The Porn Star and the President - Part IX

 

The Porn Star and the President – Part IX

(A Story of Lying) 

The porn star and the future president.

IN PART VIII, TRUMP’S FORMER LAWYER, MICHAEL COHEN BRINGS CHECKS TO CONGRESS, PROVING THAT THE PRESIDENT KNEW ALL ABOUT PAYOFFS TO STORMY DANIELS AND OTHERS.

 

3/13/19: We all know President Trump is the only chief executive ever to claim he could pardon himself. 

(That should teach you all you really need to know about the man and his ethics.)

 

Today we have fresh news regarding pardons. Emails between Michael Cohen and lawyers for Mr. Trump have surfaced. 

 

“Sleep well tonight, you have friends in high places.” 

Before diving into this story, it helps to go back to April 9, 2018. That was the day federal law enforcement raided Cohen’s home, office and hotel suite and confiscated his electronic devices. From that moment on, it was clear authorities believed the president’s lawyer was involved in some kind of criminal enterprise. Prosecutors soon charged Mr. Cohen with eight felonies – while also listing President Trump as an unindicted coconspirator, or “Individual 1.” 

Cohen had to find out. Was he going to be protected by his longtime boss and top client, now the President of the United States? 

And his longtime boss had to find out. Would his former fixer still take a bullet for him and clamp his mouth? 

What made this unlike your garden variety criminal case was the president’s ability to grant pardons for federal crimes. Cohen had to be pondering his predicament. Lawyers for Cohen had to be wondering. How could their client make it clear he’d keep quiet if a pardon were coming? How could Trump’s lawyers hint to Mr. Cohen that a pardon would be forthcoming, and how could they make it clear what they expected in return? There has been a good deal of arguing in recent weeks about whether Cohen asked for a pardon first, or whether the president and his lawyers were all but guaranteeing a pardon in return for sealed lips. 

What is not in dispute is that the president has said he would not take pardons off the table (hint: for witnesses who protected him). That means any discussion related to pardons might devolve into classic obstruction of justice.

 

Initially, the president was all in on support for Cohen. Trump made this clear while speaking to reporters from the Oval Office just hours after the Cohen raids:

 

So I just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys, a good man and it’s a disgraceful situation. It’s a total witch-hunt. I’ve been saying it for a long time….And it’s a disgrace, it’s a real disgrace. It’s an attack on our country in a true sense. 

 

On April 21, 2018, Trump signaled again where he stood regarding Mr. Cohen when he tweeted: 

 

So, what were Trump’s defense lawyers, and Cohen and his team, discussing that very day? Recently revealed emails allow us to see. 

“I just spoke to Rudy Giuliani and told him I was on your team,” Robert Costello wrote in the first email. It was one of two from Mr. Costello that popped up in Cohen’s email inbox on April 21, 2018. Costello was a longtime friend and associate of Giuliani and was serving as intermediary between the president’s old lawyer, now in serious legal jeopardy, and his new lawyer, Horndog Rudy, whose full-time job was keeping the president out of similar jeopardy. 

Rudy “asked me to tell you,” Costello wrote, “that he knows how tough this is on you and your family and he will make (sure) to tell the President. He said thank you for opening this back channel of communication and asked me to keep in touch.” 

We don’t know if Cohen responded. But CNN has seen a second, follow-up email, later that day. 

This time, Costello assured Cohen he had spoken with Giuliani and their conversation was “very very positive.” “There was never a doubt and they are in our corner,” Costello continued. “Rudy said this communication channel must be maintained. He called it crucial and noted how reassured they were that they had someone like me whom Rudy has known for so many years in this role.”  

Finally, he added, “Sleep well tonight, you have friends in high places.”

 

So, was this a veiled hint to Cohen – keep your yap closed and you can expect a pardon? If you have an ounce of objectivity, you know it is. Costello, however, told CNN that such an interpretation was “utter nonsense.”  

Well, CNN wanted to know, had a pardon been dangled in front of Cohen, or not? 

Costello scoffed:

 

Does dangled mean that he raised it and I mentioned it to Giuliani, and Giuliani said the President is not going to discuss pardons with anybody? If that’s dangling it, that’s dangling it for about 15 seconds. The first time I kind of danced around the issue because Michael brought it up with me and I told him, “Look, this is way too premature.... But if you want me to bring it up, I will bring it up.” And I did.

