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It had been a few days-which is a lot for Cohen these days who’s been in the news constantly as late-but we have some more Michael Cohen news: in early 2018-before he apparently did a 180 on the illegitimate ‘President’ he’d previously claimed he’d take a bullet for-Cohen got an offer he couldn’t refuse: $10 million dollars from to Trump donor Franklin Harvey if he could obtain funding for a nuclear power project.

Which reminds us that prior to Cohen’s ‘conversion’ from Trump’s G. Gordon Liddy-I’d take a bullet for the President’ to his John Dean-‘It’s all about family and country-he’s attempted to position himself as the ultimate influence peddler to the faux ‘President.’

“A major donor to President Trump agreed to pay $10 million to the president’s then-personal attorney if he successfully helped obtain funding for a nuclear-power project, including a $5 billion loan from the U.S. government, according to people familiar with the matter.”

“The donor, Franklin L. Haney, gave the contract to Trump attorney Michael Cohen in early April to assist his efforts to complete a pair of unfinished nuclear reactors in Alabama, known as the Bellefonte Nuclear Power Plant, these people said.”

“Had he been paid the success fee, Mr. Cohen’s deal with Mr. Haney could have been among the most lucrative of the known consulting agreements he secured after Mr. Trump’s election by emphasizing his personal relationship with the president, according to people familiar with his pitches.”

Had he been successful. Cohen, of course, wasn’t successful in getting the funding, perhaps due to the fissure in his relationship with the illegitimate ‘President.’

“The president has since severed ties with Mr. Cohen, who is under federal investigation in New York in connection with his work for Mr. Trump and private business dealings.”

Cohen himself is the one who-deliberately-severed the ties when he apparently flipped. No doubt, for him the come to Jesus moment was  the raid on his offices in April after he’d become the subject of a Southern District of NY investigation.

One of the things investigators are looking for-besides the role he paid in facilitating all the payments to women in the Trump campaign-is wether Cohen engaged in unregistered lobbying work in his consulting work for clients:

“Authorities are investigating whether Mr. Cohen engaged in unregistered lobbying in connection with his consulting work for corporate clients after Mr. Trump went to the White House, according to people familiar with the probe.”

“Investigators are also examining potential campaign-finance violations and bank fraud surrounding, among other deals, Mr. Cohen’s October 2016 payment to Stephanie Clifford, the former adult-film star called Stormy Daniels, to keep her from discussing an alleged sexual encounter with Mr. Trump, according to people familiar with the probe. Mr. Trump denies any encounter took place.”

“Neither Mr. Haney nor Nuclear Development LLC ever entered into a contract with Michael Cohen or his affiliate for lobbying services related to the Bellefonte project,” said Larry Blust, a lawyer for Mr. Haney, referring to the name of the company Mr. Haney is using for the project. He declined further comment about the project or Mr. Cohen.

Ok, but did they discuss it with Cohen, did they make him a proposal?

Cohen never registered as a federal lobbyist.

“A representative for Mr. Cohen declined to comment. The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.”

An interesting question is who broke this story? Is this Trump’s flacks punishing Cohen for turning away from the Manchurian ‘President?’

Again, the denial that neither Haney-or Nuclear Development LLC-never entered into a contract with Cohen only tells you so much. That could be technically true and that not mean that the offer wasn’t made-or that Cohen potentially could have received retainer fees.

“Under the contract, Mr. Haney agreed to pay Mr. Cohen a monthly retainer in addition to the $10 million success fee if he could help obtain the funding, including approval of the full amount of the project’s application under a U.S. Department of Energy loan program, the people familiar with the deal said.”

“Mr. Cohen’s fee would be reduced proportionally if he helped obtain less funding than the contract stipulated, according to a person familiar with the agreement.”

What is a fact is that Haney did put in a loan application still pending with the Energy Department and what is also a fact is that Cohen did check in with the Energy Department in the Spring to inquire about the status of the loan and what could be done to speed up it’s approval.

