Tag: Lanny Davis

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.

Need to Know 7/26/18

There’s a double standard in how the media is treating Democrats versus how they treat Republicans.  I know, you’re in shock.  The latest example is Georgia candidate Stacey Abrams.  In Time Magazine’s “The South is Still Racist” edition, Abrams is pictured as the next rising star of the Democrat party; if only Georgians can overcome their racism and vote for her.  One thing that I found interesting was the coverage of her debt situation.  Abrams is $220,000 in debt.  It’s not mortgage debt.  Abrams owes the IRS about $50,000 and has student loan and credit card debt of about $170,000.  CNN Money excuses this as something everyone has.  In fact, her debt troubles prove she’s a charitable person and helped her develop her economic plans.

Contrast this with Trump’s Supreme Court pick, Brett Kavanaugh.  Financial disclosures revealed that at one point he had over $60,000 in debt, maybe even as high as $200,000.  He has since paid it off.  CNBC’s article on his debt, which some have suggested disqualifies him from the Supreme Court, said “Don’t be like Brett”.  They chided him for how much money he wasted on interest payments.  Of course, Supreme Court justices don’t control state budgets.  Governors do.

MSM: Everyone has debt, just like Democrat Stacey Abrams.  It’s OK!

Also MSM: Don’t rack up debt like Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

The war between Trump and CNN is heating up again.  After CNN aired secret taped conversations between Trump and his attorney, Trump banned a CNN reporter from covering White House events for the day.  Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen is now working with former Clinton attorney Lanny Davis.  Davis provided the secret tapes to CNN and CNN aired them.  The banned reporter tried to ask about the recordings and refused to leave after the press conference was over.  CNN was not banned, but that specific reporter who refused to leave was.

Trump bans CNN reporter after CNN airs secret conversations

Speaking of the Cohen tapes: Clinton lawyer Lanny Davis has promised there are more tapes to come.  But none of them feature Trump.  The Trump legal team made the decision to waive any sort of right to block the release of the tapes because Trump is only in the ones that have already been aired and no crimes were committed by Trump.  Sure, it’s embarrassing to Trump to have tapes out there discussing his private, immoral sex life.  But Trump isn’t going to make the mistake of covering it up, or worse, lying under oath about it.  That was it; it’s all out in the open.  The media may milk it for another week or two, but viewers will be as disappointed as they were when Rachel Maddow found and way over-hyped a page of Trump’s New York income tax return.  The Cohen tapes were a flash in the pan.

Cohen tapes turn out to be a whole lot of nothing for Trump

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