Michael Cohen's third client...

WhatFor

Mon, Apr 16 2018, 7:39 pm

CDL wrote:

Whatfor, you don’t own the thread just because you started it. Everyone is free to post what they’d like, even if it doesn’t suit your fancy or interest you.

When I open a thread, it's generally to discuss a particular issue. Sure, anyone is free to disrespect my intentions and write about whatever they want in response, but why would they?

Isn't it vastly more respectful to open a different thread and not try to hijack someone else's thread for your own topic?

Fox

Mon, Apr 16 2018, 7:44 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

BUT HILARY!

Isn't that the answer to everything? Make up some more lies about someone who is no longer in public service. Or claim that "its all going to backfire."

Neither my nor Donna Brazile's imaginations are that good. The facts are that (a) a complaint, which Ms. Brazile corroborated in her book, was filed with the FEC alleging contribution laundering by the Clinton campaign in amounts adding up to $86 million; and (b) if a legal cannon is used to bring down a mosquito of a $130K illegal payment from campaign funds to Stormy Daniels, there will be people who will point out the disparity in amounts.

Personally, I don't think most people care about either situation. If the Clinton campaign really laundered $86 million, it didn't help, and if Cohen negotiated a $130K NDA with Stormy, Bill Clinton is probably ringing his phone off the hook as we speak. Where was Cohen when Paula Jones walked off with $850K?!

SixOfWands wrote:

Moreover, what you are stating is that the Justice Department cannot be trusted with confidential material, and that all Justice Department personnel invariably violate their oaths as attorneys and as government employees.

No, but it doesn't take "all" of the team to leak an identity. It only takes one. Heck, given the FBI's recent record, it's not the taint teams we have to worry about; it's the bosses! Which, of course, brings us back to the likes of Andrew McCabe and James Comey.

SixOfWands wrote:

Sorry, not buying it. And neither is the ACLU. But, of course, the ACLU doesn't dine with Trump; Dershowitz does. Right before condemning the search, in fact.

Actually, he'd condemned the search prior to their dinner. Dershowitz was on the Board of the ACLU for years and was always a pretty vocal civil libertarian. But whatever. They probably just discussed golf and their grandkids. Smile

SixOfWands

Mon, Apr 16 2018, 8:17 pm

Fox wrote:

BUT HILARY!'

That's the answer to everything, isn't it.

As Trump would say, sad.

Fox

Mon, Apr 16 2018, 8:17 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

A REFERRAL. That means that the Mueller investigation uncovered something that was not under its authority, and referred it to another agency, which “has proceeded independent” of Mueller’s work -- apparently for quite some time.

But you knew that. You just wanted to obfuscate.

What on earth would I be obfuscating? That Mueller's team found something that wasn't within the purview of their investigation but was potentially strategically useful, so they turned it over to the appropriate agency? That's not exactly unusual. No one has accused Mueller of making up evidence or doing anything inappropriate. Nevertheless, he has been able to successfully rattle Trump simply by doing his job while maintaining complete plausible deniability of any bias. There's nothing there to obfuscate.

Fox

Mon, Apr 16 2018, 8:26 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

BUT HILARY!'

That's the answer to everything, isn't it.

As Trump would say, sad.

Are you saying that there is no complaint filed with the FEC? Are you saying that Donna Brazile lied? Are you saying that no one will make any comparisons in the event that Cohen is indicted for campaign finance violations?

I don't have anything to do with the people who filed the FEC complaint. I didn't publish Donna Brazile's book. The comparisons are simply my prediction of the discourse to expect.

So I don't quite understand your point.

WhatFor

Mon, Apr 16 2018, 8:32 pm

Fox wrote:

You would be obfuscating the subject of this thread: today in court it was revealed that Michael Cohen had exactly three clients: one of them was Donald Trump (we knew that); one of them was Broidy (we knew that); the third person was leading Fox news talk show host, Sean Hannity.

Hannity had been commenting for days on the impropriety of the Cohen raid without revealing that he alone was a third of Cohen's clients. In the meantime, Trump has been consistently pushing his supporters to watch the Hannity show, basically saying everyone else is fake news and that Hannity is the bearer of Truth.

