Thread: President Donald Trump

Originally Posted by Norton

Job has away of changing folks.

indeed, he was so handsome and young and full of hope

he came out bitter and old,

maybe Trumpo will come out wise and enlightened

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's personal attorney, has been "under criminal investigation" for months in New York because of his business dealings, the Justice Department said Friday.

The revelation comes amid a courtroom drama that unfolded Friday, as Cohen's attorneys and Trump's attorneys began a fight hours before with the US Attorney's Office in Manhattan over a massive raid of Cohen's records.

Cohen's attorneys have filed a temporary restraining order in the matter, asking the court to stop federal prosecutors from using some of the records they seized. Cohen did not appear in court Friday morning and has not been charged with a crime.

In response to Cohen's motion to prevent prosecutors from using evidence collected in Monday's raids of his home and office, the US attorney in New York asserted the raids were authorized by a federal judge to seek evidence of conduct "for which Cohen is under criminal investigation."
A court filing did not detail what Cohen is under investigation for.

But the filing contains the first details released by the Justice Department on the searches, which covered Cohen's residence, hotel room, office, safety deposit boxes and two cell phones. Previous search warrants allowed New York federal prosecutors to search multiple email accounts, the filing said. In them, they found that Cohen had done "little to no legal work, and that zero emails were exchanged with President Trump."

The prosecutors assert that they have confidence that any seized material would not fall under the significant amount of attorney-client privilege that Cohen has claimed. They said Cohen has told at least one witness that his only client was Trump.

The prosecutors noted Cohen had personally not turned over any documents to Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation. Initially, Mueller had requested some records from Cohen while he was with the Trump family company — a position he held for about a decade — yet dropped the request after Cohen pushed back. Mueller's office referred the case about his business dealings to New York but hasn't been involved since, the Manhattan prosecutors said.

Monday's raids included a search for communications related to efforts to suppress negative information ahead of the election, including communications that Trump had with Cohen regarding the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape that captured Trump making lewd remarks about women that surfaced a month before the election, CNN reported this week.

It also potentially involved records related to porn star Stormy Daniels, who was paid $130,000 weeks before the election to silence an alleged affair she had with Trump. Records related to Cohen's taxi medallion business were also sought.

Prosecutors say they've set up what's known as a "taint team" or "filter team" to review Cohen's documents so nothing they seized is used improperly or breaches client confidentiality.

Each search warrant specifically describes how records seized that may fall into attorney-client privilege will be filtered out by a team that's walled off from the federal agents who have conducted the investigation, the prosecutors wrote.

Once they've reviewed the records, the filter team can give to the investigators communications "between Cohen and persons with whom Cohen undisputedly does not have an attorney-client relationship," likely meaning the records wouldn't be between Cohen and Trump, prosecutors said. The filter team is working from a list of individuals and companies they've compiled regarding people who aren't Cohen's legal clients.

Cohen's lawyers, for their part, have asked to review the material for themselves, a proposal which the Manhattan prosecutors are fighting.

The Southern District of New York prosecutors also heard from Trump Organization lawyers, who want them to throw out all communication between Cohen, the company and its employees.
Following the hearing Friday, the court matter is on pause until 4 pm.

Joanna Hendon, a new lawyer for Trump who appeared in court, said her law firm, Spears & Imes LLP, was engaged by Trump on Wednesday and she was "not prepared" to present her argument.

The Justice Department is asking for a so-called taint team to vet the material seized in the raids Monday, as is standard process. Cohen's lawyer is asking for the lawyers themselves to review the material or a "special master" to decide what is relevant to the case, and Hendon is concerned about a taint team or however the material is handled.

On Monday, Cohen's attorney called the searches "completely inappropriate and unnecessary."

"It resulted in the unnecessary seizure of protected attorney client communications between a lawyer and his client," attorney Stephen Ryan said in the statement.

Michael Avenatti, a lawyer for Stormy Daniels, also made an appearance at the hearing. In a footnote in its filing, the prosecutors expressed doubt that any communications between Trump and Cohen regarding a payoff to Daniels before the election would be covered under attorney-client privilege. They cited the President's own comments.

"Among other things, President Trump has publicly denied knowing that Cohen paid Clifford, and suggested to reporters that they had to "ask Michael" about the payment," the footnote argues, citing a story by CNN's Kevin Liptak.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/13/polit...aid/index.html

Originally Posted by bsnub

the first details released by the Justice Department on the searches, which covered Cohen's residence, hotel room, office, safety deposit boxes and two cell phones. Previous search warrants allowed New York federal prosecutors to search multiple email accounts

Originally Posted by bsnub

Cohen has told at least one witness that his only client was Trump.

