FBI raids Michael Cohen's office

[AmazonGrace]

Thread with clips from the memo: 

 

They're saying Trump directed Cohen to commit felonies. 

And that he's not telling the truth about ALL of his crimes. 

[fraurosena]

Lawfare has the whole sentencing memo:

Document: U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and Special Counsel's Office File Michael Cohen Sentencing Memo

It's 40 pages long. Looks like I've got some reading to do...

[AmazonGrace]

 

Edited December 7, 2018 by AmazonGrace

[fraurosena]

From the very first page of the memo. This does not bode well for Cohen. 

Cohen, an attorney and businessman, committed four distinct federal crimes over a period of several years. He was motivated to do so by personal greed, and repeatedly used his power and influence for deceptive ends. Now he seeks extraordinary leniency - a sentence of no jail time - based principally on his rose-colored view of the seriousness of the crimes; his claims to a sympathetic personal history; and his provision of certain information to law enforcement. But the crimes committed by Cohen were more serious than his submission allows and were marked by a pattern of deception that permeated his professional life (and was evidently hidden from the friends and family who wrote on his behalf).

Be aware that this is NOT Mueller's memo, but that of the SDNY.

Also from the memo:

To be clear: Cohen does not have a cooperation agreement and is not receiving a Section 5K1.1 letter either from this Office [SDNY] or the SCO [Special Counsel’s office], and therefore is not properly described as a “cooperating witness,” as that term is commonly used in this District.

Wow. 

[…]the applicable United States Sentencing Guidelines range is 51 to 63 months’ imprisonment.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

Conclusion to the SDNY memo:

[…] Every defendant in every criminal case has the right to fight the charges against him. But where, as here, the evidence of their guilt is overwhelming, defendants often make the choice to plead guilty. After cheating the IRS for years, lying to banks and to Congress, and seeking to criminally influence the Presidential election, Cohen’s decision to plead guilty - rather than seek pardon for his manifold crimes - does not make him a hero.

Especially the manifold meanings of that last sentence are noteworthy.

Edited December 7, 2018 by fraurosena
SDNY

[fraurosena]

Here's a link to the complete Mueller memo:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5453461-Sentencing-Submission.html

As I'm reading it, the bolded and underlined part of this footnote jumped out at me:

This initial meeting with the SCO, on August 7, 2018, was set up at Cohen’s request. In that meeting, Cohen voluntarily provided information relevant to other aspects of the SCO’s ongoing investigation, but when asked about the Moscow Project, Cohen provided false answers in what he later explained was an effort not to contradict his congressional testimony.

This implies that "the Company" had contacts with Russian interests about other things than the Moscow project during the course of the campaign:

The defendant has accepted responsibility […] for his broader efforts through public statements and testimony before Congress to minimise his role in, and what he knew about, contacts between the Company and Russian interests during the course of the campaign.

I take this to mean that Mueller has evidence that the Trump Organization had contacts with Russian interests about influencing the elections.  That is HUGE.

[fraurosena]

Also very important and revealing:

The defendant’s assistance has been useful in four significant respects.

First the defendant provided information about his own contacts with Russian interests during the campaign and discussions with others in the course of making those contacts.  […]

Second, Cohen provided the SCO with useful information concerning certain discrete Russia-related matters core to its investigation the the obtained by virtue of his regular contact with Company executives during the campaign.

Third, Cohen provided relevant and useful information concerning his contacts with persons connected to the White House during the 2017 -2018 time period.

Fourth, Cohen described the circumstances of preparing and circulating his response to the congressional inquiries, while continuing to accept responsibility for the false statements contained within it. 

The second point is especially significant, as it indicates that Company executives had dealings with Russia-related matters core to Mueller's investigation (obstruction of justice and Russian election interference).

This is very, very bad news for Junior and his siblings.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

Wut, does the handbag come with a convertible or what 

 

[formergothardite]

What was he doing for an assisted living company that he didn't want to report it? 

