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Like they say in court ‘Asked and answered, James Comey.’ After illegitimate President Trump attempted to threaten James Comey-after he had just fired him-with the prospect there may be tapes of their conversations Comey in a tweet that achieved instant fame responded ‘Lordy, I hope there are tapes.’

The tapes Trump had hinted at never turned up-wow Trump lying, there’s something you don’t see everyday(!) Though on the other hand maybe there are tapes but he knows they wouldn’t help him-Nixon’s biggest mistake was that he taped his conversations about spying on political enemies and plans to obstruct justice.

UPDATE: Turns out the real tapes for Trump might be that phone call to Ukraine on extorting them to investigate Joe Biden.

UPDATE 2:

End of UPDATE-place at bottom?

But not to worry, there are tapes in the person of Michael Cohen. Say this for Michael Avenatti-a lot of what he has said has come to pass. He had warned that Cohen is a hoarder of documents and messages-he throws nothing out. Though maybe he had no plans to throw this out. For awhile he acted like he might be Trump’s G. Gordon Liddy-who went to prison for 5 years to protect Nixon. He famously claimed he’d take a bullet for the faux ‘President.’

FN: Yes I know Avenatti didn’t come out looking too good on a personal level but he was-or at least his client was-integral to Cohen going to prison and Trump becoming an unindicted co-conspirator and many of his early predictions look good. For her part Stormy Daniels and he have had a falling out but the big picture is the MSM totally missed the importance of the Stomry Daniels story-they thought it would be a one day story-chapter A for more.

Those same not so savvy pundits now harp on Avenatti’s personal foibles but no matter how dubious his character may very well be the real story is how they missed the importance of the Stormy Daniels hush money payments.

Indeed this has been part of a much larger failure by the  Dan Baquet MSM during Trump’s illegitimate ‘Presidency’-set up largely by the awful coverage of this very Dean Baquet MSM during the 2016 election. While they tried to bury Stormy Daniels under the mistaken guise it was just about sex-which is only a scandal if it involves the Clintons-they have similarly buried stories when the sex was coerced-the many accusations of Trump’s sexual misconduct-harassment and assault.

End of FN

During the election there was a story that Trump raped a woman when she was only 13. The MSMers refused to say a word about it under the pretext that they couldn’t because she wouldn’t publicly speak and identify herself-thereby enabling Trump’s Deplorable supporters-and legal team-to target and intimidate her. I believe it was a pretext-are you telling me a story about Bill Clinton would have been smothered just a week before the election? Comeygate proves otherwise.

But here in 2019 we’ve had women come forward publicly to accuse him of coercion and assault-a woman who worked for his campaign accuses him of forcibly kissing her and then the story of the journalist who publicly asserts he raped her in 2012 and the unsavvy both of these stories go away within a week. After all nobody in the heartland cares if he ‘s a sexual predator presumably-that was litigated in the 2016 the pundits pontificate sagely.

End of FN

Now he is talking about ‘family and country.’ Clearly his instincts of self preservation are kicking in with the clear prospect of prison. A lawyer friend of Trump’s, Jay Golberg, was on Ari Melber last night. He said that in his time he’s seen very few willing to actually go to prison. Indeed he said he’s seen nobody willing to go but we do have one example-G. Gordon Liddy.

Goldberg turned out to be pretty prescient on Cohen-he had given him a 1 out of 100 on the loyalty scale though Manafort turned out to be pretty much a 100/100-he’s going to prison for as much as 19-25 years-for more see Chapter A.

FN: He ended up with only 7 and a half for those federal charges though he’s in the middle of a state trial. It’s clear that the only thing Manafort is playing for is a pardon-of course, a state conviction can’t be pardoned.

While Manafort was integral to Russia if you’re listening-on both the Russian Collusion and Russian Quid Pro Quo side-Michael Cohen OTOH was integral to solely the Quid Pro Quo side-EmptyWheel has some recent work on how integral he was also to Ukraine if you’re listening including to the wrongful firing of the Ukrainian Ambassador.

Cohen though is pretty clear he doesn’t want to be Trump’s G. Gordon Liddy. And it turns out his instincts for self preservation haven’t emerged out of nowhere-why else did he tape the conversations with Trump about paying off Karen McDougal?