“A loan application by Mr. Haney’s company is still pending at the Energy Department. Mr. Cohen hasn’t communicated with Energy Secretary Rick Perry about Mr. Haney’s project, according to the Energy Department. Mr. Cohen made several calls to officials at the Energy Department in the spring to inquire about the loan guarantee process, including what could be done to speed it up, according to a person familiar with the matter.”

“The Wall Street Journal couldn’t determine how much Mr. Haney may have paid Mr. Cohen, if anything, in monthly retainer fees.”

Again, this was shortly before the raid of Cohen’s home and offices after which he moved away from the faux ‘President.’

What is clear is that ‘success fees’ are frowned upon and seen as ‘outside ethnical norms.’

“James Thurber, a professor of government at American University, said success fees are “outside the ethical norms” among Washington lobbyists and are frowned upon. Century-old court rulings deemed fees contingent on lobbyists obtaining public funds or killing legislation unenforceable and counter to public policy, saying they encouraged corruption, he said. Several lobbyists contacted by the Journal said $10 million was an unheard-of sum to pay a consultant for government-related work.”

The subject of Cohen’s attempts to monetize his relationship with Fuhrer Trump has been reported on previously.

“Manhattan federal prosecutors have contacted some of Mr. Cohen’s other consulting clients, including AT&T Inc. and Novartis AG , the Journal has previously reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Those companies said they paid Mr. Cohen a total of $1.8 million since Mr. Trump took office for his insights into the administration. Both have said he didn’t do any substantial work for them.”

“Mr. Cohen’s work for Mr. Haney included participating in an April 5 meeting during which he helped the donor pitch the vice chairman of the Qatar Investment Authority, Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin Mohamed al-Thani, on a possible investment in the nuclear plant, the Journal reported in May, citing people familiar with the matter.”

The subject of the Trump Russia White House’s relationship with Qatar has been of considerable interest to the Mueller investigation. In particular, if Qatar’s refusal to give Kushner’s father a loan had anything to do with the Trump’s policy of defending Saudi Arabia’s and the UAE’s  blockade of Qatar in May, 2017. 

Question: What does the Mueller Report say about this-does it say much?

Back to the Wall Street Journal:

“Mr. Haney’s company, Nuclear Development, entered into a $111 million contract in November 2016 to purchase the partially completed Bellefonte Nuclear Plant from the Tennessee Valley Authority. Mr. Haney has until November to close on the purchase.”

“A month after the purchase agreement, in December 2016, Mr. Haney donated $1 million to the Trump inaugural fund through a corporate entity, Federal Election Commission records show. He had previously backed mostly Democrats.”

UPDATE: Trump Inaugural Committee is now under criminal investigation to answer the question of how somehow Trump had just 40% of the people who went to Obama’s record breaking Inauguration and yet Trump not Obama took in a record amount of cash.

“In a May 14 letter to Mr. Trump reviewed by the Journal, on which Mr. Perry was copied, five members of Congress urged the administration to finish reviewing Nuclear Development’s loan application, describing the project as an engine for economic development.”

Again, I wonder why this story is breaking now, though. Is it the Trump #TreasonTeam’s way of reminding everyone that Cohen himself is no angel? Very true, though, if he’s been  as Rudy Giuliani says ‘lying for years’ he’s also been Trump’s lawyer for years.

I certainly don’t get how it’s possible Aaron Blake could be at this late date saying Cohen is ‘incidental’ to Russia coordination.

Yes, Cohen certainly wasn’t ‘incidental’ according to the Steele dossier.

Yes remember when Cohen was basing his lawsuit against Buzzfeed on ‘I’ve never been to Prague?’ Then a story hit in April 2018 that Mueller had evidence that he did go to Prague in late August/early September 2016 and ‘incidentally’ Cohen dropped his lawsuit.

UPDATE: As I discuss in Chapter A I’ve come to a conclusion EmptyWheel has long argued for-Cohen was important to Russian interference but not on the collusion side but the quid pro quo side.

End of UPDATE

It’s baffling how someone who’s done as much reporting on this scandal as Aaron Blake could still be making a claim like this in August of 2018.

As for Cohen, the bigger picture is-has he in fact flipped? That’s still not clear and some-like Michael Avenatti loudly does-that Cohen is still angling for a pardon.

