December 13, 2018: Team Trump Brings Back Full Employment - for America's Attorneys

 

12/13/18: In two years of fighting the sanguine “War on Coal,” Trump and his warrior band have managed to put 2,500 miners back to work.  

On the other hand, these are boom times for the legal profession. I believe the president, alone, has put at least that many lawyers in new jobs.  

Of course, we need to subtract one barrister. Namely: Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal fixer, now unemployed, save for talking to investigators, and likely headed for jail. 

According to Trump, however, Cohen didn’t really commit any crimes.  

Okay, technically, prosecutors charged him with two felonies related to campaign finance violations.  

And Cohen plead guilty to those felonies.  

Yes. True. The judge sentenced him to jail because he committed those felonies – and six others to boot.  

The president simply insists crimes are not crimes.

Someone in this saga is lying. Okay. It's him.

 

Oddly enough, Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, says Trump knew all about illegal payments to two women, Stormy Daniels, and Karen McDougal, to keep their salacious tales out of the press.  

The president insists he never. 

Remember that fact as you continue reading this post.

 

* 

“Do you know where he got the money to make that payment?”

THE PRESIDENT’S PROPAGANDA PALS at Fox News want you to believe their orange boy would never tell a lie, like George Washington with his little hatchet, only not the kind of boy who would grow up and go off and fight for his country. 

Now, both Trump and the Fox crew have to hope you won’t remember the moment last April, when the President of the United States, aboard Air Force One, enjoyed this little chat with reporters.  

QUESTION: Mr. President, did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?

THE PRESIDENT: No. No. What else?

 

Q: Then why did Michael Cohen make those if there was no truth to her allegations?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, you’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney. And you’ll have to ask Michael Cohen.

Q: Do you know where he got the money to make that payment?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I don’t know. No.

Q: Did you ever set up a fund of money that he could draw from?

 

Trump never answered that last question, choosing instead to talk about E.P.A. head Scott Pruitt, who he said was a “good man,” doing a “fantastic job.”  

Here we should give a shout out to Pruitt for his role in helping bring the legal profession to full employ. Pruitt resigned as head of the E.P.A. in July. At the time, even Fox News had to admit Pruitt was implicated in all kinds of swampy deeds: including using E.P.A. funds to hire a GOP media firm to “praise Scott Pruitt.” (Your tax dollars hard at work, cleaning up, not the environment, but the reputation of Mr. Pruitt!) By the time he quit and crawled out of the D.C. swamp, soaked to the skin, and covered in muck, Pruitt was the subject of “13 federal inquiries [emphasis added] into his spending and management practices.” 

 

But – Cohen – we were talking Cohen! Back to Cohen. 

Trump’s personal lawyer soon revealed a tape of Trump talking about illegal payments to the second woman, Karen McDougal. You could listen as Cohen told his boss that he was about to set up a company to disguise the source of the payments. He mentions “David.” “I’ve spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up with…” Cohen continues.  

“So what do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?” Trump interrupts.  

Trump doesn’t interrupt to say, “I never boinked that Playboy Bunny and I’m not paying $150,000 through a shell company to keep her story out of the news to protect my campaign. You know me, Michael. I never bend or break or completely ignore the law.”  

In reality, the two discuss how to make the payment – cash or check.  

 

Trump really said, “Don’t pay!”  

The tape was damning from first word to last. That meant you needed more lawyers to do more fast talking. Rudy Giuliani stepped in front of the cameras and assured reporters that Trump really said Cohen shouldn’t pay.  

That claim makes no sense if you listen to the conversation. Rudy stuck with his cover story and kept sending Trump the legal bills. (For a similarly absurd battle over the president’s actual words, see: 7/17/18.)  

Once the tape was out, the president started rage-tweeting about what a terrible, creepy skunk Cohen had always been! (For a radically different view, expressed by Trump, see: 4/19/18.) 

Unfortunately, prosecutors revealed this week that “David” and his company, David Pecker and American Media, Inc., had signed an immunity deal and also ratted out Trump. Pecker, Cohen, and then-Candidate Trump had in fact met in August 2015 to discuss ways to silence the two women, and protect the campaign, meaning campaign finance violations were almost certainly committed. 

 

* 

AND WE’RE still not done with all the illegal shenanigans. We learn this week that the Trump Inaugural Committee, which raised $107 million (more than twice as much as any other presidential campaign), is also under investigation. 

