Tag: Cohen

Gun control advocates predictably wrong again

The scene was barely a few minutes old in Jacksonville, Florida before David Hogg was making statements about politicians and the NRA.  Another activist took to Twitter to list all the lax gun laws in Florida.  But none of it ended up being relevant.  The Florida shooter was actually a Maryland shooter who was down for the weekend.  He bought his guns in Maryland, which is the 7th strictest state regarding gun laws.  Additionally, he had been admitted for mental issues twice, which would have prevented him from buying his guns if Maryland’s background check system had caught it.  The shooter made several violent tweets before heading to the video game tournament, and those were forwarded to the FBI.  The shooting took place in a gun free zone, which is where 98% of mass shootings happen.  Once again, the facts make fools of gun control advocates.

Gun control activists hope for smoking gun, get same old story instead

Lanny Davis has now admitted that he was the unnamed source in the CNN story about Trump knowing ahead of time of the Trump Tower meeting.  This has been an embarrassing episode of fake news for CNN akin to the Dan Rather memogate scandal.  Davis, as an anonymous source, told CNN that his client Michael Cohen had knowledge that Trump knew about the infamous but not illegal Trump Tower meeting.  CNN ran with the story in July based on the anonymous tip.  Davis later made the claim publicly, before recanting and denying it publicly on CNN.  However, CNN ignored their own story and continued to run with the claim based on their anonymous source.  Now we know that source was Lanny Davis himself.

Lanny Davis admits he was anonymous source for his own fake news

Americans don’t support impeachment.  This is according to a new poll reported by left leaning Axios.  According to the poll, 64% believe Michael Cohen when he says he paid off Stormy Daniels.  But only 44% believe impeachment proceedings should begin.  In our opinion though, this is a stupid poll.  Trump said back in May that Cohen paid off Stormy Daniels and was reimbursed through his legal retainer, not out of campaign funds.  There is nothing there to impeach Trump for.  If anything, it shows that half of Americans are not keeping up with this mess.

Americans still against impeachment

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is back in hot water after her tweet that #abolishICE didn’t really mean #abolishICE.  She admitted she actually supports deportations.  It turns out “abolish” is simply the new “occupy” or “punch a nazi”.  It doesn’t mean anything, it’s just a dog whistle to her crazy supporters to show up armed and masked and destroy private property.

But perhaps even worse, Ocasio-Cortez said that #abolishICE meant we need ICE to stop “sexually assaulting women with impunity”.  I would love to see her meet with all 20,000 ICE employees in front of their families and say that to their faces.

#AbolishICE redefined as “Keep deporting, stop raping women”

But CNN Persisted

CNN isn’t backing off their claim that Michael Cohen can prove Trump complicity with the Trump Tower meeting.  This is despite the fact that Lanny Davis has recanted and backed off of the claim.  We reported earlier after Davis’s under-reported interview with Anderson Cooper that he basically went back on every claim he had previously made.

Davis reiterated to the Washington Post that his own claims were bogus.  But CNN is persisting in reporting that Cohen is ready to dish dirt on Trump.  CNN seems to be going the Dan Rather route of “It’s not proven, but we believe it in our hearts”. Possible things Cohen might know about?  There’s the Trump Tower meeting and potential interference through the DNC server hack, although Lanny Davis has now denied both.  There’s also an old report from the UK Daily Mail back in May that Cohen demanded money from Qatar for Trump.  But so far this seems to be tabloid gossip.

Lanny Davis says Cohen dirt oversold.  CNN still buying it.

Democrats know impeachment is out of grasp and have stopped running on it.  The economy is too good, and their evidence is too bad to actually think they could get 75 Senators to vote for impeachment.  But Democrats are promising endless probes and investigations if they take control of the House.  According to Bloomberg, Democrats have a long laundry list of taxpayer funded probes to hit Trump with in order to obstruct his agenda.  Still, Trump has weathered investigations through the first two years of his Presidency while still accomplishing major agenda items.  Voters will need to decide in November whether they want massive obstruction in the House or continued progress on the economy.

Democrats abandon impeachment, go for obstruction instead

Speaking of Trump accomplishments, stocks are through the roof again as the US and Mexico get closer to closing a new NAFTA deal.  Trump blew up the old NAFTA deal in an effort to secure something better for the United States.  He has accomplished this and North American trade is back on.  The Mexico NAFTA agreement should also bring Canada back into the mix.  This is a big victory for Trump’s foreign trade policy.