[CTRLZero]

2 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

does the handbag come with a convertible or what

Was this to accessorize Manafort's ostrich jacket? 

[AmazonGrace]

Cohen's lawyer urged the court to consider his life of good works. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/live-blog/2018-12-11/former-trump-lawyer-michael-cohen-sentencing#5C11335668B40000

what, he's never eaten a puppy? 

Quote

Petrillo is responding to New York prosecutors' comments about the seriousness of Cohen's crimes, saying that the "court is not dealing with a mastermind of tax deception."

Your honor, please be lenient because my client is a dumbass. 

Quote

 

"The faster I am sentenced the sooner I can return to my family," Cohen said in trying to explain why he chose not to invest the time needed to secure a full cooperation agreement.

"I do not need a cooperation agreement in place to do the right thing," Cohen says, while appearing to hold back tears.

 

Call me cynical but I think he didn't want to sign a paper that would probably require him to tell them about all of his crimes, even the ones they didn't already know about. 

[Cartmann99]

On 12/8/2018 at 7:22 AM, AmazonGrace said:

Wut, does the handbag come with a convertible or what 

Birkin bags start at around $10,000 and the super fancy ones go for more than $100,000.

You know what they say about fools and their money...

[SilverBeach]

https://theslot.jezebel.com/michael-cohen-sentenced-to-3-years-in-prison-1831044135

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is an interesting analysis: "The Daily 202: Six key quotes from Michael Cohen’s sentencing – and why his ‘dirty deeds’ matter"

Spoiler

THE BIG IDEA: The bear in the woods has become an elephant in the room. It’s easy to grow numb to the drip, drip, drip of daily developments in L’Affaire Russe. But taken together they form quite a stippling. And what happened in a Manhattan courtroom on Wednesday is momentous.

After Michael Cohen requested that he avoid prison because of his assistance to special counsel Bob Mueller, a federal judge sentenced President Trump’s longtime attorney to three years and ordered him to pay about $2 million.

The system worked. In many countries, a sitting president’s former consigliere, campaign chairman, deputy campaign chairman, national security adviser and foreign policy adviser would not get charged with crimes – let alone go to jail for them. But no one should be above the law in America. Each has now copped to felonious misconduct as part of a plea deal or, in the case of Paul Manafort, been found guilty by a jury of his peers.

But, but, but: Just because law enforcement and the independent judiciary have functioned as the founders intended so far doesn’t mean they will continue to do so. Trump won’t pardon Cohen because he feels betrayed by him, but he could pardon others to reward them for staying loyal. Longtime confidant Roger Stone has not been charged with a crime, but the president recently praised him publicly for saying he’ll never testify against him. Trump has even maintained that he has “the absolute right” to pardon himself.

If his son or son-in-law found themselves in legal jeopardy, would the president still let the justice system run its natural course? Critics remain worried that Trump or his appointees at the Justice Department could move to rein in Mueller, in ways big or small. It’s also possible that the special counsel’s report could be concealed from the public. There’s also a chance that, if it becomes public and if it outlines wrongdoing, Congress would choose not to act on it. For example, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) continues to block a vote on bipartisan legislation designed to protect Mueller that would almost certainly pass the Senate if he allowed it to come up on the floor.

Cohen had already pleaded guilty when he flipped on Trump this summer, but his sentencing hearing was nonetheless striking. Here are six intriguing quotes stemming from the session – and why they matter:

1. Cohen: “Time and time again, I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds.”

The president’s lawyer expressed regret for his “blind loyalty” to Trump, which she said led him “to choose a path of darkness over light.” He sought to present himself as a victim who fell under the spell of a billionaire developer – and who has faced his wrath for cooperating with the federal government.

“For months now, the president of the United States, one of the most powerful men in the world, publicly mocks me, calling me a rat and a liar, and insists that the court sentence me to the absolute maximum time in prison,” he told the judge as he pleaded for leniency. “Not only is this improper, it creates a false sense that the president can weigh in on the outcome of judicial proceedings that implicate him.”

