoken to Sean and he continues to have our full support.” link

With that announcement Fox also declared that it has decided to re-brand itself as the Trump "News" Network, or TNN (allowed because The Nashville Network now is called Spike). After all, as one Trump advisor told the Washington Post of Hannity and the White House, “he basically has a desk in the place.” Not to mention he shares several of Trump's lawyers. And that "The phone calls between President Trump and Sean Hannity come early in the morning or late at night, after the Fox News host goes off the air. They discuss ideas for Hannity’s show, Trump’s frustration with the ongoing special counsel probe and even, at times, what the president should tweet, according to people familiar with the conversations. When he’s off the phone, Trump is known to cite Hannity when he talks with White House advisers." link

The news that Fox now works for Trump has not pleased everyone at the network. “'Quite a few Fox folks are troubled [and] angered at the special standard that applies to Sean Hannity,' said one journalist, who asked not to be named to preserve his job. 'Any one of us would be fired [or] suspended in a New York minute for a similar transgression.'” But, as noted, they'll complain only anonymously, if at all. Chris Wallace, at Fox largely because of the patina of legitimacy his surname provides, has said nothing about this so far, though in the past he has criticized journalists at other networks for far less egregious instances of the appearance--not even actual, as in this case--of conflicts of interest. Hey, a job at the Trump "News" Network is still a job, and once you've been tainted by that association it's kind of hard to find work anywhere else; the stench usually is too much for office-mates to handle, alas.

Anyway, now that TNN has come out as the official propaganda arm of the Trump Organization at least we can dispense with the fiction that they're another news source. Basically, they're TASS--American Style. Putin would approve, and probably does.

"Lawyers for President Trump’s longtime attorney Michael Cohen have withdrawn defamation lawsuits against BuzzFeed and the political research firm Fusion GPS related to a dossier that included claims Cohen helped organize Russian interference into the 2016 presidential election.  The lawsuits, withdrawn late Wednesday, would have required Cohen to submit to an evidence discovery process, forcing him to produce documentation and sworn testimony about his activities before the closely contested election." link

Oops! Did his lawyers (or him) not realize they'd be subject to discovery if they filed suit? Or (more likely) did they plan to hide relevant information that's now in the hands of federal prosecutors in New York? Undoubtedly, the revelation a few days ago that Mueller can prove the Fusion GPS allegation that Cohen was in Prague, despite his denials, helped him decide that didn't want civil lawyers digging too deeply into just how much evidence there is to support that report.