Originally Posted by bsnub

Once they've reviewed the records, the filter team can give to the investigators communications "between Cohen and persons with whom Cohen undisputedly does not have an attorney-client relationship,"

quite a few people are sweating over this....don jr and jared among them.

Originally Posted by raycarey

don jr and jared among them.

My hunch is that they will wait as long as they can before indictments/charges on these guys. Possibly until after an impeachment due to the fact that tRump will just pardon them immediately.

President Trump’s advisers have concluded that a wide-ranging corruption investigation into his personal lawyer poses a greater and more imminent threat to the president than even the special counsel’s investigation, according to several people close to Mr. Trump.As his lawyers went to court in New York on Friday to try to block prosecutors from reading files that were seized from the personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, this week, Mr. Trump found himself increasingly isolated in mounting a response. He continued to struggle to hire a new criminal lawyer, and some of his own aides were reluctant to advise him about a response for fear of being dragged into a criminal investigation themselves.

The raids on Mr. Cohen came as part of a monthslong federal investigation based in New York, court records show, and were sweeping in their breadth. In addition to searching his home, office and hotel room, F.B.I. agents seized material from Mr. Cohen’s cellphones, tablet, laptop and safe deposit box, according to people briefed on the warrants. Prosecutors revealed in court documents that they had already secretly obtained many of Mr. Cohen’s emails.

Mr. Trump called Mr. Cohen on Friday to “check in,” according to two people briefed on the call. Depending on what else was discussed, the call could be problematic, as lawyers typically advise their clients against discussing investigations.

Mr. Cohen has publicly declared that he would defend the president to the end, but court documents show that prosecutors are building a significant case that could put pressure on him to cooperate and tell investigators what he knows.

The documents seized by prosecutors could shed light on the president’s relationship with a lawyer who has helped navigate some of Mr. Trump’s thorniest personal and business dilemmas. Mr. Cohen served for more than a decade as a trusted fixer and, during the campaign, helped tamp down brewing scandals about women who claimed to have carried on affairs with Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen and their teams were still scrambling on Friday to assess the damage from the raid early Monday morning. They remained unsure what had been taken, an uncertainty that has heightened the unease around Mr. Trump.

Although his lawyers had projected confidence in their dealings with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, they were caught flat-footed by the New York raids. The lawyers fear that Mr. Cohen will not be forthcoming with them about what was in his files, leaving them girding for the unknown.

Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump, through their lawyers, argued in federal court on Friday that many of the seized records were protected by attorney-client privilege. They asked for an order temporarily prohibiting prosecutors from reading the documents until the matter could be litigated. Mr. Cohen argued that he or an independent lawyer should be allowed to review the documents first.

“Those searches have been executed, and the evidence is locked down,” Joanna C. Hendon, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, said in court. “I’m not trying to delay. I’m just trying to ensure that it’s done scrupulously.”

Mr. Cohen’s lawyer, Stephen Ryan, wrote in a court filing that the search “creates constitutional concerns regarding officers of the executive branch rummaging through the private and privileged papers of the president.”

Prosecutors argued that the previously seized emails revealed that Mr. Cohen was “performing little to no legal work, and that zero emails were exchanged with President Trump.” They said their investigation was focused on Mr. Cohen’s business dealings, not his work as a lawyer.

But it is difficult to extract Mr. Cohen from his work for Mr. Trump. For more than a decade, Mr. Trump has unleashed Mr. Cohen on his foes — investigative journalists, business rivals and potential litigants. And the New York search warrant makes clear that the authorities are interested in his unofficial role in the campaign.

Prosecutors demanded all communication with the campaign — and in particular two advisers, Corey Lewandowski and Hope Hicks, according to two people briefed on the warrants.

Prosecutors also seized recordings of conversations that Mr. Cohen had secretly made, but he told people in recent days that he did not tape his conversations with Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen frequently taped conversations with adversaries and opposing lawyers, according to the two people briefed.

The raids on Mr. Cohen surprised and angered the president, who has been frustrated with the special counsel investigation into Russia’s 2016 election interference, the Kremlin’s possible coordination with Trump associates and whether the president has tried to obstruct those inquiries.

In response to the raids, Mr. Trump has considered firing Mr. Mueller, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein. On Friday, Mr. Trump’s spirits were frayed in the morning as his lawyer battled in the Manhattan courtroom. But he grew cheerier as the day went on, an adviser said, buoyed by a report by the Justice Department’s inspector general that was damning about a former F.B.I. official, Andrew G. McCabe, who he believed had tried to undermine him.