 

Premature, yes. 

On the table? No doubt. 

CNN tracked down Giuliani for this story and inquired: What about the “friends in high places” comment? 

What exactly could these friends in high places do for Mr. Cohen – and who might those friends be? 

“That was about Michael Cohen thinking that the President was mad at him [Cohen],” Giuliani told CNN. “I called (Costello) to reassure him that the President was not mad. It wasn’t long after the raid and the President felt bad for him.” 

Yes, the president felt bad for Cohen at the time – just like the president feels bad for Paul Manafort, as of today.

___ 

 

3/19/19: President Trump received a double dose of bad news today. First, he learned that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, his nemesis at the DOJ, would not be stepping down “for a little longer.” 

Second, he had fresh insights which indicated where the Mueller investigation might be headed.

 

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“A veritable smorgasbord of criminal conduct.” 

Judge William H. Pauley III

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Once again Mueller’s team reveals that they already have far more evidence than pundits on cable news can ever guess. Only now do we learn that the first search warrant, asking for Michael Cohen’s emails (dating to January 1, 2016), was filed on July 18, 2017. Two more warrants followed, one for cloud backup files on his phone, the other for emails dating to June 2015. 

We know that Mr. Cohen is going to jail for what Judge William H. Pauley III has called “a veritable smorgasbord of criminal conduct.” But these filings hint that Trump’s old lawyer wasn’t the only one sitting down to dine. We now know that F.B.I. agents received permission to collect “historical location data for two AT&T cellphones, from October 1 to November 8, 2016. This could be highly important, because there have been rumors Cohen traveled to Prague sometime before the election and met with Russian hackers to discuss how to cover up ties to the Trump campaign.

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE (3/22/23): Again, to be fair, this story about Cohen in Prague with hackers has not held up.

 

In all, the court filings total 895 pages, often duplicated in multiple applications for search warrants. But when we come to page 38, we find a section 18 ½ pages long, headed “The Illegal Campaign Contribution Scheme.” This entire section is redacted. What crimes and accomplices are listed beneath those pages, we cannot know. But in Trump World there has to be intense fear. 

The court records include a number of clues. In early 2018 we learn Cohen and his wife took a three month rental on Room 1728, an expensive suite at the Loews Regency Hotel in New York. Authorities decided to include a search of that suite in a fresh warrant. Agents made it clear they were after two cellphones they had been tracking, using a “triggerfish” device, and believed would be found at the hotel. These phones they believed would contain evidence of “bank fraud,” “wire fraud,” “illegal campaign contributions” and “conspiracy as it pertains to other Subject Offenses.” 

Most of the 895 pages relate to crimes committed by Cohen. Still, the depth and detail of information prosecutors have assembled must terrify any Trump aides or family members who may have committed crimes of their own – and that could be just about every other Trump aide and family member, save Tiffany, Barron, and Melania. We learn, for example, that “on or about October 26, 2016, Cohen opened a new bank account for Essential Consulting L.L.C., ostensibly to allow him to operate a real estate investment consulting firm. On January 31, 2017, Cohen’s account received the first of seven checks totaling $583.332.98 from a holding company controlled by Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian national, based in Switzerland. 

That’s right. Throw another Russian into the mix! 

Even before they raided Cohen home, office, and hotel investigators probably had him dead to rights. They knew Cohen used “encrypted communications applications,” including, “but not limited to, WhatsApp, Signal and Dust.” On page 81 of the filings, even the name of the F.B.I. Special Agent involved is redacted. Another section is redacted after an agent claims “there is probable cause to believe that Subject Premises-3 [Cohen’s offices] will contain evidence of the Bank Fraud Offenses.” 

In a warrant application filed on February 28, 2018, a judge agreed to a grant of a “non-disclosure order” for a search of an email account owned by Mr. Cohen. The Court ruled that if the search was revealed it might lead to “destruction of or tampering with evidence or flight from prosecution, or otherwise…seriously jeopardize an ongoing investigation.” Therefore, the warrant should not be disclosed for up to 180 days, “subject to extension” if required. 