Speaking of Avenatti, this I like:

Say what you will about Avenatti-and I don’t know that he’s right about everything-but it is thanks to him and his client in part for the start of the SDNY investigation. Remember when MSM reporters like Aaron Blake said the Stormy Daniels story was much ado about nothing and wouldn’t last more than a day or too? Wrong again.

FN: As I discuss in Chapter A, in time Avenatti’s own personal standing took quite a beating but this doesn’t make the MSM a

But, regarding Cohen, it’s not exactly clear what his game is. He has said and done a lot of things recently that make it sound as if he’s joined the #Resistance-I’ve argued that he no longer sounds like Trump’s G. Gordon Liddy but his John Dean-admittedly Dean was a much better lawyer and seemed more driven by a clear sense of guilt and regret. But it’s not clear if he has flipped on Trump-as legal experts argue it’s a very strange way to go about that. 

“But if this is a potential defendant after a deal, his strategy is a strange one, Daniel Braun, a former federal prosecutor, told Vox. Braun worked in the Justice Department for nearly two decades, first as an assistant US attorney in the Southern District of New York (SDNY), where he handled official corruption and economic crimes, and later at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC. He returned to private practice in 2016.”

“Braun walked me through the process of flipping and how cooperation plea agreements work, particularly in the Southern District in New York, which traditionally makes defendants plead guilty to all of their crimes. He offered some insight into what Cohen might be facing if he’s trying to flip — though Braun cautioned that when it comes to Cohen, and the Mueller case in general, expect a few twists.”

The basic mechanics of ‘flipping’ as explained by Braun are simple enough.

“What it normally means is that somebody who has had some involvement in criminal conduct decides to take responsibility for that conduct and to cooperate with investigators.”

Obviously when someone flips that’s a good thing for the prosecution though it depends on the overall value of the witness and you can reach a point where you have too much of a good thing.

“It can be too much of a good thing. You don’t want to end up cooperating too many people whom you’re investigating. Typically, prosecutors want to do it to the extent it’s useful to advance the investigation and help their case. But you might approach a line at some point you don’t want to cross, if you sign up so many people that you end up cooperating nearly everyone in the case. That’s not always a concern, but it can be a concern.”

In the Southern District of NY a cooperating witness has to confess to all crimes not just the one currently under investigation.

“And in the Southern District of New York, unlike in some other US attorneys’ offices or Justice Department components around the country, the practice is for a defendant to plead guilty to all conduct for which he or she has criminal exposure in the cooperation agreement.”

So if they’re under investigation for one crime and they decide to admit that and explain what happened, before this process is over, the prosecutor will say: “Now tell me about any sort of other crimes that you’ve committed.” Unless it’s beyond the statute of limitations or unprosecutable, they will have to plead guilty to those crimes in addition to the crime that was under investigation.

However, this SDNY practice is not the practice of most US attorneys’ offices; for example, Michael Flynn only had to cop to lying to the FBI.

One other issue with being a cooperation witness: you don’t get to pick and choose what you have to talk about or what you have to be truthful about.

“What the agreement doesn’t say, ever, is that there’s only a certain amount of information that the government will be seeking. It doesn’t attempt to draw lines between what you are willing to say and what you are not willing to say.”

“Yes, and to make sure what they’re getting is fully truthful, that it will be valuable, and that the person is willing to answer any question posed truthfully as the case moves forward. Because if the person is drawing lines between what he or she is willing to say and not willing to say, that’s the sort of thing that can cause testimony to blow up at trial.”

“If you’re going to sign a cooperation agreement as a defendant, there’s a real likelihood that you could end up on a witness stand in a courtroom one day. And if you do that, the prosecutor can’t take the risk that your credibility is going to be undermined.”

“Although I didn’t say that quite right: That’s always a risk. But prosecutors can’t take the chance that you’re going to be up there and suddenly say, “Oh, I’m not going to talk about that.”

Ok, so now let’s move from the general mechanics of plea and cooperation deals to Michael Cohen’s potential deal.

