Michael Cohn has got his butt in trouble with the Mueller people and the FBI….
The ‘bag man’ who gave Stormy Daniels money to go silent about a night spent with Donald Trump seems to be under investigation for where he got $130,000 he gave to Daniels….
In version of ‘everything Trump touches turns to shit?’……
We have a guy stuck in the middle of a President, a Porn Star and the Feds….
It can’t be fun being him…
The F.B.I. raided the Rockefeller Center office and Park Avenue hotel room of President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, on Monday morning, seizing business records, emails and documents related to several topics, including a payment to a pornographic film actress.
Mr. Trump, in an extraordinarily angry response, lashed out hours later at what a person briefed on the matter said was an investigation into possible bank fraud by Mr. Cohen. Mr. Trump accused his own Justice Department of perpetrating a “witch hunt” and asserted that the F.B.I. “broke into” Mr. Cohen’s office.
The president, who spoke at the White House before meeting with senior military commanders about a potential missile strike on Syria, called the F.B.I. raid a “disgraceful situation” and an “attack on our country, in a true sense.”
It is not clear how the F.B.I. entered Mr. Cohen’s office, but agents had a search warrant and typically would have presented it to office personnel to be let in. The documents identified in the warrant date back years, according to a person briefed on the search.
The prosecutors obtained the search warrant after receiving a referral from the special counsel in the Russia investigation, 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 most likely resulted from information that he had uncovered and gave to prosecutors in New York…..
Note …
This probe is being done by the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York , that office is ran by a former friend of Rudy Guilani….Trump personally picked and interviewed the guy…The action by the agent’s almost had to be known to Atty Gen Sessions and Deputy AG Rosenstein…..
This CANNOT be good for Trump’s effort to keep the Daniels case out of the media and under control…
Update….
President Trump on Monday blasted the FBI for raiding the office of his personal attorney Michael Cohen, calling it a “disgrace” and a “pure and simple witch hunt.”
“It’s a real disgrace,” Trump told reporters at the White House as Vice President Pence, national security adviser John Bolton and other officials looked on. “It’s an attack on our country in a true sense. It’s an attack on what we all stand for.”….
image…nydailynews.com
Trump calls raid of Cohen’s office ‘an attack on our country,’ says ‘We’ll see’ about firing Mueller
…“So I just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys, a good man and it’s a disgraceful situation. It’s a total witch-hunt. I’ve been saying it for a long time. …
And it’s a disgrace, it’s a real disgrace. It’s an attack on our country in a true sense. It’s an attack on what we all stand for. So when I saw this and when I heard it, I heard it like you did, I said that is really now in a whole new level of unfairness. …
They found no collusion whatsoever with Russia, the reason they found it is there was no collusion at all. No collusion. This is the most biased group of people, these people have the biggest conflicts of interest I’ve ever seen. Democrats all — or just about all, either Democrats or a couple of Republicans that worked for President Obama.”
Having a search warrant approved at multiple levels is not “breaking in.” Following legal procedure is not “an attack on our country” in any sense.
As reporters were leaving the room, Trump refused to say that he would not fire Mueller.
Why don’t I just fire Mueller? Well, I think it’s a disgrace, but I think it’s a sad situation when you look at what happened and many people have said you should fire him. Again they found nothing and in finding nothing that’s a big statement. If you know the person in charge of the investigation, you know all about that Deputy Rosenstein, Rod Rosenstein, he wrote the letter very critical of Comey. … So we’ll see what happens. I think it’s disgraceful and so does a lot of other people. This is a pure and simple witch-hunt. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you…
More from Daily Kos….
“The special counsel is investigating a payment made to President Trump’s foundation by a Ukrainian steel magnate for a talk during the campaign… 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,” the New York Times reports.
“Michael Cohen, the president’s personal lawyer whose office and hotel room were raided on Monday in an apparently unrelated case, solicited the donation.”
Politicalwire…
Good stuff here by Rick Wilson:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fbi-raid-on-michael-cohen-is-the-most-dangerous-day-of-donald-trumps-life
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein personally signed off on Monday’s FBI decision to raid the office of Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal attorney and longtime confidant, the New York Times reports.
“The early-morning searches enraged Mr. Trump, associates said, setting off an angry public tirade Monday evening that continued in private at the White House as the president fumed about whether he should fire Mr. Rosenstein. The episode has deeply unsettled White House aides, Justice Department officials and lawmakers from both parties, who believe the president may use it as a pretext to purge the team leading the investigation into Russia meddling in the 2016 election.”
Update…
“The FBI agents who raided the office of President Trump’s personal lawyer were looking for records about payments to two women who claim they had affairs with Mr. Trump, and information related to the publisher of The National Enquirer’s role in silencing one of the women,” the New York Times reports.
Update….
“The search warrant behind Monday’s raids on the office and hotel room of President Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, included a request for documents related to Cohen’s ownership of taxi medallions,” CNN reports.
“The search was also related to porn star Stormy Daniels, with whom Cohen is in a legal dispute over a hush agreement Daniels signed before the 2016 campaign to keep quiet about an alleged affair between her and Trump… In addition, the warrant said it related in part to election laws.”
Question on this?
Will the NY DA and NYS AG get involved in this since taxi medallions ARE new York centric
Is Mueller trying to ‘turn’ Cohen?
It is my understanding that Mueller likely found evidence of a crime and handed it off to the FBI as I understand one is legally required to do if you do find evidence of a crime. It is my understanding that other than that, the raid had nothing to do with Mueller, and it is not part of Mueller’s Russia investigation.
Mueller’s mission is to probe the 2016 election and possible Russian interference ….
He has the option to investigate ANY crime that his office may come across….
Reports are that he went to his boss Rosenstein with his concerns about Cohen….
One assumes that both figured they had enough to handel without dealing with Cohen….
The case was sent to the US Atty for the Southern Dist who it seems promptly handed down to another atty since there is Trump connection to his hiring…
Of course the raid was connected to Mueller, since he originated the request for the action against Cohen….
There will be communication between the Southern Dist and Mueller’s people for sure….
I wonder if the NYC medallion angle will bring in the NYS AG and NYC DA?
Technically speaking, James is distinguishing between
(1) the presidentially-appointed federal official who signed out the warrant application, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York (which includes the Bronx and Manhattan, but not Brooklyn, Queens or Staten Island which are in the Eastern District),
(2) the Attorney General of the State of New York, elected statewide, and
(3) the District Attorney in and for the County of New York (embracing the same territory and people as the Borough of Manhattan), who is elected by the citizens of Manhattan (i.e. New York County). This last is the office portrayed in the original Law & Order by Michael Moriarty and Sen. Fred Thompson, but in real life occupied for decades by Robert Morgenthau and later less successfully by Cyrus Vance, Jr.
Also.. Batman?
I thought that was in Gotham City.
NYC has been called the Big Apple
NYC WAS called Gotham City WTF back in the day…..
But no reports of a Batman
Ouch!…
An unidentified Trump adviser told the outlet that Cohen, who has worked with Trump for decades, had a “proclivity to make tapes” of private conversations and store them digitally.
The Post said it was unclear if Cohen had taped any conversations with Trump. But a source said it was Cohen’s “standard practice” to play recordings for the president that he’d made of other top advisers. New York is a one-party consent state, meaning Cohen could legally record any phone conversation without the other person’s knowledge.
Experts described the recordings as a potential “gold mine” in interviews with the Post, saying that if they exist and are admissible in court, they could prove extremely valuable to prosecutors…..
More…