419
UPDATE: This should be augmented to what has been revealed in the Mueller Report.
It can’t be stressed enough-by the end of this it may be not just Trump and his friends that go down but many high ranking operatives in the Republican party. Certainly Devin Nunes and his staff. I mean this in itself is arguably criminal obstruction.
Michael Cohen’s been-in the, uh, eye of the Storm lately
But, of course, that’s just one of many times he’s acted in ways that cross all kinds of ethical lines for his corrupt, possibly treasonous boss. He’s clearly in a tricky situation with Stormy Daniels-Trump is still claiming ‘I did not have sex with that woman, Stormy Daniels’-but if that’s true why did Cohen pay her off?
But Cohen is a ‘person of interest’ for Trump-Russia investigators-certainly Mueller-many times over. For his role in trying to get a Trump Tower in Moscow during the 2016 election-‘We can engineer it’ and ‘This deal is going to put our boy in the WH’-and his role in the so-called ‘peace plan’ for Crimea in early 2017-which was actually a total giveaway to Russia; recently the meeting in Seychelles where the framework for the peace plan was set up has come back in focus.
UPDATE: We now know from the Mueller Report that Bannon and Erik Prince deleted their emails regarding the Seychelles meeting.
End of UPDATE.
After interviewing Corey Lewandowski-who was far from fully forthcoming but who the GOP has no plans to cite in contempt, subpoena, or in any way push at all-the GOP-Nunes, Peter King, et. al-are saying that’s it: it’s the end of the line on the Russia probe.
This is why we need a Democratic Congress- the GOP is blatantly obstructing this investigation. For starters the Mueller probe has at least a year left and there are new bombshells in the open source news everyday.
UPDATE 2.0: This was back in May of 2018. Now that we have a Dem Congress many Dems are wondering what’s going on-often the Dems seem little more interested in holding Trump accountable than the GOP did.
It's an insult to the intelligence of millions of Democrats who a) understand which party controls the Senate and b) support impeachment anyhow. https://t.co/s9n1QqdHFq
— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) May 17, 2019
Great @brianbeutler thought experiment: If Dems aren't up to the task of managing the raw power battle against Trump's lawlessness, as seems clear, are they up to doing what it takes to reverse an overturned Roe?https://t.co/g8MS0BCVq3
— Greg Sargent (@GregTSargent) May 17, 2019
End of UPDATE 2.0
Now we’ve learned that the GOP gave information from closed door testimony about how John McCain’s staff brought the Steele Dossier to the FBI’s attention in December of 2016 to: Michael Cohen.
“On Dec. 19, 2017, a former staffer for Sen. John McCain named David Kramer testified before the House intelligence committee behind closed doors. He’d played a role in bringing the salacious and unverified Steele dossier to the FBI’s attention, and members peppered him with questions about it.”
Of course, the GOP as revealed in their own Nunes Memo has exaggerated the role the dossier has played in the investigation and greatly exaggerated the importance of the dossier being partially funded by the Democrats.
In this testimony they were making a mountain out of the molehill that a McCain staffer brought the dossier to the FBI’s attention. Is the GOP saying that was somehow wrong? In the 2000 election George W. Bush’s debate prep was sent to the Gore campaign. Gore’s response was to immediately sent to the FBI. But in the GOP’s mind circa today, you don’t send things to the FBI you hand them over to Michael Cohen.
It’s also perfectly fine to meet with Kremlin operatives promising oppo on your political opponent. But turning over something suspicious to the FBI is somehow wrong.
As for Cohen the question begs: what possible interest did the GOP see him as having in receiving this behind closed door testimony? What did he do with this information? Give it to his boss?
“A few days after Kramer’s testimony, his lawyer, Larry Robbins, got a strange call. The call was from Stephen Ryan, a lawyer who represents Trump’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen. Cohen is facing scrutiny from special counsel Robert Mueller and congressional investigators regarding potential coordination between Trump’s team and the Kremlin. He featured prominently in the Steele dossier—the document that Kramer handled—and is suing BuzzFeed for publishing it.”
“Ryan told Robbins he reached out because someone from the House told him that Robbins’ client, Kramer, had information about the Steele dossier that could help Cohen.”
“Robbins declined to help. Ryan then asked Robbins not to tell the House intel committee about their conversation.”
Ok-so Cohen’s own lawyer wanted Kramer’s testimony to help Cohen. And now it comes into focus: Cohen himself was named in the dossier: ‘I’ve never been to Prague.’
UPDATE 3.0: With all the talk of obstruction of justice and witness tampering this story has been forgotten
End of UPDATE 3.0.
The document also makes specific claims about contacts between people working for Trump and Russian officials. It alleges that Michael Cohen, special counsel to Trump, was central to “the ongoing secret liaison relationship between the New York tycoon’s campaign and the Russian leadership,” and that he met secretly with Kremlin officials in Prague in August 2016.
“Reached by telephone on Tuesday night, Cohen denied the dossier’s allegations.”
The story is “totally fake, totally inaccurate,” Cohen said.
“I’m telling you emphatically that I’ve not been to Prague, I’ve never been to Czech [Republic], I’ve not been to Russia,” Cohen said. “The story is completely inaccurate, it is fake news meant to malign Mr. Trump.”
UPDATE 4.0: To this day-post Mueller Report-it’s neither been confirmed or denied if Cohen went to Prague.
End of UPDATE 4.0
Cohen said that during the time the report places him in Prague, he was actually with his son visiting USC and meeting with the baseball coach. A USC baseball source confirmed Tuesday night that Cohen and his son had visited USC on August 29th. Cohen said that he was in Los Angeles from the 23rd through the 29th of August, and that the rest of the month he was in New York. He said that his only trip to an EU country over the summer had been a vacation to Italy in July. In one instance, the dossier places the alleged Prague travel in “August/September 2016.” Cohen said he was in New York for the entire month of September.
Cohen also tweeted a photo of his passport: “I have never been to Prague in my life. #fakenews.” Trump retweeted Cohen’s tweet.
But, the thing to remember, is that the dossier is raw intelligence. Raw intelligence often gets some things wrong-it’s not expected to have 100% accuracy, it isn’t anything final. It’s possible that it had Cohen going to the wrong city, though, Cohen has not actually proven he wasn’t in Prague. But to move beyond such narrow legalism-did he or did he not go to Prague in 2016-it’s pretty clear that he DID have an “ongoing secret liaison relationship between the New York tycoon’s campaign and the Russian leadership,” during the election as demonstrated by his email chain with Felix Sater regarding Trump Tower Moscow.
UPDATE 5.0: What’s strange in the MR is that Mueller seems to take Cohen’s denial at face value that ‘I’ve never been to Prague’ even though it’s been proven he did visit Prague at least in 2002. That may not be relevant to the current question but it does falsify that categorical claim.