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Stormy Daniels Sues the President

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Segnosaur said:
I suppose you could look at bank balances over time... if the amount of Cohen's free cash was insufficient to cover the Stormy payment until after the bank loan, then you can say at least some of the money for the payment came from the loan.


Well, it may matter if Cohen had to indicate why he needed the loan to the banks. If he wrote something like "home renovations" on the loan application instead of "paying hush money to a porn star" then it might be considered bank fraud. (From what I understand, not all banks ask for that information when applying for a loan however.)
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If it's a home equity line of credit, no explanation is necessary. Such credit lines are useful when one doesn't want to sell of investments to cover a short term need.
 
TheL8Elvis said:
Is your argument that Cohen is a **** lawyer ?
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I would say it is less of an argument and more of a slow realization.

"Wait, so The Wizard is just a man behind the curtain?" some 22 pages after the curtain has been pulled back.
 
Stacko said:
It's really strange that so many powerful companies knew to give large sums of money to a consulting firm that didn't actually do any consulting and had been created in 2016 by the president's lawyer to provide hush money to a porn star. The oligarch's money is eye catching but seeing AT&T and NOVARTIS paying into it as well raises many more questions.
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The depth of the sleaziness is truly something to behold. If this were a work of fiction, it would be scoffed at for being so freakishly implausible. Welcome to House of Cards.
 
phiwum said:
Well, it may matter if Cohen had to indicate why he needed the loan to the banks. If he wrote something like "home renovations" on the loan application instead of "paying hush money to a porn star" then it might be considered bank fraud. (From what I understand, not all banks ask for that information when applying for a loan however.)
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If it's a home equity line of credit, no explanation is necessary. Such credit lines are useful when one doesn't want to sell of investments to cover a short term need.
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It may be true that the terms of the loan required no explanation. But at this point, I am unaware of any publishing of the details of the actual loan itself (whether it was specifically a loan, line of credit, or something else.). That's why I said "if cohen had to indicate why he needed the loan..."

With so many unknowns, so many lies and so many contradictory statements, it may be a while before we know whether this was a relevant point.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Fascinating. Makes me wonder if Avenatti knew at the outset that there was a potential slush fund.

Trump exposed by a payment to silence a porn star: sweet karma. For those unfamiliar with Nixon, he had a slush fund to pay for burglaries and other illegal acts.
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I'd imagine he had a fair idea, and Liverpoolmiss has been pointing out from the start that Muller has recruited a lot of experts in money laundering. Avenatti is no fool and would have been equally as aware.

From Badscience

liverpoolmiss said:
In Watergate, the key crime was the slush fund rather than the burglary. Overlaid on top of that was Nixon's crimes in attempting to obstruct justice - but like Deep Throat said in the All the President's Men, "Follow the money".

Tonight's homework is to rewatch the movie.

It shows how a cashier's check, from campaign funds raised entirely legally by Kenneth Dahlberg, ended up in the account of one of the burglars. Nixon's CREEP (Committee to Re-elect the President) basically diverted a bunch of legal campaign funds into separated bank accounts, opening accounts illegally and distributing the cash illegally. I'm particularly interested in a professional capacity on how these bank accounts were controlled, as it's a good case study to look at the gross negligence by CREEP's Treasurer, Hugh Sloan (generously described by Woodward and Bernstein as the only honest man). Sloan was basically bullied by his higher-ups of Magruder, Stans and Haldeman (who all ended up convicted and jailed).

US campaign finance laws were put in place as a reaction to Watergate. They are very tight, with restrictions on amounts and tough disclosure rule. Anything like running a slush fund is made illegal by a bunch of laws.

But the key weak spot is Super PACs - companies like Novartis or AT&T can make huge campaign donations. The Supreme Court's "Citizens United" disastrous decision was to allow this, so long as the PAC ("political action committee") does not coordinate with the candidate's official campaign. Super PACs are a problem because disclosure is easily delayed until after elections have taken place, plus it's easy to work around the restriction against coordinating with the official campaign. Plus, Super PACS are good for the sleazy mud-slinging side of US politics, as their separated status means the candidate can remain aloof.

However this Essentials fund run by Cohen is not even a Super PAC. It's his own creation, a vehicle that's taking in over a million dollars from companies and a Russian under sanction.

In Watergate, Nixon's CREEP received millions in secret contributions from major American companies, as a fairly transparent pay-to-play bribe - get access or concessions later from the victorious candidate. And if a company was invited to contribution but didn't pay up, Nixon's guys basically told corporations they'd regret it.

