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“Less than a year later, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Pecker to quash the story of a former Playboy model who said they’d had an affair. Mr. Pecker’s company soon paid $150,000 to the model, Karen McDougal, to keep her from speaking publicly about it. Mr. Trump later thanked Mr. Pecker for the assistance.

“The Trump Tower meeting and its aftermath are among several previously unreported instances in which Mr. Trump intervened directly to suppress stories about his alleged sexual encounters with women, according to interviews with three dozen people who have direct knowledge of the events or who have been briefed on them, as well as court papers, corporate records and other documents.”

“Taken together, the accounts refute a two-year pattern of denials by Mr. Trump, his legal team and his advisers that he was involved in payoffs to Ms. McDougal and a former adult-film star. They also raise the possibility that the president of the United States violated federal campaign-finance laws.”

It clearly showed Trump’s continued efforts to lie and mislead which suggests consciousness of guilt.

This disproves a canard we’ve been asked to believe-that Trump had no idea about any of this-Michael Cohen was just freelancing. That never passed the laugh test. As it turns out Trump was involved or briefed at every step of the hush money process.

“The Wall Street Journal found that Mr. Trump was involved in or briefed on nearly every step of the agreements. He directed deals in phone calls and meetings with his self-described fixer, Michael Cohen, and others. The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan has gathered evidence of Mr. Trump’s participation in the transactions.”

This is if nothing else what logic strongly suggested all along. So when will we learn the same about the Trump Tower Russia collusion meeting of June, 2016? Or the Trump Tower Collusion Meeting 2.0 with the Arabs and Israelis? Or with the quests of Roger Stone and Peter Smith to find Clinton’s emails?

FN: Michael Cohen himself would testify of Trump’s learning of the DNC hacks prior to the leak on July 18-19 from Roger Stone. Cohen also testified that he believed-but wasn’t certain-he had overheard Donald Jr tell Sr about the June meeting.

The Mueller Report certainly suggested Trump’s part in the late GOP operative Peter Smith’s scheme to pay Russian hackers for Clinton’s deleted emails; the day he publicly declared Russia if you’re listening  Russian hackers attempted to hack Clinton’s office in the Hamptons; on the same day the MR reveals Trump told Flynn to get her emails-apparently Flynn heard him loud and it’s clear Flynn was Smith’s point campaign person in his plot to commit what amounts to criminal conspiracy-even if Mueller was too cowed by #TeamTreasonTrump to seek charges.

End of FN

As for Cohen, before he pled and agreed to cooperate, prosecutors in SDNY had an 80 page draft indictment against him.

WSJ reports that federal prosecutors in SDNY had an 80-page draft indictment ready to go on Michael Cohen before he pled. I worked in SDNY and I can tell you: 80 pages is (to use a technical term) a LOOOOOONG indictment. Had to be lots of crimes and co-conspirators in there.

— Elie Honig (@eliehonig) November 9, 2018

“In an Oct. 23 interview with the Journal, Mr. Trump declined to address whether he had ever discussed the payments with Mr. Cohen during the campaign.”

“Nobody cares about that,” he said. He described Mr. Cohen as a “public-relations person” who “represented me on very small things.”

Three lies in one short sentence. He’s an olympian-who says the illegitimate ‘President’ isn’t good at anything? 

“Mr. Cohen, who left the Trump Organization to serve as the president’s personal attorney in early 2017, and other aides denied Mr. Trump played any role in the two hush-money deals when they were first reported in the Journal.”

“Federal prosecutors in Manhattan came to believe otherwise. In August, they outlined Mr. Trump’s role—without specifically naming him—in a roughly 80-page draft federal indictment they had been preparing to file against Mr. Cohen.”

“When Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty that month to campaign-finance violations, prosecutors filed a 22-page charging document asserting that Mr. Cohen “coordinated with one or more members of the campaign, including through meetings and phone calls, about the fact, nature, and timing of the payments.”

“The unnamed campaign member or members referred to Mr. Trump, according to people familiar with the document.”

“The revelations about Mr. Trump’s involvement in the hush-money deals come as special counsel Robert Mueller continues his probe into Russian electoral interference, and as a newly elected Democratic majority in the House of Representatives has signaled its intention to investigate the Trump administration when it takes power. Manhattan federal prosecutors who investigated Mr. Cohen are now examining business dealings by the Trump Organization.”

As we saw in (Chapter A) the Dems on Nadler’s House Judiciary Committee do plan to specifically investigate the hush money payments.

The Trump Tower meeting with Pecker was set up by Michael Cohen.

“The media executive promised Mr. Trump he would flag to Mr. Cohen any negative stories about women that came to the Enquirer’s attention.”

Initially Pecker and friends hadn’t felt that Karen McDougal’s story was worth more than $15,000 reasoning she couldn’t prove her affair-what changed things was when they learned she’d also been meeting with ABC about sharing her story, upon learning this they’d eventually bought her story for $150,000 grand.

“The contract gave the publisher the exclusive rights to her story, and guaranteed Ms. McDougal and American Media two magazine covers on which she would appear as a model. As part of the deal, American Media had the option of publishing health and fitness columns under Ms. McDougal’s name.

“In a Skype call, Mr. Howard told Ms. McDougal the covers and columns would help resuscitate her modeling career.”

Regarding the violation of election campaign laws angle, Pecker had researched this question prior to doing the deal:

“Mr. Cohen assured Mr. Pecker that Mr. Trump would reimburse the publisher, and they began to devise a repayment plan at the end of that month.”