“President Trump’s longtime lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, secretly recorded a conversation with Mr. Trump two months before the presidential election in which they discussed payments to a former Playboy model who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump, according to lawyers and others familiar with the recording.”

The FBI obtained the tapes in their raid of Michael Cohen back in April.

With this bombshell Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani-I italicize him as it’s nuts that he is Trump’s lawyer as he’s his fellow person of interest in Russia collusion-and also a subject of the FBI’s investigation into leaks by the rogue Trump agents in October, 2016-is trying to spin this as good news for Illegitimate ‘President Trump.’ 

FN: Of course Rudy has emerged as the co-conspirator of the hour in Ukraine if you’re listening; after the election Trump had wanted him for his Secretary of State-while at the time wiser heads than Trump’s prevailed among his staff-it turns out not my America’s Mayor was the de facto SOS all along. 

End of FN.

But like Michael Avenatti said last night, it’s never good news when you’ve been taped without your knowledge. Additionally, it catches Trump and his lawyers in another clear lie.

 

Back to the NY Times:

“The recording’s existence appears to undercut the Trump campaign’s denial of any knowledge of payments to the model. It further draws Mr. Trump into questions about tactics he and his associates used to keep aspects of his personal and business life a secret. And it highlights the potential legal and political danger that Mr. Cohen represents to Mr. Trump. Once the keeper of many of Mr. Trump’s secrets, Mr. Cohen is now seen as increasingly willing to consider cooperating with prosecutors.”

It’s been said that the Trump team fears the SDNY investigation into Cohen more than Mueller’s probe. This is actually a misnomer as in truth there is no daylight between the Russia probe and the Michael Cohen probe. Mueller folded out the Cohen investigation as it would give it more freedom of movement-so that even if Mueller were fired, even if the Russia probe were stopped, the SDNY investigative machine would continue to whir. But the Trump team is quite right to fear Cohen.

FN: Of course, soon after Coverup AG Barr got to Justice the hush money payment probe was abruptly shutdown. 

End of FN

“Mr. Giuliani said there was no indication on the tape that Mr. Trump knew before the conversation about the payment from the Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., to Ms. McDougal.”

“Nothing in that conversation suggests that he had any knowledge of it in advance,” Mr. Giuliani said. The recording cuts off, according to three people familiar with it, and it is not clear how the discussion ended.

But Rudy contradicted himself in his own statement.

“Mr. Giuliani initially indicated the men discussed a payment from Mr. Trump to Ms. McDougal — separate from the Enquirer’s payment — to buy her story. Later, he said Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen had actually discussed buying the rights to Ms. McDougal’s story from the Enquirer. Such a move would have effectively reimbursed the newspaper for its payments to her, though Mr. Giuliani disputed that characterization.”

“That payment was never made, Mr. Giuliani said, adding that Mr. Trump had told Mr. Cohen that if he were to make a payment related to Ms. McDougal, to write a check rather than send cash, so it could be properly documented.”

This claim that the ‘payment was never made’ sounds an awful lot like the kind of ‘But I didn’t inhale’ excuse that Donald Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort and friends used regarding the Trump Tower meeting in June, 2016 with the Russians. Even if it’s true it’s far from completely exculpatory and it begs the question-why light up if you’re not going to inhale?

And, in point of fact,  it’s possible did inhale Trump Tower meeting perhaps the promised dirt on Clinton turned out to be DCLeaks.

Cohen’s team disputes Giuliani’s characterization.

“A person close to Mr. Cohen disputed Mr. Giuliani’s description of the discussion over how to pay A.M.I. for the rights to Ms. McDougal’s story and suggested the tape would back up Mr. Cohen.”

But at the most basic level, the question regarding the Cohen tapes is the same as that begged with the Trump Tower meeting: why lie if you have nothing to hide?

“Neither of Mr. Giuliani’s descriptions of the conversations explains why, when The Wall Street Journal revealed the existence of the A.M.I. payment days before the election, Mr. Trump’s campaign spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, said, “We have no knowledge of any of this.” She said Ms. McDougal’s claim of an affair was “totally untrue.”

Now another question is: who leaked the Cohen tapes? It seems clear it isn’t the prosecutors. Indeed, Rachel Maddow argued last night that it was the Trump lawyers who are trying to maybe thwart the ability of prosecutors to use this in court by somehow establishing some kind of privilege.