Mr. Cohen’s lawyers have called the raids of his offices and hotel room an overreach of the law. Prosecutors said on Friday that they had used a search warrant, rather than a subpoena, because they had evidence that Mr. Cohen’s files might be permanently deleted — by whom, the documents did not say. Many details in the documents were redacted, but prosecutors said they had found evidence of fraud and a “lack of truthfulness” on his part.

Mr. Cohen wants his lawyers to be able to review the files and withhold privileged material before prosecutors can see them. As an alternative, he asked that an independent lawyer be allowed to review the files first. A judge scheduled a follow-up hearing for Monday and ordered Mr. Cohen to attend. The judge, Kimba M. Wood, was upset that he was not in court Friday.

Federal agents seized documents that dated back years, some of which are related to payments to two women who have said they had affairs with Mr. Trump. Other documents seized included information about the role of The National Enquirer in silencing one of the women, people briefed on the investigation have said.

Communications between lawyers and their clients are normally off limits to prosecutors, but there are exceptions, including when the materials are considered part of a continuing crime.

Mr. Trump has viewed any investigation of his business and private life to be off limits to prosecutors, but the search warrants make clear that investigators consider those topics part of their case.

Agents sought information about Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who claims she had a nearly yearlong affair with Mr. Trump shortly after the birth of his youngest son in 2006. American Media Inc., which owns The Enquirer, paid Ms. McDougal $150,000. The company’s chief executive is a friend of Mr. Trump’s.

Agents also demanded information related to Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels, a pornographic film actress. Ms. Clifford has said she had sex with Mr. Trump while he was married. Mr. Cohen has acknowledged paying Ms. Clifford $130,000 as part of a nondisclosure agreement to secure her silence days before Election Day.

Mr. Trump recently told reporters he knew nothing about the agreement.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/u...ppearance.html

Judging by the cacophony on Fox for him to do it, there's a good chance the whole Whitehouse is doing their best to stop baldy orange cunto sacking Mueller.

Frankly we are on the verge of a constitutional crisis.

IMO the key takeaways from an amazing article...

Originally Posted by bsnub

Mr. Trump found himself increasingly isolated in mounting a response. He continued to struggle to hire a new criminal lawyer, and some of his own aides were reluctant to advise him about a response for fear of being dragged into a criminal investigation themselves.

no allies, no aides...and worse, no lawyers.

btw, one of the reasons he can't hire a lawyer is because everyone in DC and NY knows that trump doesn't pay his bills.

Originally Posted by bsnub

Mr. Trump called Mr. Cohen on Friday to “check in,” according to two people briefed on the call.

he just can't help himself, can he? and wouldn't there be a wire on cohen's line?

Originally Posted by bsnub

Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen and their teams were still scrambling on Friday to assess the damage from the raid early Monday morning. They remained unsure what had been taken

this has to making trump absolutely fcuking crazy.
not knowing what the feds have is going to eat at him non-stop.

Originally Posted by bsnub

Prosecutors demanded all communication with the campaign — and in particular two advisers, Corey Lewandowski and Hope Hicks, according to two people briefed on the warrants.

uh-oh.
i think the feds have already got the two them on various charges (lying to the FBI, obstruction of justice, etc...), and this is only going to seal the deal.
and again, it's going to make trump go crazy.

Originally Posted by raycarey

perhaps.

At any rate there will be several incoming indictments soon I would think. This could make people quickly forget about Meullers investigation.

apparently some of the documents seized by the feds go back 30 years.

30 years!

trump is so fcuked.

Originally Posted by raycarey

trump is so fcuked.

I am loving it. His world is rapidly closing in on him.

you guys are hoping for a president pence?

ROK just sent their last pres to the slammer for 24 yrs and Brazil sent Lula down. Let's hope it's a trend.

Originally Posted by bsnub

I am loving it. His world is rapidly closing in on him.

I feel quite sorry for him. The pressure and stress on him must be something terrible...






























...just kidding. Hopefully the fat fuck gets everything he deserves and more.

Originally Posted by Farangrakthai

you guys are hoping for a president pence?

After November the president will be a lame duck anyway. So at least Pence will not start WW3.

if, as expected, the dems take control of the house, pence would be neck deep in subpoenas, open testimony and investigations....not only about trump, but his own entanglements.

he'd be an even lamer duck than ford was.

Originally Posted by raycarey

if, as expected, the dems take control of the house

At this point I am done with the "if" part. I do not think that there is anyway possible the pendulum could swing back the other way. Frankly I think now we should be realistically looking at the Senate changing hands as well.

Originally Posted by raycarey

he'd be an even lamer duck than ford was.