According to a report by Reuters, citing a story in the Wall Street Journal,  

The early-stage investigation by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office is examining whether some of the committee’s donors gave money in exchange for policy concessions, influencing administration positions or access to the incoming administration, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

 

Naturally, Rudy and Press Secretary Pinocchio went out of their way to point out that the president wasn’t involved with any crooked deals related to his inaugural committee. Rudy claimed Trump was too busy at the time (getting ready to be president) to worry about fund-raising.  

Just for fun, of course, we should point out that the highest paid vendor for the committee happened to be Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, who happened to be a close friend of the First Lady. And Wolkoff happened to cash in and take home $25.8 million for organizing festivities.  

Guess who else shows up in the story!  

Cohen!  

Cohen has a tape of Wolkoff discussing the committee payments. For some odd reason, she expresses concern about a possible audit.  

Reuters continues: 

The Journal said prosecutors are also seeking documents from Franklin Haney, a Tennessee developer who gave $1 million to the inaugural committee and later hired Cohen to help him obtain a $5 billion U.S Department of Energy loan. A loan application by Haney’s company is still pending with the department, the Journal reported.

 

Haney has now hired more attorneys!  

 

Paul Manafort – on a yacht – with a very rich Arab.  

If that wasn’t bad enough, on Friday, The New York Times reported that prosecutors were investigating whether or not illegal payments were made by foreign donors to both the Trump Inaugural Committee and a Trump Super PAC, Rebuilding America Now. At a time in the summer of 2016 when Trump’s campaign looked like it was doomed and donations had dried up, Rebuilding America Now raised $23 million and saved the day.  

As the Times notes:  

The inquiry focuses on whether people from Middle Eastern nations – including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – used straw donors to disguise their donations to the two funds. Federal law prohibits foreign contributions to federal campaigns, political action committees and inaugural funds. 

Thomas Barrack, a close friend of the president, raised money for both groups and he too has now hired a phalanx of attorneys.  

(Am I the only one who worries that this great nation may soon face a critical lawyer shortage?) 

 

Even better, Manafort also pops up in this story. After he gets axed by the Trump campaign (because of dicey involvement with Russian organized crime figures), we spot him cruising the Mediterranean Sea on Barrack’s fabulous yacht. There he and Barrack meet with “one of the world’s richest men, Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, the former prime minister of Qatar.”   

Investigators soon started asking for information from a businessman, Rashid Al Malik, “an associate of Mr. Barrack’s, who heads a private investment firm in the United Arab Emirates.” Mr. Malik also has a lawyer, but that lawyer did not respond to a request for comment from the Times. 

If you are trying to keep track of all the lawyers on your fingers and toes, you realize you need an extra foot. We know that Sam Patten, a well-connected Republican fund raiser, pled guilty to arranging for a Ukrainian oligarch and another foreigner to buy $50,000 worth of tickets to one of the Trump inaugural events, using an American straw purchaser. 

 

In addition, ProPublica, reports that there are signs that the Trump Inaugural Committee was overpaying for services provided by – good grief – the Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C.  

Who handled the payments? The Trump Organization!  

ProPublica picks up the story:  

The inauguration paid the Trump Organization for rooms, meals and event space at the company’s Washington hotel, according to interviews as well as internal emails and receipts reviewed by WNYC and ProPublica.

 

During the planning, Ivanka Trump, the president-elect’s eldest daughter and a senior executive with the Trump Organization, was involved in negotiating the price the hotel charged the 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee for venue rentals. A top inaugural planner emailed Ivanka and others at the company to “express my concern” that the hotel was overcharging for its event spaces, worrying of what would happen “when this is audited.”

 

When ProPublica asked various lawyers for various individuals to comment on this facet of the story, pretty much all the lawyers decided they did not really feel up to commenting at this time.  

We do know from emails that several individuals working on inaugural festivities were nervous because they felt the Trump hotel was overcharging the Trump committee. Ivanka got involved. Eventually, the hotel agreed to cut the price (the original price is unknown) for use of its Presidential Ballroom and meeting facilities to $700,000 for four days.  

In an email to Ivanka Trump and Gates [Rick Gates], Wolkoff, who had previously managed the Metropolitan Museum’s annual gala and fashion shows at Lincoln Center, expressed discomfort with the price.

 

“I wanted to follow up on our conversation and express my concern,” Wolkoff wrote in the December email.