NAFTA 2.0 with Mexico coming back online

Breaking: Lanny Davis recants!

In a severely under-reported interview with Anderson Cooper Thursday night, attorney Lanny Davis recanted some serious allegations he had made against Trump.  Davis is representing Michael Cohen in his plea deal with New York prosecutors on bank and fraud charges.  Lanny Davis is a Clinton ally and has represented Bill Clinton.

Davis had said that Cohen would testify that Trump knew about the meeting between Don, Jr and a Russian attorney at Trump Tower.  He also suggested that Trump knew ahead of time about the Russian hack of the DNC server.  The Trump Tower meeting is nothing.  Even if Trump had known, the most that would demonstrate is that Trump lied about not knowing.  Foreknowledge about the DNC server hack would be significantly problematic for Trump because it could lead to actual Russian collusion charges.

It turns out neither claim was true.

Davis struggled to respond to Cooper’s questioning, saying that “the reporting of the story got mixed up”.  But then Davis admitted that Cohen had truthfully testified that “Trump was not aware (of the Trump Tower meeting) ahead of time”.  Cooper asked “Michael Cohen does not have information that Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting?” Davis responded “No, he does not”.

When Cooper asked about the possibility that Trump knew about the DNC hack ahead of time, Davis tried to say that he had been tentative about that statement in the first place.  He then said “It’s not a certainty”.  It sounds as though Davis had been trying to get his client a better plea deal, but really had nothing to work with.

When it comes to Cohen coordinating the pay off of Stormy Daniels with the campaign, Davis faltered on that point as well.  When pressed by Cooper, he admitted “I can’t say if there is someone in the campaign who coordinated with Cohen.”

Throughout the interview, it almost seemed like Davis either hadn’t discussed the claims with Cohen before making them on TV, or that Cohen had fed him a bunch of baloney to try to get a better plea deal.  Davis ended up looking like a deer in the headlights in the Cooper interview.  But in the end, it’s clear that Cohen has nothing that would prove Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting or the DNC hack ahead of time.  The Cohen story appears to be over.  It appears that Cohen was reimbursed from his retainer rather than the campaign too, so there is nothing there.

Here is the interview:

Did Trump say flipping should be illegal?

CNBC is reporting that Trump wants to make “flipping” illegal.  Flipping is the term generally used to describe when someone is in hot water and flips on their associates in crime to work out a deal with Justice.  So did Trump really say he wants to make flipping illegal?  Or is this fake news?

As usual, there is nuance in what Trump is saying.  You can see a portion of the interview here.  Trump spoke about flipping in the context of Cohen “making stuff up”.  In fact, he reiterates several times that he’s talking about when someone gets themselves in deep trouble and makes stuff up to get a lower prison sentence.  Trump says this kind of flipping should be “almost illegal”.

Trump mentioned the curious case of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s IT guy Imran Awan, who was arrested under suspicion that he had possibly been involved in the DNC server hack and may have stolen from the DNC.  Awan struck a deal in July and was convicted for lying on a loan application.  The charges against his wife were dropped.  The case has led to plenty of conspiracy theories and there has been zero media interest as to what Awan might have given up in his plea deal.

In the interview, Trump also pointed out that Cohen’s accusations about Trump campaign violations are wrong.  Trump said that the payments to reimburse Cohen came out of his retainer paid from his businesses to Cohen.  As the John Edwards case showed, that is not a crime.  In fact, in Edwards case it was campaign donors who paid off his mistress, not his personal attorney in the process of creating an NDA.  That would make what Trump did even more innocent than what Edwards did.

Trump did in fact tweet about the payments back in May.  So Cohen’s revelation is hardly news to anyone who is interested.  Trump tweeted that he reimbursed Cohen through his legal retainer and not from campaign funds.  At the time Trump also claimed that there was no affair, that Daniels was attempting to extort him, and that they would pursue action against her based on the arbitration provisions in the NDA.  Perhaps this is why Cohen still has no cooperation agreement despite his claims of dirt on Trump.

I wonder if the question will ever come up if Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, is making these claims to affect the outcome of an election?  Davis is a Clinton ally and has been speaking on Cohen’s behalf.  He is a liberal Democrat who hates Trump and wants Republicans to lose in November.  There doesn’t appear to be any evidence at this point to support some of his outlandish claims.  But those claims being repeated over and over in the media will certainly affect the election in November.  Maybe some forms of “flipping” should be “almost illegal”.