I am so loving this.

Originally Posted by bsnub

At this point I am done with the "if" part. I do not think that there is anyway possible the pendulum could swing back the other way. Frankly I think now we should be realistically looking at the Senate changing hands as well.



I am so loving this.

Democrats are going to win back the House this year. Just ask anybody. Even one of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s top outside allies says so.

“Our donors will often say we need to do everything we can to hold on to the Senate because there’s a chance we may not be able to hold the House,” Steven Law, who leads a Super PAC called the Senate Leadership Fund, told the Washington Post this week.

The conventional wisdom is solidifying that Democrats — buoyed by an unpopular President Donald Trump, an energized Democratic base, ample opportunities for pickups, and the historical rule that voters punish the party in the White House — will win the 20 or so seats they need to flip the House and maybe even get the Senate. It was the not-so-subtle subtext of House Speaker Paul Ryan’s announcement that he will leave Congress next year.

Of course, it’s not in the bag: A lot can happen between now and November, never mind that Senate Democrats are at an extreme disadvantage, that gerrymandering can curb the generic ballot by a lot, meaning there are plenty of R+whatever districts. Democrats will also remind you that Republicans are going to dramatically outspend them.
Democrats are nothing if not pessimists, after all — and they can come up with a whole lot more reasons to be worried this fall. I called up Democratic operatives with experience assessing the national congressional campaign landscape. I wanted to know: What keeps you up at night?

A lot, it turns out.

Fear 1: people decide the economy is good enough

Many of the economic indicators are strong. The unemployment rate is low (4.1 percent), wages are actually growing (at the fastest pace since 2009), and consumer confidence is strong (the highest since 2000). The structural problems in our economy — namely,income inequality — still exist, and not every part of the country is enjoying equitable growth. But things are mostly pretty good.

Yet Trump is broadly unpopular: He is 13 percentage points underwater, according to the RealClearPolitics average. As Nate Cohn wrote at the New York Times, the president is a historic outlier: We’ve almost never seen a president this unpopular when the economy is this strong.

So it’s sort of Chekhov’s economy for Democratic strategists. They’ve known about this incongruity for a while. What if voters wake up to it too?

“You worry that the economy continues to do well and there are enough voters that say, ‘You know, I’m okay. President Trump’s tweeting is annoying, but it doesn’t really bother me that the Republican Party isn’t holding him accountable,’” one Democratic operative working on the House races this year told me. “That is my biggest fear: You aren’t able to convince enough people that you need a Democratic Congress to keep this guy in check.”

This operative is thinking about historically Republican districts — the Texas suburbs, conservative enclaves in the Californian suburbs — where the repulsion for Trump should give Democrats an opportunity. Voters who have a pretty stable life but find the president, his style, and maybe some of his nativist tendencies unappealing.

The midterm electorate is already usually older, whiter, and more likely to vote Republican. The concern many Democratic strategists have is that those voters look around, decide they’re doing okay and their taxes have been cut at least a little bit, and eventually come home to Republicans. Trump isn’t enough to stop them checking a different box on Election Day.

As political scientist James Campbell once put it: “Campaigns remind Democrats why they are Democrats rather than Republicans and remind Republicans why they are Republicans rather than Democrats.”

And the US Chamber of Commerce and other outside groups are going to work their damnedest to try to rehabilitate the GOP tax bill with voters using TV ads.

“When his approval ratings have ticked up a couple of points, it’s because Republicans are less embarrassed to be Republicans,” the operative said.

Fear 2: something goes wrong with the candidates

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Bad candidates can win in the right circumstances.

“In 2006 and 2008, and on the Republican side in 2010, a lot of people got elected who did not run the best campaigns and who beat good opponents of the opposite party,” another Democratic strategist told me. “If the wave is big enough, it doesn’t actually matter.”

Nevertheless, in my conversations, I picked up on some level of concern that Democratic congressional candidates could hurt their own chances. Broadly speaking, the most comfortable place for an opposing-party candidate is, well, in opposition: Trump has let you down, and I will hold him accountable. Anything that changes that dynamic is a risk.
There was some internal debate in my conversations about what exactly the danger is.

Some strategists worried about nominating overly progressive candidates in more moderate suburban districts, where fiscally conservative voters might be spooked by a candidate who supports, say, Medicare-for-all.

“If you’re going to win these suburban swing districts, show them you’re not another tax-and-spend Democrat,” argued one strategist with this outlook. “If you’re in a battleground district, you should not be making a point. You should be trying to win your election.”

But others were more dismissive of those concerns. They came back to the election environment inevitably being defined more by Trump than the granular policy positions of the Democratic candidates.