These are mafia extortion techniques that Cohen is not unfamiliar with...

Nixon halted an antitrust action against one corporation that gave money to the CREEP slush fund. A milk company that donated cash found its regulations were relaxed after the election.

Do we think it's a coincidence that AT&T's secret payments for "consultancy" to Cohen were followed by various things that would interest AT&T... AT&T is struggling with antitrust issues on its prospective merger with TIme Warner. And net neutrality is another big issue for them. They paid Cohen $200,000 (that we know about) for "insight", they did not publically disclose this as lobbying payments, and they claim it was not for legal work.

None of this was disclosed as campaign contributions.

Maybe it's simple pay-for-play bribes to get access to Trump. But it looks well beyond the normal corruption level. This is a slush fund that took in cash, including Russian cash, and the only known pay out from the fund is the hush money to Stormy Daniels. It stinks. In a way, it will be worse if it's found out to be entirely legal, that it's OK in America for corporations to corrupt politics by funding hush money or channeling bribes to politicians.

The fundamental flaw of American democracy is the corrupting power of big money, fuelling the parties and getting things in return. Secret money is even more corrupting. It's no coincidence, I think, that the Avenatti dossier takes the Trump scandal much closer to Watergate territory than previous stuff about Russian hacking etc.

This is the age-old flaw reappearing. A good old fashioned slush fund. Secret payments to Cohen's Essentials fund, that are then used for the benefit of Trump and the Trump Family Crime Syndicate. This element of the story is most definitely Watergate 2.
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varwoche said:
The depth of the sleaziness is truly something to behold. If this were a work of fiction, it would be scoffed at for being so freakishly implausible. Welcome to House of Cards.
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Except that no one in this current gang of swamp creatures appears to have the competence of an Underwood or Urquhart.
 
lomiller said:
Sure but what is the reason for your proposed objection? Judges take the discovery process VERY seriously. Even the perception that you are stalling or throwing up barriers in the discovery process could net you a contempt of court charge. If you have NO chance of the objection being upheld do not want to send it back to the judge because he/she will not be happy.
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That the case was stayed pursuant to the Judge's order and that the Judge had not allowed discovery to commence, among myriad of other reasons including overbroad and burdensome.
 
Dr. Keith said:
I would say it is less of an argument and more of a slow realization.

"Wait, so The Wizard is just a man behind the curtain?" some 22 pages after the curtain has been pulled back.
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Essential Consultants is represented by very competent outside counsel in the Stormy litigation.
 
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Ah, so that explains why Cohen's team did not object, someone improperly leaked SAR's to Thirsty.

That is why they are riddled with gaps which Avenatti refuses to explain. “...when first we practice to deceive.”

The Treasury Department has already opened up an investigation.

Not surprised that Thirsty used the purloined documents, not in the slightest.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e089f7af2fce.
 
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You know what's really dumb about the chart posted by FastEddieB is that Cohen didn't even bother to try to isolate his hush money activity from the obvious influence-peddling. Setting up separate LLC's for each payer couldn't have cost more than a couple of thousand dollars at a time and kept a single subpoena from exposing them all.
 
Trebuchet said:
You know what's really dumb about the chart posted by FastEddieB is that Cohen didn't even bother to try to isolate his hush money activity from the obvious influence-peddling. Setting up separate LLC's for each payer couldn't have cost more than a couple of thousand dollars at a time and kept a single subpoena from exposing them all.
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well what is absolutely clear is that the chart is clearly misleading, because the withdrawals exceed the deposits, and therefore we know that it tells only the tale that Thirsty wants it to show.

We also know that he did not issue a subpoena, rather it seems clear that he got them as the result of an improper leak, which he refuses to disclose based on 'work product' which I am sure the thread lawyers will shortly tell us is not how authenticity works.
 
Trebuchet said:
You know what's really dumb about the chart posted by FastEddieB is that Cohen didn't even bother to try to isolate his hush money activity from the obvious influence-peddling. Setting up separate LLC's for each payer couldn't have cost more than a couple of thousand dollars at a time and kept a single subpoena from exposing them all.
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Too greedy

Stupid Watergate
 
The Big Dog said:
well what is absolutely clear is that the chart is clearly misleading, because the withdrawals exceed the deposits, and therefore we know that it tells only the tale that Thirsty wants it to show.

We also know that he did not issue a subpoena, rather it seems clear that he got them as the result of an improper leak, which he refuses to disclose based on 'work product' which I am sure the thread lawyers will shortly tell us is not how authenticity works.
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Well, what do your lawyer buddies tell you?
 
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