The last warrant was issued on April 7, 2018, for permission to search “A Device containing the Results of Three Email Searches.” But that line was crossed out and replaced by hand with “Three Electronic Devices.” An agent, name and title again redacted, explained that based on “conversations with witnesses” and reviews of other testimonies he or she was asking to expand the search, in particular because “there is probable cause to believe that the Subject Devices contain evidence of violations” of federal statutes related to “illegal campaign contributions.” 

Another warrant, this one to obtain information from Cohen’s cellphones, notes:

 

Cellphone service providers have technical capabilities that allow them to collect at least two kinds of information about the locations of cellphones to which they provide service (a) precision location information, also known as E-911 Phase II Data, or latitude-longitude data, and (b) cell site data, also known as ‘tower/face’ or ‘tower/sector’ information.”

 

Then, a few pages later, a seventeen page section is redacted once more. In fact, in one section we learn that “Michael Cohen, a lawyer who holds himself out as the personal attorney of President Donald J. Trump” is under investigation for “violation of the campaign finance laws.” 

Then we have this:

Page with redactions.

We can’t read between the lines because there are no lines to read. 

We can guess that the name of the President of the United States may be currently hidden from view.

May 15, 2018: Lots of Money Laundering and Lots of Russians - Hanging with President Trump

 

5/15/18: What have we learned about the Trump administration lately? We have learned (again) that foreign policy can be a bitch. You move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and Palestinians blow up. 

It doesn’t help when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes it clear Israel always has and always will want to keep all of Jerusalem. 

Also, Israel would like to keep the West Bank for – who knows – maybe another thousand years. 

Or till the Rapture.

 

*

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“We may be a pipsqueak nation, but we are a BIG tax haven.”

____________________ 

 

IN OTHER NEWS, Trump & Co. continue to holler about the “witch hunt.” According to Vice President Jesus, the Russian investigation has gone on long enough! Special Counsel Mueller has been at it a year. 

Since this humble blogger has a brain and can conjure up actual memories, let’s turn back in time to when conservatives loved the Benghazi investigation. That one lasted two years, four months. 

We can go back farther for perspective. Remember when the Whitewater investigation morphed into an examination of Bill Clinton’s sexual misdeeds? How long did that last? Seven years. Or: four years, one month and six days, if you count only the part after Ken Starr took over.  

Remember how Fox News stood up for the right of President Clinton not to testify under oath, how it was a “perjury trap!” 

No, you do not. 

Fox loved that investigation. Sean Hannity wishes it was still going on to this day.

Viktor Vekselberg - estimated worth $10 billion.

You can fairly argue about politics. You can’t fairly argue about the calendar. June 14 is always followed by June 15. The Mueller team continues to go about its work quietly and deliberately. Viktor Vekselberg, yet another Russian oligarch, was recently stopped at a New York-area airport and questioned about payments to Trump’s personal lawyer, Mr. Cohen. 

We know that a surprising number of Russians attended Trump’s Inauguration. Vekselberg was there. Federal campaign filings indicate two of his American partners donated $1.2 million to festivities. Russian pharmaceutical executive Alexey Repik and his wife showed up. So did Natalia Veselnitskaya and Rinat Akhmetshin, two of the Russians who participated in the secret June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower. Russian banker Alexander Torshin also showed. 

Torshin is famous for: 

A)    Joining the National Rifle Association. 

B)     Attending five N.R.A. national conventions, including the one in 2016, where he met Don Jr. 

C)    Possibly funneling money to the N.R.A. to be used in the campaign. 

D)   Reportedly holding the dual posts of banker and “godfather” of a Russian crime syndicate, and specializing in both roles as a money launderer.

 

The Mueller team has also interviewed Thomas Barrack, a close friend of the president. Barrack was chairman of the Trump Inaugural Committee. Anything interesting about Barrack? He was investigated by the Italian government. Prosecutors wanted to know about a complex scheme to funnel money through Luxembourg (motto: “We may be a pipsqueak nation, but we are a BIG tax haven.”). In the process, Italian authorities believe Barrack and his pals evaded $190 million in taxes. It might also be worth noting that Rick Gates (now cooperating with the Mueller probe) worked for Barrack up until the day he was indicted. (See: 6/29/18.)

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE (6/7/2022): In an effort to clean up my blog and make it more manageable, I edit all my posts. With very rare exceptions, they hold up well. Barrack is rich enough to stall justice; but in July 2021, along with two others, he is indicted and charged with a variety of financial misdeeds. 

