Cohen pleads guilty/ Manafort found guilty

WhatFor

Tue, Aug 21 2018, 11:27 pm

Article about Cohen here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/m.....d=mhp

Article about Manafort here:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/p.....d=mhp

I wonder why Cohen decided to plead guilty instead of going to trial? AIUI he's not currently a cooperating witness in anything right now, although his attorney did go on TV and that Cohen has information of interest to Mueller. Not sure if Cohen's attorney is just trolling the president or is being serious.

Jeanette

Fri, Aug 24 2018, 12:25 pm

The Trump organization's chief financial officer, Alex Weisselberg, has been granted immunity to testify in the Cohen probe. He has been associated with Trump for decades. There is no financial transaction involving Trump that Weisselberg is not aware of.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a....._pos1

Also a reminder that this investigation is being conducted by the SDNY, not by Robert Mueller. Trump can fire Mueller, Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein all in one day and it won't affect the course of this investigation in the slightest.

The NY State attorney general has also subpoenaed Michael Cohen as part of its investigation into the Trump Foundation. Whatever the DOJ rules are about indicting a sitting president, this does not apply to state laws.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/n.....ation

Learning

Fri, Aug 24 2018, 12:49 pm

I don’t understand. You hey were investigating the Russian issue and now they are after Cohen for his own tax invasion. Are they just going after people who are close to trump trying to find ANYTHING about them? What did trump do. He cheated on his wife and paid off the women. It is not part of the presidency. They are investigating trump from the time he started but didn’t find anything criminal. They are going after his people trying to find stuff but this is in no connection to trump. I mean the fact that Cohen cheated on his taxes. And the fact that Cohen paid these women it’s not ok. But this is the only dirt they found on trump.

Jeanette

Fri, Aug 24 2018, 12:58 pm

What you need to understand is that the DOJ has different divisions charged with investigating different types of law in different jurisdictions. So there's one investigation into Russian interference in the election. Another division looking into campaign finance violations and now, possible tax fraud. New York State is conducting its own investigation into possible tax fraud by the Trump Organization.

So far Paul Manafort was convicted and Michael Cohen pled guilty. Trump is an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the Cohen plea. That is all we know so far.

Deep

Fri, Aug 24 2018, 1:36 pm

There seems to be a misconception that federal investigations need to be hyper focused solely on the issue that warranted the opening of said inquiry. To the contrary, if the Special Counsel inevitably comes across other misconduct during the exploratory process, he/she is obligated to refer these cases to the relevant authorities. This is what is happened with Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort.
It is interesting to note that Bill Clinton's impeachment was the result of an initial investigation into his real estate dealings aka the Whitewater Investigation.

Jeanette

Fri, Aug 24 2018, 1:55 pm

Deep wrote:

People are laboring under many misconceptions, most of them pushed by POTUS himself.