Here’s 11 of the 34 counts:
Fun Fact: “Red Finch” is the other $50,000 for which Cohen was reimbursed, and it was for IT services where Cohen got Red Finch to provide a slew of IP addresses so that Trump could rig a CNBC poll about who is the most influential businessman. Because of the gross up, Trump ended up paying $100,000 to rig meaningless online poll.
Very very weak case so far. They are going to have a very difficult time convincing a fair judge and jury that paying a lawyer to pay someone off isn’t legal fees. Paying a lawyer to do something is most certainly legal fees. The were not classified as “rent” or “utilities.” They were “LEGAL FEES.” Cohen was Trump’s lawyer. He was performing a service for Trump.
Cohen on when he was raided by the FBI:
Other than the defense screaming “LIAR!” like they’re Miracle Max’s wife, all statements like these by Cohen are going to be in evidence uncontested.
There’s always a tweet…
Cohen went on to say that statements like this by Trump reinforced his resolve to stay loyal.
[Rudi Giuliani has entered the chat]
Drink!
We’ve reached the 8 Mile “tell them something about me they don’t know” part of the testimony.
Cohen trying to paint himself as a hero here when, in reality, he’s a mob enforcer turning on the Godfarter once he realized he’d been hung out to dry.
Seriously, this section of his testimony sounds like discarded scripts for The Sopranos. Everyone talking in code and refusing to say the name Trump like he’s Voldemort when is obvious to a child who they mean. These aren’t smart people.
There’s always a tweet:
I would hardly call Michael Cohen and a pornstar credible. At the end of the day, paying off someone to shut up isn’t a crime. Neither is paying a lawyer to pay the person off and classifying those expenses as “legal fees.” Very weak case for Biden/Barry.
Horse face needs to pay the money she owes Trump.
What Limey and other liberals forget is what the case is about. The case is about false business entries on Trump’s books that lead to another criminal offense. The NDA with horse face has no bearing on what the prosecution has to prove; which is that Trump was aware of any kind of false entries and did so to commit another criminal offense.
Bottom line, the prosecution has nothing. They were instructed to try to embarrass Trump and make him look bad in order to influence the upcoming election.
Team The People has produced this handy infographic for jurors:
Direct testimony from Cohen is now complete. Presumably they’ll break for lunch and cross examination will begin thereafter.
I can’t tell if you’re deliberately obfuscating the point, but I’ll help you out here:
It doesn’t matter HOW those entries were made in the Trump Org’s books (“legal services”, “expenses”, “office supplies”, whatever). The testimony thus far is that, but for the pending election, Daniels, et al. would never have been paid off (and it was done at Trump’s direction).
The business entries (in whatever form) should never have been booked through and reimbursed by the Trump Org, or Trump personally, in the first place (the state misdemeanor). At a minimum, the payment should have been reported as a campaign contribution… but they couldn’t do that because it exceeds the allowable contribution amount.
All the evidence related to the reimbursement scheme goes to the actors’ state of mind – their intent to hide both the fact and purpose of the hush money payment… which should have been booked under the campaign (the federal felony).
Was Cohen Trump’s lawyer? Did Trump’s Accountant pay his lawyer? Was the expense on the books as “legal fees”? Pretty cut and dry. Democrats want this to be a crime in the worst way but they just can’t turn it into one.
Maggie Habermann outed as a Trump mouthpiece in Cohen’s direct testimony.
Texts from Michael Cohen to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman show how former President Trump’s ex-fixer worked to protect Trump from scrutiny over the hush money payment central to his ongoing criminal trial.
“Please start writing and I will call you soon,” Cohen wrote Haberman on Feb. 6, 2018, texts entered as evidence in Trump’s criminal case show.
Cross examination started well:
Trying to manufacture a mistrial right from the off, it seems.
Boy, that’s some evidence.
At the time he paid Daniels, Cohen was a Trump Organization employee (a VP, not in the legal department), drawing a salary. He was not outside counsel and did not bill the Trump org or Trump personally for legal fees. He did not become “Trump’s personal lawyer” until 2017.
If this was all above-board, the Trump Org would have reimbursed the payment as an employee expense… dollar-for-dollar. Instead, they waited until AFTER the election to devise this reimbursement scheme, in which Trump/Weisselberg/McConney said “ok, we know you need to be repaid, so now you’re going to be Trump’s personal lawyer” and directed Cohen to submit monthly invoices for “legal services” from Jan - Dec 2017, to recover an expense incurred in Oct. 2016… paying him 200% of the payoff amount to cover his taxes.
They did not (and likely could not) book the Daniels payoff as a 2016 Trump Org business expense… because Daniels was paid to help get Trump elected president (at Trump’s direction and in coordination with the campaign), not for the benefit of the Trump Org.
They couldn’t write it off as a business expense, because it wasn’t one. They couldn’t write it off as a campaign expense - which it was - because it would have been an illegal contribution by Michael Cohen (over the limit). So they came up with a scheme to pass it off as fake legal expenses and then wrote down how they were going to do it.
All of this could have been avoided if Trump had simply opened his wallet and paid Daniels $130,000 directly. It would still have been a campaign contribution, but there’s no limit on how much money a candidate can contribute to their own campaign. If Trump had just paid it and reported it to the FEC in the next quarter’s filing, that would likely have been the end of it.
Yep… and by the time all this was going down, Trump had already started a re-election campaign/committee, and didn’t want any of this stink carrying forward, so he just decided to pin it all on Cohen as a rogue actor (despite repaying him, two-fold).