Still no cooperation deal for Cohen

Despite claims from Michael Cohen that he violated campaign finance laws on Trump’s behalf and that Trump knew ahead of time about the DNC hack, there is still no cooperation deal on the table.  That means prosecutors either for New York or Mueller have not come to Cohen to offer him a deal.  Additionally, some have noted that his attorney taking the claims to television rather than working with prosecutors behind closed doors underscores that Cohen has nothing to offer.  Cohen faces years in jail even with the plea deal and could face additional charges in the future.  His attorney, Lanny Davis, is a huge Bill Clinton supporter and Trump hater.

No cooperation deal yet for Cohen

“Deeply confused or dishonest” Bill Nelson was hit by the Florida Sun Sentinel newspaper after the FBI and DHS issued a joint statement that Nelson’s Russian interference claim was false.  Nelson had stated that Russia had infiltrated Florida’s election system, but the claim turned out to be a lie.  Scott’s charge that Nelson may be deeply confused may be a comment about Nelson’s age.  At 75 years old, Nelson is actually only the 16th oldest Senator.

Confirmed: Bill Nelson lied about Russian infiltration

Iran has a “new” fighter jet.  The Kowsar fighter jet is supposedly domestically designed and built by Iran.  There’s only one problem, the plane looks exactly like a US fighter jet from 1974.

Military experts say Iran’s new fighter jet is remake of 1970s US jet

Impeachment? The answer is still no

Michael Cohen is on his way to jail for a very long time.  But as his ship sinks, he and his attorney are grasping for straws to reduce that sentence.  Cohen has agreed to sing if it means a reduced sentence.  But Mueller already passed on a Cohen plea bargain.

But what if everything Cohen is saying is true?  Is Trump in trouble?  According to precedent, the answer is no.  Let’s start with John Edwards.  Friends and megadonors paid nearly $1 million to Edwards’ mistress to cover up his affair right before an election.  The DOJ brought the charge that those were reportable campaign contributions because they were made to benefit Edwards’ campaign and influence the election.  Edwards was acquitted.  The DOJ could not successfully make the argument that those amounts to pay off his mistress should have been reported.

President Obama found himself in hot water after failing to report $1.8 million in campaign donations made through normal channels and for keeping donations that were in excess of allowed limits.  His campaign paid a $350,000 fine, the largest in history, and moved on with life as though nothing happened.

Bill Clinton lied about an affair during a sexual harassment trial that suddenly fell into the scope of the White Water special counsel.  But he was under oath.  He actually committed perjury.  But nothing happened to him.

In Trump’s case, he paid Michael Cohen a retainer as an attorney to represent him and to deal with issues like paying off people he had an affair with.  Does that make Trump a Clinton grade slimeball?  Of course.  Who didn’t know that already?  But even the leftovers from Obama’s DOJ are going to have a hard time turning a $130,000 payment into something they couldn’t get with the million dollars spent on Edwards’ mistress.  Additionally, the liar and singer Michael Cohen, who stated in the past that Trump didn’t know about the payoffs, never had affairs, etc is going to have to provide hard evidence.  So far the Cohen tapes have disappointed in that area.

From our analysis, the only charge Cohen has made that could put Trump in serious trouble is that Trump knew about the DNC hack before it happened.  Even then, knowing about it is a far cry from causing it.  But that could get Trump into enough trouble that a Democrat run House could at least introduce impeachment charges.  They would never get 75 votes in the Senate.  But more importantly, we’d have to see more than the word of a man on his way to jail being advised by Bill Clinton’s personal attorney, Lanny Davis.  Cohen would need to produce a tape of Trump talking about the DNC hack along with timestamp proof that it was before the hack took place.

I’m pretty sure if that existed, we would have heard it by now.  But who knows, maybe it’ll be an October surprise.

Narratives crumble on eventful Tuesday

First let’s talk about media censorship.  As we’ve documented, reporters like CNN’s Jim Acosta went crazy when Trump suggested Fake News was the enemy of the people.  Over 200 newspapers wrote coordinated editorials attacking Trump based on the narrative that he was anti-Press.  But in West Virginia, Trump shot down that narrative by going after social media censors.  “I would rather have fake news than have anybody — including liberals, socialists, anything –than have anybody stopped and censored,” Trump said.  He added warnings about the dangers of censoring opposing viewpoints.