I’m still not sure it wasn’t the Cohen team. In any case as noted above this in no way exculpates Adolf Trump-quite the opposite.

Mr. Cohen’s lawyers discovered the recording as part of their review of the seized materials and shared it with Mr. Trump’s lawyers, according to the three people briefed on the matter.

Cohen’s lawyer-Lanny Davis:

If you want proof positive that Cohen has jointed the #Resistance look who his lawyer is. This old friend  and legal adviser of the Clintons would not be representing him otherwise.

It’s becoming clear that Cohen sees his best route out of this huge legal debacle of his in joining the anti Trump movement. If you want anymore proof look at the comments he made to Al Sharpton-who recently spoke publicly about his private conversations with Cohen.

I have to say I’ve been a little sore at Al Sharpton since the election-as he never endorsed Hillary Clinton-which is simply criminal of him if he truly cares about the civil rights of African Americans. One theory as to why I’ve considered is that he still owes Trump and Roger Stone for bankrolling his 2004 Democratic primary-his main job was to call Howard Dean a racist and sink his candidacy.

But he has the goods here and I will watch his Sunday morning show PoliticsNation for the first time post election.

“President Donald Trump’s former longtime lawyer Michael Cohen chatted with the Reverend Al Sharpton for an hour, Sharpton announced on Twitter on Friday morning.”

Cohen responded to Sharpton’s tweet minutes later, saying there wasn’t anyone “better to talk to!”

No one better to talk to-see THAT?! He’s joined the #Resistance.

“Just spent an hour w/ Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney,” Sharpton, the host of MSNBC’s “PoliticsNation,” tweeted Friday morning. “I bet you’re wondering what we could be talking about! Stay tuned.”

“I have known Rev for almost 20 years,” Cohen responded. “No one better to talk to!”

Cohen is all about country and family now. 

Rev. Al Sharpton appeared Friday on “MSNBC Live with Ali Velshi” and spoke of his morning meeting with Cohen: “He kept saying to me over and over again, ‘Reverend, I’m going to do what’s right for the country, I’m going to do what’s right for my family.'”

“Sharpton said he’s known Cohen as Trump’s right-hand man for nearly 20 years, and that the president’s former personal attorney requested the meeting “several days ago.” The symbolic breaking of bread, Sharpton said, is a signal to Trump as the reverend and the president have previously been adversaries on social justice issues.”

Again, that the Rev knows Cohen that well for that long speaks volumes about his relationship with Illegitimate ‘President Trump.’

“I think the fact that, Ali, out of all of the people he could have reached out to reaching out to me in and of itself was sending a signal to President Trump and probably to prosecutors…” Sharpton told Velshi.

True, though, again, the relationship between Trump and Rev. Sharpton is a lot more complex than the Rev himself would want to admit to in public.

“What I sensed from him was that he is really trying to be very clear that he’s independent of Mr. Trump,” Sharpton said. “And that he’s going to tell the truth whatever the truth is.”

Yes-that is a chief aim of Cohen-to separate as far as humanly possible from so-called ‘President Trump.’

Cohen feels abandoned by Trump, the Reverend added.

Call it what you will-call it revenge, call it ‘opportunism’, call it Karma.

But this is what happens when you use people and they-finally-figure out they were just used, you never valued them at all, as you value no one but yourself. Is there anyone Trump wouldn’t sacrifice, who isn’t expendable to save his own treasonous skin? Stay tuned. I’m not sure if he wouldn’t sacrifice even Donald Jr to save his own skin if it came to it. After all, no one says Jr can’t be indicted.

FN: It turns out the one person who thinks maybe he couldn’t be indicted was Mueller-who didn’t make Jr do an interview then declined to prosecute him under the unprecedented legal theory that ignorance is an excuse.

Offered an opportunity to refute or clarify Sharpton’s account, Cohen’s attorney, Lanny J. Davis, said via email, “We respect Rev. Sharpton’s support and encouragement of Michael Cohen to put his family and country first and tell the truth.”

Cohen is ‘bumping into’ all kinds of people lately-like even Michael Avenatti who broke some news on Ari Melber last night that he has spoken to Cohen recently-they just happened to bump into each other at Avenatti’s favorite spot to eat and that he would consider representing Michael Cohen. 

Yes-Michael Cohen has joined the #Resistance and Lordy there are tapes. 

 

 

 

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