 

“These events are in PE’s [the president-elect’s] honor at his hotel and one of them is for family and close friends. Please take into consideration that when this is audited it will become public knowledge,” she wrote, noting that other locations would be provided to the inaugural committee for free.

 

“I understand that compared to the original pricing this is great but we should look at the whole context,” Wolkoff wrote, suggesting a day rate of $85,000, less than half of the Trump hotel’s offer.

 

To sum up: in a twelve-month period, the Trump 2016 campaign, the Trump Inaugural Committee, the Trump Organization, and the Trump administration have been placed under investigation. Since a two-year probe into the Trump Foundation, based on “allegations of misused charitable assets, self-dealing and campaign finance violations during the 2016 presidential campaign” is ongoing, 2019 promises to be another banner year for America’s attorneys. That last investigation names the president and his children, Ivanka and Eric, as defendants. 

The only adult blood member in the family not likely to usher in the New Year under investigation is Tiffany Trump.

Sorry, the screenshot is nearly impossible to read.

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE 12/20/20): A brief clarification. On further reading, I learn that Wolkoff did not “take home” $25.8 million. She was paid that much but had to pay vendors from that total. When I find errors, I try to correct them.

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE #2 (5/20/22): Following up on this story, during a thorough editing of this blog, we find that all of the following details (revealed by the free press before) have been proven or supported by additional evidence.  I can note proudly, for example, that when Thomas Barrack gets indicted in July 2021, I correctly called that result. And to give you some idea of what kind of grifter crew this might be, his bail was set at $250 million. (In October 2021, the poor fellow did win some easing of restrictions on his movement imposed as part of his bail conditions.) 

We know several other Trump pals, with connections to the Trump Inaugural Committee got busted and sent to jail. Imaad Zuberi, who funneled illegal campaign donations to various Trump organizations was convicted and sentence to spend twelve years in jail, to pay $15.7 million in restitution, as well as pay a fine of $1.75 million. 

Rick Gates, who worked as Tom Barrack’s righthand man on the Trump Inaugural Committee, plead guilty to multiple felonies in December 2019, agreed to cooperate with investigators, and got a light jail sentence in return. (Trump did not pardon him when he had the chance – and this blogger suspects Gates has helped provide evidence against people like Zuberi and Barrack.) 

Elliott Broidy, another bosom buddy of President Trump, also got nailed for selling influence with the U.S. government to rich foreign dudes. In October 2020, he plead guilty to one felony and as part of a plea agreement had to cough up $6.6 million which he had “earned” for his felonious efforts. His co-conspirator, Nickie Lum Davis, received $2.4 million as her share. (And here, we do not want to mix up this plea agreement with the plea agreement Broidy worked out in 2012, involving more illegal millions, and New York State public pension funds.) 

Ms. Davis had already plead guilty, herself, in August 2020, and she had also agreed to give up her earnings – said in court documents to exceed $3 million. 

Broidy, who had served as vice-chair of the Trump 2016 campaign, managed to snag a pardon on President Trump’s last day in office, for reasons unknown. Ms. Davis was not so fortunate. As late as April of this year her lawyers were still fighting to have her plea agreement voided on any legal grounds they might find. 

In May 2022, Trump lawyers agreed to pay $750,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by the Attorney General for Washington D.C., who had accused the Trump Organization of illegal use of donations to the Trump Inaugural Committee, which were then spent (as Ms. Wolkoff had warned in her emails) on events which benefitted only the Trump family. 

In the dying days of the Trump presidency, we also know the Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against Ms. Wolkoff, accusing her of violating a non-disclosure agreement, when she wrote a scathing memoir about her dealings with then-First Lady Melania Trump. 

That suit was dropped, however, in February 2021, after U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered the case dismissed. 

Nor should we forget Allen Weisselberg, Chief Finance Officer of the Trump Organization, indicted in July 2021, for his role in what prosecutors described as a “widespread and audacious” tax fraud scheme. 

Finally, let’s return to the origin story of the large sums of money handed over to Stormy and Karen, which payments seemed to baffle President Trump at the time they were revealed by the “Enemies of the People,” namely the practitioners of the free press. He claimed at the time to know nothing about them – and told a plane full of reporters the same. 

Only he was lying again. When Mr. Cohen testified (under oath) before Congress, and explained how the payoff scheme had worked, he brought along a series of hefty checks, some signed by the president, some by his son, Don Jr.