Trump makes statement opposing censorship of any viewpoints, including liberals

The Left is frothing at the mouth over convictions of Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen.  But there’s very little chance it will amount to anything.  The media also seems to be confused into thinking that paying people for non-disclosure agreements of affairs is somehow illegal.  What was illegal was Cohen submitting the payoff to one of Trump’s companies as some sort of expense reimbursement.  For investigators to even begin to think they have a crime to charge Trump with, they have to get evidence beyond Cohen’s unreliable testimony.  But beyond that, Trump can’t be indicted.  He can only be impeached if evidence of criminal activity can be proven.  An impeachment vote won’t pass with the current House makeup and even after November there is no way the Senate will have 75 yes votes on impeachment.

But more importantly, the Russian collusion narrative is once again proven to be dead.  Manafort’s convictions are all for pre-Trump campaign financial crimes that have nothing to do with Trump.  Despite Cohen’s willingness to sing like a bird to Mueller, he had nothing to offer when it comes to Russia.  These two were literally the best hope Mueller had of ever having anything on Trump when it comes to Russia.  Both flipped.  Neither one had anything to offer.  There was no Russian collusion with Trump.

Trump could be in political trouble, but won’t be impeached

In another Russia related story that the media is dutifully ignoring, Rick Scott announced Tuesday that the Department of Homeland Security and FBI informed him that there is no evidence that Russia has infiltrated the Florida election system.  This was a wild and baseless claim made by his opponent Sen. Bill Nelson.  Nelson provided no evidence for the claims, but seemed to be indicating that it was classified.  After being called out on his claim by even the Washington Post, Nelson got quiet but hasn’t apologized for lying.

DHS and FBI confirm Bill Nelson lied about Russian meddling in Florida

Manafort and Cohen Guilty

On Tuesday, Paul Manafort was found guilty on 8 of the 18 charges against him.  The jury was hung on the other 10 charges.  All of the charges were related to Manafort’s actions before working with the Trump campaign.  They included tax and bank fraud and hiding a foreign account.  This was when Manafort was working with the Podesta Group.  None of the charges had any relation to Russian collusion or the 2016 election.

Michael Cohen plead guilty in a plea deal to tax and bank fraud and is facing 3-5 years in jail.  Cohen was Trump’s personal attorney.  While this had nothing to do with Russia, collusion, or election meddling, there is a charge with Cohen that could touch Trump.  Cohen is charged with two counts of illegal campaign contributions related to his paying off two porn stars who had alleged affairs with Trump.  The key here is that in Cohen’s plea he said he was directed by the candidate to make those payments.

If Trump directed Cohen to pay off Stormy Daniels, and then reimbursed Cohen from the campaign, that could be trouble for Trump.  However, if Cohen was paid by Trump’s company as a reimbursement as deputy US attorney Robert Khuzami explained, it could result in nothing more than an IRS issue for the President.  Even then, a prosecutor would have to prove that Trump knew Cohen’s invoice was fraudulent.  Cohen is less than trustworthy as a witness and had great incentive to rat on Trump.

Cohen also indicated that he would be willing to testify to Mueller that Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting between his son and a Russian attorney, but there doesn’t seem to be anything illegal about that meeting even if he did.

The two biggest takeaways from these huge stories is that Russian collusion still has not materialized, but that Trump likely has not been honest about his affair with Stormy Daniels.  That leaves Trump in the same boat as Bill Clinton in 1998, but without the perjury or obstruction of justice.

Need to Know 7/25/18

They can dish it out… Days after Sacha Baron Cohen’s “gotcha” show started airing, Democrats are up in arms over a video poking fun at Ocasio-Cortez.  Cohen’s show puts mostly GOP former politicians in a bad light through trickery, fake IDs, and playing on those individuals tendencies.  For example, to trick Sarah Palin into a gotcha moment, Cohen impersonated a disabled vet.

Allie Stuckey of CRTV figured turnabout was fair play.  Stuckey is known for using humor and satire in her videos.  She made a video of a satirical interview with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, using actual footage from Ocasio-Cortez’s disastrous real interviews where she fumbled on questions about Israel and unemployment.  Dems are not happy.  For example, the Independent complained that Stuckey’s video had gone viral and reached 1.5 million viewers before the Facebook police labeled it as satire.  Others have dubbed the satirical video “fake news”.  Cohen’s show debut only got 700,000 views.

