Trump’s Former Attorney Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison

A US judge sentenced Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to 36 months in prison for a variety of crimes that include tax evasion, bank fraud, and making illegal ‘campaign contributions’ by means of his payments to Stormy Daniels, who alleges she had an affair with Trump in 2006.

In a separate case, American Media Inc. (AMI), the parent company of the National Enquirer, was given immunity in return for its testimony. Prosecutors alleged that the media outlet purchased the stories of Trump’s lovers and then buried them at Trump’s behest in exchange for payment.  AMI admitted that it paid $150,000 to Karen MacDougal for her story in order to ensure that she did not publicize damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election. -GEG

On Wednesday, President Trump’s case against an indictment on the basis of campaign finance violations became much more difficult. Michael Cohen, the president’s personal attorney for years including the 2016 campaign, was sentenced to three years in prison – and his sentencing included an open acknowledgment by Cohen that he had directed hush payments to former Trump paramour Stormy Daniels with an eye toward affecting the 2016 election.

Judge William H. Pauley III said Cohen had committed a bevy of crimes with an eye toward deception. Cohen, for his part, threw himself on the mercy of the court, stating, “I blame myself for the conduct which has brought me here today, and it was my own weakness and blind loyalty to [President Trump] that led me to choose a path of darkness over light.” He added, “time and time again I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds rather than to listen to my own inner voice and my moral compass.”

More damaging than Cohen’s open-court mea culpa, though, was the prosecution’s announcement that they had reached a non-prosecution agreement with American Media Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer – the entity Cohen attempted to use to silence Karen McDougal. AMI would purchase the stories of Trump’s lovers and then bury them at Trump’s behest; Cohen would then attempt to reimburse AMI, so the allegations go. According to prosecutors, “AMI admitted that it made the $150,000 payment in concert with a candidate’s presidential campaign, and in order to ensure that [Karen MacDougal] did not publicize damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election. AMI further admitted that its principal purpose in making the payment was to suppress the woman’s story so as to prevent it from influencing the election.”

This evidence could be used to make the case that Cohen’s payment to Daniels was indeed an unreported campaign expenditure; Trump was allegedly attempting to clean up his messes just before the election. While Cohen didn’t use AMI to silence Daniels, representatives of AMI were the first to notify Cohen of Daniels’ intent to go public, according to prosecutors. All of this undercuts the case Trump could make that he paid hush money on a regular basis outside of election circumstances. Trump will now have to claim that both AMI and Cohen are lying about such expenditures representing illegal campaign allocations, and that they’ve caved to the pressure of rogue prosecutors.

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Rod Rosenstein Sent Cohen Case to Manhattan In Order to Open a New Legal Warfare Front Against Trump

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein made the decision to turn over the case against Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney, to attorneys in the Southern District of New York, creating an investigation separate from the Mueller probe. Rosenstein did this to ensure that the witch hunt against President Trump continued if President Trump shut down the Mueller investigation.  A source claims that Rosenstein ordered Trump appointee, US Attorney Geoffrey Berman, to recuse himself from prosecuting the Cohen case, leaving Obama leftovers to handle the case.  Rosenstein has at least one major conflict-of-interest in prosecuting Trump as he signed of on a FISA warrant to spy on then-candidate Trump using the discredited Steel dossier as evidence.

Earlier this year Dirty Cop Rod Rosenstein made the decision to turn over the Michael Cohen case to attorneys in the Southern District of New York. Rosenstein did this to ensure that the witch hunt against President Trump continued if President Trump shut down the junk Mueller investigation.

Rosenstein signed the 4th FISA court request to spy on President Trump despite knowing the request was based on a the Fusion-GPS dossier, a Democrat-funded oppo research project that was NEVER fact-checked.

Trump appointed attorney Geoffrey Berman recused himself from the investigation into Michael Cohen.

Rod Rosenstein approved the early morning raid of Michael Cohen’s residence. Geoffrey Berman was not involved in the decision to raid Cohen’s residence.

Rosenstein approved Mueller’s referral to Geoffrey Berman on Monday, April 9th. Rosenstein ordered raids on Cohen’s residence the following day. It is not clear why or when Berman recused himself from the investigation.

Wired sources claims that Rosenstein ordered Berman to recuse himself.

Wired Sources got this information from a New York Post article by Michael Goodwin.

The US attorney Trump appointed for that outpost, Geoffrey Berman, reportedly was ordered to recuse himself by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, leaving the office staffed mostly by holdovers from Preet Bharara’s tenure.

Bloomberg reported on the latest tactics to get Trump in the Southern District of New York.
Bloomberg reported:

Khuzami was put in charge of the Cohen investigation after the U.S. attorney who Trump appointed to lead the office, Geoffrey Berman, recused himself. It’s unclear why Berman did so, but he previously worked in the law firm of Greenberg Traurig LLP, which also employed Rudy Giuliani, a top Trump campaign supporter who’s now his personal lawyer.

