Wednesday, February 27, 2019

THE DETAILS: Michael Cohen to Unload on Trump Today During Testimony: Con Man, Racist

Michael Cohen
UPDATE BELOW: Wikileaks responds to Cohen testimony.

Politico has obtained a copy of the prepared remarks Michael Cohen, President Trump's former lawyer and fixer, plans to deliver today to the House Oversight Committee.

For the most part, they are uncorroborated claims by Cohen--or worse just speculation by Cohen.

If anything, at worst it shows a Trump who flirted with the line but never quite crossed it in any serious manner. But you can be sure the anti-Trump mainstream media will play it up as though Cohen handed the Committee a smoking gun that demonstrates Trump personally shot MLK.

Key snippets:

I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is.
He is a racist.
He is a conman.
He is a cheat.
He was a presidential candidate who knew that Roger Stone was talking
with Julian Assange about a WikiLeaks drop of Democratic National
Committee emails...Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of “wouldn’t that be great.”

(RW note: I have serious doubts Stone EVER talked to Assange)

---
There were at least a half-dozen times between the Iowa Caucus in
January 2016 and the end of June when he would ask me “How’s it going
in Russia?” – referring to the Moscow Tower project...

To be clear: Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow
negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it. He lied about it
because he never expected to win the election. He also lied about it
because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow
real estate project.

(RW note: Big deal, a businessman trying to gain business. And a politician lying about what he is really up to, this is news?)
----

Mr. Trump is an enigma. He is complicated, as am I. He has both good and
bad, as do we all. But the bad far outweighs the good, and since taking
office, he has become the worst version of himself. He is capable of
behaving kindly, but he is not kind. He is capable of committing acts of
generosity, but he is not generous. He is capable of being loyal, but he is
fundamentally disloyal.

(RW note: Trump sounds like a typical politician. We should throw them all in jail--except Tulsi Gabbard)

---
Mr. Trump is a racist. The country has seen Mr. Trump court white
supremacists and bigots. You have heard him call poorer countries
“shitholes.”
In private, he is even worse.
He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that
wasn’t a “shithole.” This was when Barack Obama was President of the
United States. While we were once driving through a struggling neighborhood in Chicago, he commented that only black people could live that way.
And, he told me that black people would never vote for him because they
were too stupid.
And yet I continued to work for him.

(RW note: I don't think this "revelation" is going to result in Trump losing any MAGA people votes.)

----
As previously stated, I’m giving the Committee today three years of
President Trump’s financial statements, from 2011-2013, which he gave to
Deutsche Bank to inquire about a loan to buy the Buffalo Bills and to
Forbes. These are Exhibits 1a, 1b, and 1c to my testimony.
It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served
his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in
Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes.

(RW note: Oh puhleeze, this just shows you how angry Cohen is at Trump. He doesn't have any serious dirt---though the financials are probably problematic.)

---
I am sharing with you two newspaper articles, side by side, that are
examples of Mr. Trump inflating and deflating his assets, as I said, to suit
his financial interests.

(RW note: Sharing two newspaper articles? Is Cohen planning to go into stand-up  comedy after he gets out of the slammer?)

----
I’m giving the Committee today an article he wrote on, and sent
me, that reported on an auction of a portrait of Mr. Trump. This is Exhibit
3A to my testimony.
Mr. Trump directed me to find a straw bidder to purchase a portrait of him
that was being auctioned at an Art Hamptons Event. The objective was to
ensure that his portrait, which was going to be auctioned last, would go for
the highest price of any portrait that afternoon. The portrait was purchased
by the fake bidder for $60,000. Mr. Trump directed the Trump Foundation,
which is supposed to be a charitable organization, to repay the fake bidder,
despite keeping the art for himself.

(RW note: Again further evidence that relative to the size of Trump's business, there was little in terms of financial shenanigans if this is the type of stuff Cohen is coming up with.)

---
I am providing a copy of a $35,000 check that President Trump personally signed from his personal bank account on August 1, 2017 – when he was President of the United States –pursuant to the cover-up, which was the basis of my guilty plea, to reimburse me – the word used by Mr. Trump’s TV lawyer -- for the illegal hush money I paid on his behalf. This $35,000 check was one of 11 check installments that was paid throughout the year – while he was President.

The President of the United States thus wrote a personal check for the
payment of hush money as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign
finance laws. You can find the details of that scheme, directed by Mr.
Trump, in the pleadings in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of
New York.

So picture this scene – in February 2017, one month into his presidency,
I’m visiting President Trump in the Oval Office for the first time. It’s truly
awe-inspiring, he’s showing me around and pointing to different paintings,
and he says to me something to the effect of…Don’t worry, Michael, your
January and February reimbursement checks are coming. They were FedExed from New York and it takes a while for that to get through the White
House system. As he promised, I received the first check for the
reimbursement of $70,000 not long thereafter.