On July 23, he strikes a deal and is released on bail – which is set at $250 million. 

In January 2022, a judge allows Barrack to fund the defense of Matthew Grimes, a co-defendant in the indictment, to the tune of $2 million. I think we can all agree this is nothing more than a friendly gesture – and in no way designed to ensure that Grimes doesn’t start cooperating with federal authorities.

May 25, 2018: Spygate, Jade Helm, and Other Right-Wing Obsessions

 

5/25/18: Trump can’t let the “Spygate” story go. On late night television Stephen Colbert labels the matter “Stupidgate.” A former federal prosecutor labels Trump’s disingenuous campaign “Liegate.” 

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“The last thing America needs is for its Justice Department to be complicit in this vandalism of democracy.” 

New Jersey Star-Ledger

____________________ 

 

As expected, the president lays out his “case” in a series of idiot tweets. He could stand up at a press conference and explain his concern in detail to the American people. But he’d have to answer probing questions and he’d get mad. Trump hasn’t held a press conference for 461 days. 

Instead, we’re served tweets: 

The Democrats are now alluding to the the concept that having an Informant placed in an opposing party’s campaign is different than having a Spy, as illegal as that may be. But what about an “Informant” who is paid a fortune and who “sets up” way earlier than the Russian Hoax? 

 

Tweet #2: Can anyone even imagine having Spies placed in a competing campaign, by the people and party in absolute power, for the sole purpose of political advantage and gain? And to think that the party in question, even with the expenditure of far more money, LOST! 

Tweet #3: 

“Everyone knows there was a Spy, and in fact the people who were involved in the Spying are admitting that there was a Spy...Widespread Spying involving multiple people.” Mollie Hemingway, The Federalist Senior Editor But the corrupt Mainstream Media hates this monster story!  

 

“Absolute right to do what I want with the Justice Department.” 

The New Jersey Star-Ledger captures the sentiment of that part of the American people still capable of grasping the basic issues in this sordid Trump tale. The Star-Ledger editorial reads in part:  

Confident that he can use the U.S. Department of Justice as his personal chew toy, Donald Trump has again decided that he can trample the thickest red line in American rule of law and that nobody is going to lift a finger to stop him.

 

The president demanded that Justice launch an investigation designed to torpedo another criminal investigation – the one in which Trump is the principle subject, which is probably his most audacious act of obstruction since he fired the FBI director who led another investigation against him. 

 

…this is the same president who said, “I have absolute right to do what I want with the Justice Department,” despite the prevailing consensus that DOJ has operational independence from the executive branch...

 

It’s all very predictable, given the jaw-dropping scorecard of an investigation which Trump has tried to disturb, derail, and delegitimize. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has extracted guilty pleas from Trump’s national security adviser, deputy campaign manager, and foreign policy adviser, and indicted his campaign manager, 13 Russians and 3 Russian companies.

 

Mueller has bagged all that in just 12 months. And he hasn’t even frog-walked Michael Cohen and Roger Stone out of their caves yet, or shown whether Donald Trump Jr. tried to solicit anything of value in all those visits with foreign agents during the 2016 campaign. 

 

…Yet as the special counsel shoves it into fifth gear, the possibilities still seem endless. The last thing America needs is for its Justice Department to be complicit in this vandalism of democracy.

 

* 

MEANWHILE, The New York Times breaks another story. On January 9, 2017, just eleven days before Trump is sworn into office, Michael Cohen, his personal lawyer and fixer (and at the time an employee of the Trump Organization), has another secret meeting at Trump Tower. 

His guests are Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian oligarch, and Vekselberg’s American cousin, businessman Andrew Intrater. No one knows about this tea party until reporters poring through C-SPAN footage notice the two boarding the elevator in the Trump Tower lobby and exiting again half-an-hour later. 

It turns out to be a productive meeting. Cohen gets a $1 million contract to advise his visitors on business opportunities in Trumpistan. Vekselberg and Intrater donate $1.2 million to support Trump inaugural festivities. Vekselberg and Cohen later attend an inaugural ball together. 