Braun sees it as significant that Cohen is clearly in the crosshairs of SDNY investigators-to have his home and offices searched means the government was able to demonstrate probable cause.

“That seems significant to me, as far as him being in the crosshairs. But the likelihood that he would then flip and cooperate? I don’t know how to make a prediction with respect to that.”

UPDATE: As we saw in Chapter A, Jay Goldberg did.

Jen Kirby

“Could Michael Cohen just be guilty of his own crimes, that have nothing to do with Trump? Or is it likely that he’s in the crosshairs because he has something valuable on someone more important?”

UPDATE 2.0: No, the crimes Cohen pled guilty to-the hush money payments, perjury about how long they pursued the Trump Tower Moscow deal into the campaign-totally implicate Trump-even some those close to him at the Russia House acknowledge Trump is now effectively an un-indicted coconspirator.

And let’s face it-if not for Cohen’s connection to Trump he wouldn’t be of interest to investigators-the question was rather silly to be honest-would Cohen have all this attention if he didn’t have the connection to Trump? Of course with Hillary guilt by association was enough-even if the crimes had nothing to do with her the MSM would still pronounce her guilty if anyone she ever knew was in any trouble at all.

UPDATE: Last night-September 21, 2019-Maddow documented the extent to which Trump and the GOP co-conspirators are up to it again-playing on the MSM’s sense of false equivalence-ok we’ve accused Trump of Russian collusion and Ukrainian extortion, only fair we accuse the Democrats of something we’re going to pretend is just as bad last time it was Hillary’s emails this time it’s the fact that Joe Biden’s son did foreign business. Just did it-no evidence he did anything wrong in his foreign dealings just the simple fact he had them is bad optics. Indeed as even this chapter with Cohen’s attempt to use his connections in the Russia House back in 2017-early 2018 is far worse than anything Hunter Biden has been credibly accused of but the MSM has its narrative-both sides do it. 

Meanwhile you have Dean Baquet’s NYT writing long painstaking articles about Hunter Biden without even pointing out all the conflicts of interest swirling around Don Jr, Ivanka, and Jared Kushner.

End of UPDATE

Watergate prosecutor Nick Ackerman doesn’t buy that for a minute he believes the SDNY is basically Mueller-he folded the hush money probe into SDNY to protect the investigation. 

ACKERMAN: What the U.S. attorney’s office is going to do is they have what’s known as a taint team. In fact, everybody there is going to be part of that taint team because they’re totally separate from Mueller’s group. What they’re basically doing is acting on behalf of Mueller’s group

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Where could this all lead? Do we know what they were looking for in the case of Michael Cohen?

ACKERMAN: I don’t think we really do, I think as a general matter, it probably has to do with the Russian investigation.”

Ok, back to Vox.

The one thing Daniel Braun is willing to stipulate to is prosecutors are unlikely to like the kind of media blitz and leaks Cohen’s been involved in.

“Nope. Not at all happy. Because often prosecutors want to act on information they’re getting, they want to investigate, they often feel that the best opportunity they have to find the truth occurs from investigative steps they can take before the whole world was paying attention. That’s often from a prosecutors’ perspective the best way of finding the truth if they have the opportunity, again, it’s before it’s all the way out there.”

“This is a really unusual situation, where you have information — and I don’t know where it’s coming from, of course. I don’t know if it’s coming from Cohen; I don’t know if it’s coming from Trump. Who the heck knows? But if anybody is even thinking about cooperating, putting information out there like that is really strange.”

“But here’s the thing. This is just a weird universe that you’re in right now. You’re not covering a typical criminal case. When I was in law school, I took a great class called the “History of the Common Law,” and it’s all about the foundations of our legal system.”

UPDATE 3.0: We still don’t know where the leaks come from.

“One of the first cases we read, if not the very first one, was something called Throckmorton’s case. It was a case involving high treason in England. What the professor explained is that, as a historical source, you have to be careful about the conclusions that you draw from looking at that material. Because, as he put it, “When the whole kingdom is watching, things tend to happen a bit differently.”

Indeed, the whole kingdom is most certainly watching.

 

 

 

 

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