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President Trump’s Former Attorney Pleads ‘Guilty’ to Campaign-Finance Fraud, which May Put Trump in Jeopardy

Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and ‘fixer,’ Michael Cohen, plead guilty to campaign-finance fraud for paying hush money to porn actress, Stormy Daniels, and ex-Playboy model, Karen McDougal. The reason this is considered campaign fraud is that Cohen says he paid the money to the women instead of Trump and that doing so was considered to be a campaign donation – which Cohen failed to report as such.  Trump’s lawyers contend that the payments were not an indirect campaign donation but an attempt to avoid embarrassment. Other charges to which Cohen pleaded guilty involve bank fraud and income-tax evasion. He faces 46 to 63 months in prison. -GEG

 

On Tuesday, President Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen surrendered to the FBI after reaching a plea deal with federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York. Cohen is scheduled to appear in court at 4 PM ET today. According to advance reports, he will be charged with multiple counts of campaign finance violations, tax fraud and bank fraud. The New York Times explains:

For months, prosecutors in New York have been scrutinizing him for those crimes and focusing on his role in helping to arrange financial deals to secure the silence of women who said they had affairs with Mr. Trump.

Women, as in plural; the only woman we know Trump paid off via Cohen thus far was Stormy Daniels.

Given the information at our disposal thus far, Cohen could be pleading guilty to campaign finance violations for one of two reasons: either he gave an in-kind contribution to the campaign by handing cash to Trump’s former lovers in advance of the election without implicating Trump, or he did so and implicated Trump. If the latter, Trump would be exposed to the possibility of a John Edwards-like prosecution; Edwards, you’ll recall, was a 2008 Democratic presidential candidate who had his donors pay off his lover, Rielle Hunter, to keep her quiet during the campaign. He was prosecuted, but the jury hung, and the charges were dropped.

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Trump Slams Lawyer Michael Cohen for Taping Private Conversation about Karen McDougal’s Claim of an Affair in 2006

The FBI raided the office of Michael Cohen, President Trump’s longtime lawyer, following a referral by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, a move that Trump pointed out was ‘unheard of.’ The President expressed incredulity that Cohen taped a conversation with him, asking what kind of lawyer secretly records his clients? CNN aired Cohen’s 2016 recording of Trump as they discussed how they would purchase rights to Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story about her 2006 affair with Trump. McDougal sold her story to the National Inquirer for $150,000, but the tabloid, favoring Trump, didn’t run it – a practice known as “catch-and-kill.” -GEG

The Drudge Report ran a blistering headline Wednesday morning, calling Michael Cohen “THE RAT” after he flipped on Trump.

“What kind of lawyer would tape a client?” President Trump asked.

Trump tweeted: What kind of a lawyer would tape a client? So sad! Is this a first, never heard of it before? Why was the tape so abruptly terminated (cut) while I was presumably saying positive things? I hear there are other clients and many reporters that are taped – can this be so? Too bad!

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Judge Napolitano said that the leaked tape of a conversation between President Trump and his former attorney reveal that he committed civil fraud – but thatit was not a criminal act.. The Judge says that it was fraudulent because the real aim was to bury the story by duping McDougal into selling it to them and then not publishing it, and so the act was deliberately untruthful. Trump has denied the affair with McDougal, and his legal team says the financial transaction never occurred. -GEG




Soros-Linked Judge Orders Trump Data to be Posted on Federal Database to Leak to Media

Judge Kimba Wood is allowing the data collected from Trump attorney Michael Cohen, in violation of client-attorney privilege, to be put in a federal database so it can be searched, reviewed, categorized and then leaked more efficiently to the media. She also allowed the identity of Cohen’s other clients, including Fox News host Sean Hannity, to be revealed. Judge Wood officiated at the wedding of George Soros in 2013. Bill Clinton nominated her for Attorney General in 1993, but she had to recuse herself because she had employed and illegal alien as a nanny in the past.

The Federal Judge, Kimba Wood, who is making decisions in the case against President Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen, is the same person who officiated George Soros wedding. Go figure.

Today Judge Kimba Wood demanded, in open court, that attorney Michael Cohen state -on the record- the names of his clients….. Then, moments later, in a decision about the seized records taken by the FBI during their raid last week, Judge Wood demanded all of the Cohen records be transferred into a federal database so they could be searched, reviewed, categorized and then leaked more efficiently to the media.

Explain to me again how the Mueller investigation is NOT political opposition research?

Businessman Donald Trump had the audacity to think an ordinary citizen would be allowed to run for the office of the Presidency… and for that offense, all efforts of the professional political class will be deployed to ensure his incorrect thinking is eliminated.

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