2. Mueller deputy Jeannie Rhee: “Mr. Cohen has sought to tell us the truth, and that is of utmost value to us.”

Rhee, speaking for the special counsel, told the judge that Cohen “has endeavored to account for his criminal conduct in numerous ways” by providing “credible and reliable information about core Russia-related issues under investigation.”

“That is worrisome for Trump,” Matt Zapotosky and Devlin Barrett report from New York. “But, as it has throughout the investigation, Mueller’s team held its cards close. … Rhee said she could not go into detail about the ongoing Russia investigation but said Cohen was ‘helpful’ to the probe. Cohen, she said, was ‘careful to note what he knows and what he doesn’t know.’ … Mueller’s prosecutors did not recommend any particular punishment in their case but said he should not serve any additional prison time beyond his sentence in the New York case.”

3. The National Enquirer’s parent company acknowledged paying hush money to a woman who alleged an affair with Trump to “suppress the woman’s story” and “prevent it from influencing the election.”

This came out yesterday as part of a non-prosecution agreement between federal prosecutors and American Media Inc., which owns the tabloid. The filing, signed back in September but not made public until now, reveals that Cohen “and at least one other member of the campaign” met with David Pecker, who controlled the Enquirer, in August 2015: “At the meeting, Pecker offered to help deal with negative stories about that presidential candidate’s relationships with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided. Pecker agreed to keep Cohen apprised of any such negative stories.” Was the other person Trump himself?

“In the agreement, AMI said it would cooperate with prosecutors and admitted it paid $150,000 to Karen McDougal before the 2016 election to silence her allegations of an affair with Trump,” Sarah Ellison and Paul Farhi report. “Prosecutors also allege that Pecker and AMI played a key role in the effort to silence [Stormy] Daniels. One month before the election in 2016, after an agent for Daniels informed National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard that Daniels intended to tell her story publicly, Pecker and Howard contacted Cohen. Soon after, Cohen negotiated a $130,000 deal to buy Daniels’s silence. The agreement suggests that Pecker, who has a long-standing relationship with Trump, is of ongoing use to prosecutors. ‘Pecker has a deep industrial knowledge of how Trump and Cohen operated,’ said one former Enquirer staffer.”

In a separate filing last Friday, the U.S. attorneys for the Southern District of New York directly implicated Trump in the illegal payments: "In particular, and as Cohen himself has now admitted, with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1.”

4. Donald Trump: “I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law.”

That’s the opening of a three-part tweetstorm this morning. He said that the payments, which he initially denied knowing about at all, weren’t meant to influence the campaign and that they were private transactions.

Trump has told people close to him in recent days that he is alarmed by the prospect of being impeached, NBC News reports this morning: “‘The entire question about whether the president committed an impeachable offense now hinges on the testimony of two men: David Pecker and Allen Weisselberg, both cooperating witnesses in the SDNY investigation,’ a close Trump ally told NBC News. Weisselberg is the chief financial officer for Trump organization who was allegedly in the center of the hush money operation. He was reportedly granted immunity for his testimony.”

5. U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III: “Our democratic institutions depend upon the honesty of our citizenry in dealing with the government.”

The judge described Cohen’s misdeeds – including lying to a bank, lying to Congress and lying to the IRS – as a “veritable smorgasbord of criminal conduct.” He said it’s good Cohen cooperated, but that he “should have known better” because he was a trained lawyer. Pauley told the defendant that “a significant term of imprisonment is fully justified … to send a message.”

The judge then called out Cohen specifically for making false statements to the Senate Intelligence Committee last year about the status of negotiations with Russians regarding a potential Trump Tower real estate project in Moscow. “Mr. Cohen’s crimes implicate a far more insidious crime to our democratic institutions, especially in view of his subsequent plea to making false statements to Congress,” he said.