You can certainly understand why a Russian oligarch might want to curry favor with a new president, especially one anxious to be curried. With direct ties to Putin, Vekselberg would like nothing better than to see U.S. sanctions lifted. We know, in December 2105, that he attended the same dinner in Moscow where General Flynn spoke. We know Flynn was paid handsomely for his eloquence. We know he forgot to reveal payments from Russian entities as required by U.S. Army regulations. We know Flynn lied to Vice President Pence about another meeting with Russians. We know Vekselberg was stopped at a U.S. airport recently by agents from the Mueller probe. So, if you smell something fishy, your olfactory senses are working. 

This past April, Vekselberg and his companies were specifically sanctioned as a result of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. 

These sanctions led to somewhere between $1.5 billion-$2 billion in Vekselberg’s assets being frozen. 

CNN sent a reporter to catch up to Vekselberg in Moscow. When confronted by questions about payments to Cohen and donations to the Trump inauguration, the Russian oligarch refused to answer.

 

* 

IN OTHER NEWS, Trump straight man, Congressman Louie Gohmert, insists that the president is as pure as the Virgin Mary. Robert Mueller, however, “has protected radical Islamists his whole career.” 

* 

Aliens have taken over the minds of our pets. 

IN OTHER NEWS, Trump straight man, Congressman Louie Gohmert, insists that the president is as pure as the Virgin Mary. Robert Mueller, however, “has protected radical Islamists his whole career.” 

Gohmert offers the theory that the “anthrax scare” which filled the news a few days after the 9/11 attacks, was a diversion. Mueller (then director of the F.B.I.) was “looking for something to take the attention away….” 

In the wake of the terrible 9/11 attacks, media coverage was continuous and profound. No one was “diverted” by the anthrax scare. Most Americans probably don’t remember it even occurred. We all remember that on that terrible day 19 individuals, adhering to a twisted strain of Islam, carried out their murderous attacks. No one “diverted” us from that horrible truth. 

The only people stupid enough to believe Gohmert’s comments are conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones, on the right-wing fringe. These are the nuts who think the 9/11 attacks were a government “inside job.” 

In fact, we know Gohmert spoke at length to Jones on his May 18, 2015, show. At the time, Louie was shouting warning about the Jade Helm plot, wherein the Obama administration was going to send federal troops to invade Texas. How would this invasion proceed? There were tunnels. These tunnels were under Walmart stores that had suddenly closed without reason. When it comes to diversionary tactics, Gohmert earned a black belt in bullshit years ago.

 

* 

CONGRESSMAN Adam Kinzinger, like Gohmert a Republican, unlike Gohmert, a war hero and not nuts, appears on CNN. Wolf Blitzer describes him as “a key member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.” A transcript of their talk includes these relevant details, as always emphasis added, unless otherwise noted. 

BLITZER: We got a lot to discuss.

I want to talk about North Korea in just a moment, but first are you concerned at all by this pattern of connections between people in President Trump’s orbit and these Russians, including oligarchs directly linked to Vladimir Putin?

KINZINGER: No. I mean, I don’t really know what to make of any of this stuff, partially because, as I have said from the very beginning, I – Mueller knows what he’s doing….I want him to complete his report. And then I will make a determination based on what he says….

BLITZER: The president is also arguing that the confidential FBI source who was investigating Russian ties of the Trump campaign is actually a spy and he was actually directed by the Obama administration to undermine President Trump.

Does that make sense to you?

KINZINGER: I don’t know. Again, I mean, all I have seen is what I have seen on TV about that.

And then I have seen my colleagues who have been briefed on this. They came out and said they weren’t overly concerned about it, as you played a sound bite from Mitch McConnell. I have not been briefed on it, so I just don’t know. 

BLITZER: The president’s allies, at least some of them, are clearly ramping up their attacks on the special counsel, Robert Mueller, was for a long time the FBI director.

I want you to listen to what your Republican congressman – your Republican colleague Congressman Louie Gohmert told Judicial Watch. Watch this. 

 

(They watch Gohmert spin his yarn.)

BLITZER: When you hear that, what’s your reaction?

KINZINGER: I know Louie, obviously. I like Louie. He’s a good guy.

 

But I disagree with him in this case. I don’t know what case he’s referring to, but I can tell you with pretty good confidence that Mr. Mueller’s not sympathetic to radical Islam. So I think, if there’s any connection that was made, it’s not because of any kind of sympathy by Mr. Mueller. I trust his investigations. I trust his techniques.

 

Indeed, it is possible Mueller’s final report will exonerate President Trump. If Trump is innocent, that should be clear enough.