(RW note: Trump is just going to say the money was for something else. For a lawyer, Cohen is not very good at knowing how to protect himself.)

---
When I say conman, I’m talking about a man who declares himself brilliant
but directed me to threaten his high school, his colleges, and the College
Board to never release his grades or SAT scores.
As I mentioned, I’m giving the Committee today copies of a letter I sent at
Mr. Trump’s direction threatening these schools with civil and criminal
actions if Mr. Trump’s grades or SAT scores were ever disclosed without
his permission. These are Exhibit 6.

(RW note: This is hilarious. Trump is a street hustler, likely dyslexic. He is not an academic or a bookworm. Does anyone not know this?)
---

When telling me in 2008 that he was cutting employees’ salaries in half –
including mine – he showed me what he claimed was a $10 million IRS tax
refund, and he said that he could not believe how stupid the government
was for giving “someone like him” that much money back.

(RW note: Well Trump was stupid showing the refund to Cohen at the same time he cut Cohen's salary.)

---
Questions have been raised about whether I know of direct evidence that
Mr. Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia. I do not. I want to be
clear. But, I have my suspicions.

(RW note: So does AOC but she also has suspicions the planet is going to overheat in 10 years.)

---
Sometime in the summer of 2017, I read all over the media that there had
been a meeting in Trump Tower in June 2016 involving Don Jr. and others
from the campaign with Russians, including a representative of the Russian
government, and an email setting up the meeting with the subject line, “Dirt
on Hillary Clinton.” Something clicked in my mind. I remember being in the
room with Mr. Trump, probably in early June 2016, when something
peculiar happened. Don Jr. came into the room and walked behind his
father’s desk – which in itself was unusual. People didn’t just walk behind
Mr. Trump’s desk to talk to him. I recalled Don Jr. leaning over to his father
and speaking in a low voice, which I could clearly hear, and saying: “The
meeting is all set.” I remember Mr. Trump saying, “Ok good…let me
know.”
What struck me as I looked back and thought about that exchange between
Don Jr. and his father was, first, that Mr. Trump had frequently told me and
others that his son Don Jr. had the worst judgment of anyone in the
world. And also, that Don Jr. would never set up any meeting of any
significance alone – and certainly not without checking with his father.
I also knew that nothing went on in Trump world, especially the campaign,
without Mr. Trump’s knowledge and approval. So, I concluded that Don
Jr. was referring to that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting about dirt on
18
Hillary with the Russian representative when he walked behind his dad’s
desk that day -- and that Mr. Trump knew that was the meeting Don Jr. was
talking about when he said, “That’s good…let me know.”

(RW note: Yes, let's throw Trump in the slammer because Donnie walked behind Trump's desk and whispered in his ear. And, by the way, what is wrong with Trump listening to someone who claims they have dirt of a criminal nature on Hillary? Half the country would be willing to listen to that story?)

UPDATE

-RW

5 comments:

  1. My understanding is that there are two ways Trump could've violated campaign-finance laws (neither of which is plausible): (1) That he used campaign funds to pay off Stormy Daniels as hush money. No one is asserting this. (2) That he used personal funds to advance his campaign AND failed to report it, when he paid Stormy Daniels hush money. This is almost as preposterous as #1 above: Clearly paying off his former hose-bag is personal, and not campaign-related (otherwise, any mundane purchase while running for office could be viewed as campaign-related, (e.g. buying an expensive suit, making payments on one's debts, paying one's lawyer to defend oneself from a lawsuit, etc).
    Anyway, campaign-finance laws are stupid, victimless-crime laws anyway...who cares?

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    Replies
    1. Absolutely right, campaign-finance 'crimes' are hardly cause for impeachment, they're too vague they're stupid.

      It's Trump's other financial crimes he should worry about. When Cohen says he's a con man, he's not simply describing the politician who conned a bunch of kunckle-draggin' cretins he is really making America white...I mean, 'great' again. He's describing a criminal.

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  2. Con man and racist? I mean, is this a surprise. Also, show me a president who isn't. I am more concerned about the erosion of freedom by this and other presidents as well as Congress.

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  3. I have not researched this topic but these disclosures really bother me because they are technically a breach of attorney/client privilege. The topics discussed do not rise to the level of an attorney knowing where the client has buried a still living victim who will soon suffocate to death. I understand that Trump waived the privilege so that there would not be endless public brawls about whether the privilege should be extended to each topic at issue. The cheer-leading about these disclosures is horrific.

    Further, it is also horrific to think that having a discussion with Julian Assange could be some sort of crime, and especially that some people think it is a crime. The real crime is that Trump is so spineless and amoral that he is afraid to pardon Assange because of these idiotic accusations.

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  4. So they are off the "Putin's stooge" thing, or is that still in play?

    ReplyDelete