Josh Campbell, who previously served as a supervisory special agent with the FBI and a special assistant to the bureau's director, pointed to the host of crimes Cohen accepted guilt for. “As a former investigator, I see the Cohen affair's most damning revelation to be the President's knowing and longtime association with a criminal, not that the criminal in question pleaded guilty to a crime that directly implicates the President of the United States (as disturbing as that is),” he writes for CNN. “If you or I were attempting to carry out a crime, we would likely have a very hard time finding other people to join our effort. Most of us don't associate with crooks. Apparently, not so with Trump. When faced with an embarrassing situation that might threaten his candidacy, all he had to do was turn to a close confidante in his orbit.”

6. Cohen attorney Lanny Davis: “At the appropriate time, after Mr. Mueller completes his investigation and issues his final report, I look forward to assisting Michael to state publicly all he knows about Mr. Trump.”

Davis, who also defended Bill Clinton during impeachment, sent a statement to reporters saying he’ll no longer represent Cohen as a lawyer now that sentencing is complete, but he said he will continue to serve as a “communications adviser.” Davis then made clear that Cohen is not going away, even after he reports to prison on March 6 in Otisville, N.Y. He said that Cohen wants to talk with “any appropriate congressional committee interested in the search for the truth and the difference between facts and lies.”

There’s certainly interest among Democrats on Capitol Hill to hear what he has to say. Among other things, Cohen served as the national deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee until June 20.

“Cohen’s sentencing clears a path for Congress to uncover the truth,” writes former Justice Department attorney John Barrett, an associate counsel under Iran-contra Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh, in a new op-ed. “Now that the criminal justice system is done with him, Congress can gather that information — plus the testimony of others whom Justice is done with — without impairing criminal law enforcement. This sequencing — the Justice Department going first and then Congress investigating — offers a unique opportunity for oversight, accountability and public information about criminal conduct close to the White House and potentially involving the president. … [Cohen] can be brought from his cell to Capitol Hill. And Congress can, if necessary, get a court order compelling him to testify.”

-- Flashback: There’s a tweet for everything. Almost exactly three years ago, Cohen trolled Hillary Clinton by joking that her room and board would be free when she went to prison for perjury. Since pleading guilty, including to perjury, he’s deleted this tweet:

...

 

[AmazonGrace]

Once a grifter always a grifter 

 

He could have told the truth any time he was interrogated for free

[AmazonGrace]

No one told him not to lie under oath.   

Womp womp he was a lawyer he oughta been able to figger it out.

Any time Lanny Davis goes out of his way to defend Cohen he looks worse.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

Yet another claim from the Steele dossier proven to be true. And remember, Cohen lied to Congress about this, vehemently denying he had ever been to Prague. As it isn't just a federal crime to lie to Congress while under oath — considered the “general perjury" statute — it’s also illegal to make false statements to Congress even if you're not under oath, and Cohen has already pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow project, I'm curious if he can/will be prosecuted for each lie separately or not.

[fraurosena]

The consequences of confirmation of Cohen's Prague visit could be very far-reaching indeed.

From the article:

Quote

Upon this issue hinge the fate and future of Donald J. Trump, his family, and his presidency. The president either secretly colluded with the Kremlin to win the White House, an act of high treason without precedent in American history, or he is the victim of an insidious smear of Russian origin designed to destroy him and his administration.

Bob Mueller and his seasoned investigators know the truth regarding Cohen-in-Prague. For the good of the country, we should hope they will be sharing their findings on this all-important issue with the public, in some form, sooner rather than later. My spy friends and former colleagues inside the Beltway are leaning towards sooner.

 

Edited December 27, 2018 by fraurosena
removing a superfluous the

[AmazonGrace]

Does he need witness protection? 

 

YIKES this will be an open public hearing. 

[fraurosena]

Ok, February 7 is marked on my calendar.

How frenzied will the presiduncial tweets be in the days leading up to Cohen's testimony? 

[formergothardite]

Trump is going to lose it and the entire country will stop to watch this!