Maybe they are jealous?

Democrats upset about being the butt of political satire

Trump is now the target of an incredible political attack from former Clinton attorney Lanny Davis.  Davis has secret tapes that Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen made discussing how they would pay a Playboy model for her story of an affair with Trump.  Cohen is working with US prosecutors in an investigation that has quickly turned into a Kenneth Starr type hunt into Trump’s past sex life.  Lanny Davis is representing Cohen and delivered the tapes of their private privileged conversations to CNN to air publicly.

New York is a one-party consent state, making the recordings legal.  Trump also waived his attorney-client privilege in the matter because paying off someone for a non-disclosure agreement is not illegal.  Cohen is being investigated for fraud, and Trump apparently didn’t want any shadow of that investigation hanging over him.  So far, Trump has not actually been the target of any of the investigations surrounding his campaign, Russian connections, or Cohen’s potential fraud.

Clinton lawyer gives secret Cohen/Trump tapes to CNN

ICE protesters have a race problem.  It turns out the people who showed up to protest ICE in Portland might be advocating for illegal immigrants, but they hate African Americans and citizen Hispanics.  Emails received by The Oregonian detail conversations between officers on site and their supervisors.  The protesters, according to the emails, barraged the African American officers with hateful language and slurs including the N-word.  Another officer, a Hispanic woman, was called a “weak female” and “traitor”.  “I was berated for so long I can’t even remember everything that was told to me.”

ICE protesters use racism and hate speech in Portland

Need to know 7/23/18

Iran, in trouble with their people and staring down the barrel of new US sanctions, began a tweet war with Trump over the “mother of all wars”.  Trump responded in all caps that Iran’s leaders would suffer consequences few others have.  In the end it’s likely all blowing smoke.  Iran doesn’t have nuclear capabilities and the US isn’t about to go invade another Middle Eastern country.  But the developments continue to show that despite the rhetoric and narrative, Trump has been tougher on Russia allies than Obama was.

Rouhani warns Trump about mother of all wars

Speaking of rhetoric on Russia, Trey Gowdy had a warning for Trump administration officials that they should steer Trump to take Russia more seriously or consider leaving their posts.  Gowdy has consistently chided the Trump administration for not being tough enough on Russia’s election interference, however he has also acknowledged the extreme prejudice shown by Obama’s intel apparatus. In addition to noting that James Comey, James Clapper, and John Brennan continue to show their anti-Trump bias in editorials, Gowdy recently took Inspector General Michael Horowitz to task over his failure to call out anti-Trump bias deeply rooted in the FBI.  Texts from Peter Strzok reveled that the Russia/Trump collusion investigation was an “insurance policy” to “stop Trump”.  But so far, nothing has actually tied Trump to Russia or proven collusion.

Anti-Trump bias in the FBI can’t be put aside

Speaking of bias, the FISA court warrant to spy on Carter Page and the Trump campaign has been released through a Freedom of Information Act request.  This extraordinary release marks the first time a secretive FISA warrant has been released.  It proves two things.  The first is that Hillary Clinton’s paid for political propaganda dossier played a major role in getting the warrant.  Second, that the secret warrant to spy on a US citizen during the Obama administration was obtained simply because there was suspicion that Russia was trying to recruit him.  It’s also important to know that the warrant was issued after Page was no longer with the Trump campaign. Spying on a US Citizen because there is a belief that a foreign power might try to recruit them is likely a violation of the 4th Amendment.

For some good reading, here is Andy McCarthy’s argument why suspicion that someone is being recruited by a foreign government is not good enough to secretly spy on a US Citizen.

If you want to read through the FISA Warrant, you can do that here.

What do Sacha Baron Cohen and James O’Keefe have in common?  Both used hidden cameras to expose the other side.  It’s interesting to see how many lend credence to what Cohen exposes compared to those who dismissed O’Keefe’s videos out of hand  because they felt he was using trickery or deceptive editing.  O’Keefe’s undercover operations exposed massive Democrat voter fraud and routine illegal activities being carried out by Planned Parenthood.  Cohen got a racist Georgia politician to drop his pants and shout the N word.  I wonder if the Left will dismiss Cohen so quickly.

Sacha Baron Cohen gets former GOP lawmaker to make racist jokes