Cohen's attorneys argued in court today that Hannity's privilege would be violated if the SDNY was permitted to review Cohen's records. Hannity then says on his show that Cohen was barely his attorney. That was story you'd be obfuscating.

SixOfWands

Mon, Apr 16 2018, 8:36 pm

Fox wrote:

But Hilary!

Deflect, deflect. Obfuscate, obfuscate.

There have been 19 indictments or guilty pleas out of the Mueller investigation so far.

BUT HILARY!

Trump's attorney paid off a [filth] star to gag her before the election.

BUT HILARY!

Donald Jr., Manafort and Kushner have a meeting with a Russian lawyer who, they are promised, had promised documents that would “incriminate” rival Hillary, but don't report foreign interference in the election.

BUT HILARY!

That's your answer to any allegations of wrongdoing by anyone associated with Trump.

BUT HILARY!

Deflect. Obfuscate. Ignore any hint of wrongdoing by Trump. Because, well HILARY!

Hilary isn't the president. Trump is. So let's talk about him instead of Hilary, shall we?

WhatFor

Mon, Apr 16 2018, 8:38 pm

Fox wrote:

Are you saying that the Iranian deal was actually safe for WikiLeaks? I'm not sure how you managed to come to the conclusion that Benghazi was not a total disaster but far be it from me to bring Reagan into this discussion.

Are you saying that there's some way this whole debacle won't be compared to Zionism and that the people living off of food stamps in Lakewood won't be implicated for this?

I personally don't think the Saudis had anything to do with this so I don't understand what you're saying.

Fox

Mon, Apr 16 2018, 9:19 pm

WhatFor wrote:

So let me get this straight: when I attempt to point out humorously that no one cares (or at least should care) what news anchors like Hannity have to say, I'm diverting the topic. When I attempt to demonstrate the chain of events and predict the responses of various groups and individuals, I'm obfuscating because I'm no longer talking about Hannity.

As far as I can tell at this point, Hannity is a complete non-story. Anyone who takes him seriously won't care, and the rest of us aren't listening to him in the first place, no matter what Trump says. What more is there to say about it?

The real story, I believe, will be whether the evidence discovered in the Cohen raid will end up supporting such an unusual warrant. That will have zero to do with Hannity, however, so I'll drop the topic lest I be accused of further obfuscation.

Fox

Mon, Apr 16 2018, 9:31 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

The Clinton campaign came up for one reason only: I was predicting a response by news media and various partisan groups to a potential outcome of the Cohen raid, which I foolishly thought was the topic of the thread. My predicted response touched on a current complaint before the FEC.

No one has brought up wrongdoing by Trump in this thread, nor is it related in any way.

If you think my predictions are wrong, then fine. How do you think conservative news media, Republicans, and/or Trump supporters would react to a relatively minor campaign finance indictment to come out of this raid? And how am I deflecting and obfuscating merely by predicting what other people are likely to do?

SixOfWands

Mon, Apr 16 2018, 9:36 pm

Fox wrote:

BUT HILARY!

As you've shown, it doesn't matter what Trump does, or what his supporters do. You'll always deflect and obfuscate and make excuses.

How about addressing the original question posed.

Is it acceptable to you that Hannity failed to disclose his relationship with Cohen, and the fact that documents relating to him were probably taken, while attacking the subpoena served on Cohen.

Fox

Mon, Apr 16 2018, 9:52 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

Is it acceptable to you that Hannity failed to disclose his relationship with Cohen, and the fact that documents relating to him were probably taken, while attacking the subpoena served on Cohen.

Is it acceptable? Should he have acknowledged the relationship? Yes, probably. But none of these cable news networks do anything that could be remotely described as real journalism.

Sean Hannity as well as other anchors are basically entertainers and provocateurs. They are paid to present opinions that sometimes make sense and are backed up with evidence but are just as likely to be completely off the wall. They don't necessarily have expertise in whatever they're discussing, and it's often impossible to figure out if their guests are actually experts or just available bodies who also have opinions.

In other words, asking me if Hannity's lack of candor is acceptable is like asking me if it's acceptable that Tom Cruise reportedly never sees Suri. I mean, no, I guess not, but I'm not personally worked up over it.