What’s clear is Cohen-rightly-didn’t trust Trump to repay Pecker as agreed which is why he taped their discussion about Pecker as we saw in (Chapter A).

“The publisher would assign the rights to Ms. McDougal’s story to Mr. Cohen for $125,000—the value they put on Ms. McDougal’s agreement with American Media minus the magazine covers and fitness columns, the rights to which the publisher would retain.”

“Mr. Pecker called off the Trump-reimbursement deal in October 2016 on the advice of his lawyer. Accepting reimbursement from Mr. Trump, the executive worried, could undermine any argument that the McDougal payment was made for editorial and business reasons, rather than as an in-kind campaign contribution.”

“Mr. Pecker told Mr. Cohen to tear up the reimbursement agreement, but Mr. Cohen kept a copy. Federal agents found it in a search of Mr. Cohen’s office earlier this year.”

Then came Stormy Daniels:

“Earlier in 2016, an agent for Ms. Clifford, the adult-film actress, had approached Mr. Howard about selling her story of a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump. The agent, Gina Rodriguez, was seeking upward of $200,000 for the story, but Mr. Howard passed.

Then the Hollywood Access video came out which changed the game:

“After the tape surfaced, nearly upending Mr. Trump’s campaign, Ms. Rodriguez reached out to Mr. Howard and told him Ms. Clifford was prepared to go public. Ms. Clifford, through her agent, was in preliminary talks with ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Unlike the payment to McDougal, the payment to Stormy Daniels didn’t run through Pecker.

“Mr. Cohen asked American Media to buy Ms. Clifford’s story. Mr. Pecker refused on the grounds that he didn’t want his company to pay a porn star.”

“Messrs. Cohen and Trump would have to handle the payment themselves. Mr. Cohen told federal prosecutors he relayed the news to Mr. Trump in his Trump Tower office in the second week of October 2016.”

That is when Mr. Trump, smarting from the “Access Hollywood” tape, told Mr. Cohen to “get it done,” according to Mr. Cohen’s account to prosecutors.

“Within days, Mr. Cohen and Mr. Davidson had negotiated a nondisclosure agreement for Ms. Clifford.”

F- it! I’m just going to do it. That’s what Michael Cohen  said when he finally decided to pay Daniels himself-Pecker wouldn’t and Cohen tried and failed to convince Trump’s family accountant Allen Weisselberg to do it.

“The money was slow in coming because Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen and the longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg, couldn’t settle on a plan for getting it to Mr. Davidson without anyone being able to trace it back to Mr. Trump, according to Mr. Cohen’s account to prosecutors. Among the options they considered: routing the payment through a Trump-owned property, Mr. Cohen told prosecutors.”

“Mr. Cohen offered a suggestion: Why not have Mr. Weisselberg make the payment? “You’re the CFO,” he told the longtime Trump aide, according to Mr. Cohen’s account to prosecutors. “You pay this.” Mr. Weisselberg said he couldn’t come up with the money.

“Mary Mulligan, a lawyer for Mr. Weisselberg, said he had been “fully cooperative” with the investigation and declined to comment further. A person close to Mr. Weisselberg disputed the account Mr. Cohen gave to prosecutors.”

“Mr. Cohen had told Mr. Davidson to expect a $130,000 wire transfer by Oct. 14, but missed the deadline, as well as an extension, prompting Ms. Clifford to walk away.”

“While Mr. Cohen considered a path forward, he offered excuses to Ms. Clifford’s camp. He told Mr. Davidson banks were closed for the Jewish holidays and he couldn’t reach Mr. Trump on the campaign trail. “My guy is in five states today,” Mr. Cohen said.

“Mr. Davidson told Mr. Howard on Oct. 25, 2016, that Ms. Clifford would soon speak publicly. Mr. Howard texted Mr. Cohen that they needed to coordinate “or it could look awfully bad for everyone.”

“In a tense three-way call on an encrypted app, Messrs. Pecker and Howard urged Mr. Cohen to complete the deal before Ms. Clifford disclosed the hush-money negotiations.”

Out of options and time, Mr. Cohen decided to cover the payment himself. “F— it, I’m just going to do it,” he told Mr. Davidson in a phone call.

“He drew down his home-equity line and transferred $130,000 to Mr. Davidson on Oct. 27. Ms. Clifford signed a fresh nondisclosure agreement the next day.”

In other Watergate 2.0 news Manafort is apparently not being so cooperative after all. and there is a lot of talk that Donald Jr will be arrested soon. 

That would certainly explain Trump’s meltdown of a presser the day after the election as well as his quite possible illegal appointment of an unqualified loyalist like Whittaker as AG.

FN:  As it turned out Don Jr apparently was never in any trouble as Mueller apparently believed that not only can you not indict the fake ‘President’ but also not his namesake son.

UPDATE: Of course, Cohen would be sentenced to a rather surprisingly-which doesn’t mean it’s not in order-harsh 3 year sentence.

But if you think that’s harsh for someone who cooperated-at least with Mueller and arguably SDNY doesn’t feel he was so cooperative, his confessions are to things already proven independently- consider what Manafort got-19-25. 

FN: Manafort didn’t actually get 19-25 as he drew a GOP judge in Virginia and then even the DC judge was relatively lenient.

As noted in Chapter A all who called for Hillary Clinton to be locked up are either locked up or in danger of being locked up themselves-Cohen, Flynn, Roger Stone, Manafort.

Again, God don’t like ugly and she’s pissed.