Yet some of those operatives had another parallel concern: The record number of first-time candidates raises the risk of an unforced error — a gaffe, an unvetted skeleton in the closet, what have you — that redefines the race and makes it about them instead of Republicans. In the era of the #MeToo movement, allegations of past misconduct are harder to keep buried.

“We just have a bunch of first-time candidates. That brings an unknown risk,” said an operative with this concern. “Running for office is one of the most grueling experiences you’ll ever go through. None of them are probably ready for what’s about to come.”

But that also invited some pushback from still other strategists. As Trump himself proved, being a political neophyte can be an asset when the electorate is disillusioned with politics.

The precise nature and size of the candidate risk is up for debate. If the wave is big enough, it’s not going to matter. But when you spend your nights tossing and turning and wondering what could go wrong, you’re going to worry about one of your nominees making an unnecessary mess.

Fear 3: some act of God introduces an unknown variable to the campaign

This is the most uncomfortable electoral variable to discuss and the one you can plan for the least. You can try to craft a political message that keeps voters dissatisfied with Trump. You can do your best to vet your candidates and prepare them for the grind of a campaign.

But there are some things you simply cannot anticipate: a terrorist attack, an international crisis, a natural disaster, or a war.

It’s difficult to begin to quantify what the electoral repercussions would be in such big and unpredictable events. Some of the operatives just shrugged their shoulders when this point came up. What can you do? Black swan events are always a risk — and rarely an actual factor — in politics.

But a few were willing to at least talk through the electoral implications. Take a military intervention: Some Democrats argued that there is actually reason to think that could hurt Republicans as much as help. Trump’s brinksmanship with North Korea has been polarizing. The same would likely prove true for any military adventures the president decided to undertake in the next few months.

“Trump is so polarizing that unless America were attacked, it would be polarizing,” one strategist said. “Trump doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt. You’d have as many opponents as supporters.”

But conversely, there is the truism that Trump has yet to face an unmanufactured crisis during his presidency (well, excepting a couple of hurricanes and the widely criticized response to the crisis in Puerto Rico). While it could certainly turn out that he would bungle it and thus reinforce the perceptions that have made him so unpopular to begin with, there is also at least the possibility that he would handle it well and give Americans new confidence in his leadership.

As Vox’s Andrew Prokop wrote during the 2016 campaign, there is some scholarly evidence that the more hawkish party gets an electoral advantage when the unthinkable happens:

Experimental and real-world studies have tended to show that in the US and abroad, the major party with a more hawkish reputation usually benefits when international terror becomes a major concern.
For instance, [Michael] Koch, Laron Williams, and Jason Smith studied how quickly various parliamentary governments lost their majority coalitions after transnational terrorist attacks in a 2012 paper. What they found was that right-leaning governments had an easier time holding on to power than left-leaning governments did. It seems the left gets more blame for terrorist attacks that occur under its watch.

“Trump hasn’t dealt with an actual crisis yet. If a legit crisis happens between now and November, how Trump handles it could shape how people view him and his presidency,” said yet another Democratic operative. “If he does well, that’s the kind of thing that could make people normalize his presidency.”

Don’t lose sight of the fundamentals. Trump’s unpopularity and the midterm factor should be winds at the backs of Democrats. Gerrymandering and a money disadvantage will likely make the lift a little more difficult.

But if you’re looking for X-factors in the 2018 midterms, this is what’s on the minds of the people whose job it is to worry.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...-house-control

you guys are dreaming

Collateral damage from Cohen's raid....

"R.N.C. Official Who Agreed to Pay Playboy Model $1.6 Million Resigns"

"The deal was arranged in the final months of 2017 by President Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen."

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/04/1...en-payout.html

^
when i read that trump telephoned cohen yesterday to "check in" , the first thing i thought was that they had some sort of crude code that they assumed was very clever, but the feds (who were almost undoubtedly listening to via a legal wiretap) smirked about because it was so amateurish.

btw, whoever is remaining on trump's legal team must be shaking their head in disbelief that trump made that call to cohen.

Originally Posted by raycarey

when i read that

Like you would have inside information to anything you fooking hypocrite????????????

Go and plan your next attack on American service people you enemy of America.

Originally Posted by uncle junior

Collateral damage from Cohen's raid....

"R.N.C. Official Who Agreed to Pay Playboy Model $1.6 Million Resigns"

"The deal was arranged in the final months of 2017 by President Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen."

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/04/1...en-payout.html

The RNC chairman who extracted millions from the anti-abortion sects has his mistress get an abortion. Classic two-faced GOP.