WhatFor

Mon, Apr 16 2018, 10:18 pm

Fox wrote:

Hannity is obviously a story because the US president keeps advocating for him and Hannity apparently is one of three clients to Michael Cohen, the other two of whom are the US president and the (now former) GOP fundraiser. And Cohen's attorneys said Hannity had an interest in this case.

ETA: this"non-story" is also prominently featured on the WSJ right now.

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articl.....08997

Last edited by WhatFor on Mon, Apr 16 2018, 10:52 pm; edited 1 time in total

Fox

Mon, Apr 16 2018, 10:52 pm

WhatFor wrote:

Maybe I missed something, but all I can find about Trump promoting Hannity's show recently is the April 12 tweet. But then, he also tweeted something nice about Roseanne, too, if I recall. Obviously Hannity's lawyers want to keep him out of it and will go through lots of gymnastics to earn their $500 per hour, but like I said, I don't think anyone who takes Hannity seriously will care, and the rest of us aren't likely to start listening to his opinions anytime soon.

marina

Tue, Apr 17 2018, 11:24 am

Fox wrote:

Why would the filing of a complaint by the Committee to Defend the President be evidence of anything other than that a complaint was filed by that anti-Hillary group?

Anyone can allege anything in a complaint. A woman, for example, can file a complaint alleging that Trump raped her when she was 13 and then threatened her life.

I have no idea whether Trump raped a child or whether Hillary's campaign laundered money, but I do know that all of us on this forum are more knowledgeable than to use the fact that a complaint was filed as evidence of the truth of that complaint.

Dandelion1

Tue, Apr 17 2018, 12:14 pm

WhatFor wrote:

Alan Dershowitz was not in court today. Neither were your parents, Laura Ingram, Rachel Maddow, et al. None of them have anything to do with this.
I

If you'd like to seriously discuss Laura Ingram, Rachel Maddow, Jeanine Pirro, Alan Dershowitz, or any of the other totally irrelevant people you mentioned, I kindly request that you start your own thread. This is about the revelation that Sean Hannity was Michael Cohen's client. Thanks.

I've edited this to remove comments directed at Fox.

Yes Fox, in the future, please try to remember that imamother is not an online social discussion group, but rather an avenue for legal/political documentation of international significance.

Any attempts at humor or good-naturedness are not welcome or appreciated. Please limit your comments to those that are dry and humorless, or at the very least, biting and sarcastic. If possible, lock onto a single ironically intended phrase, and repeat it ad-nauseum.

Fox

Tue, Apr 17 2018, 1:43 pm

marina wrote:

I agree completely. I think the whole thing is a colossal waste of time and money.

Although, as a Chicagoan, my standards for fair elections might be a little more, um, flexible than other people's. As recently as a decade ago, every election cycle brought a man with a thick Chicago accent to my door to remind me of all the good things Mayor Daley and the Democratic Party did for me and my five kids, whom he then named, and reminded me to vote straight Democratic ticket.

My point was simply to make a prediction about what would happen if the Cohen raid ended up with nothing more than the discovery that Stormy's $130K NDA should have been counted as a campaign contribution or that Trump violated the federal minimum bimbo eruption payment law or whatever.

Were that to happen, conservative news media and various partisan groups would jump to make a comparison between the fairly extreme legal remedy used to track down Stormy's $130K and the more laissez-faire FEC investigation of $86 million in allegedly laundered contributions. And they would be emboldened by the fact that Donna Brazile, the former head of the DNC, basically threw the Clinton campaign under the bus regarding some of their campaign finance practices.

Therefore, I believe that the Cohen raid is a no-lose proposition for Mueller, since it annoys Trump, and an annoyed Trump is an imprudent Trump. However, it is highly risky for the Democrats. Anything short of mafia-style criminal activity will make the raid look like politically-motivated overkill and will potentially be held against Democrats in the midterms.

But once again, I have wandered away from whether Hannity should have mentioned his relationship with Cohen. He should have. And Tom Cruise really ought to spend some time with Suri, too.

Last edited by Fox on Tue, Apr 17 2018, 1:49 pm; edited 1 time in total

Fox

Tue, Apr 17 2018, 1:48 pm

aleph wrote:

Thank you, Aleph! I am looking into a 12-step support program for people with my problem or at least a competent therapist to help me become more dour.