Trump’s ex-lawyer has not been shiftless while hiding his light under a gray-bar bushel.
Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, has spent his time behind bars writing a potentially explosive tell-all book about life with the president, reports say.
Three people familiar with the project told The Daily Beast that Cohen – who is being released early from prison over coronavirus fears – has penned the book.
He’s been incarcerated since last May at a minimum security facility in New York State after being convicted of financial crimes which included hush-money payments to a Playboy playmate and porn star who alleged affairs with Trump.
Actor Tom Arnold has stayed in contact with Cohen during his time inside, and told the publication: “It’s like Jaws – you don’t see Jaws very much, but you hear the music, and for Trump he knows Michael is coming and Trump better hear the Jaws music.”
www.independent.co.uk/...
Cohen's pending release had already raised several important questions about the criminal justice system and how it is working. But then last week Politico reported that, in fact, many of the prisoners who had been told they could go home were being sent back to their cells. The institutional flip-flopping is unfair to the inmates and their families, and it undermines the public's confidence in our government's ability to make difficult decisions in times of crisis.
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Shifting and changing inmate release policies have caused widespread confusion. The lack of a clear, common-sense Justice Department/Bureau of Prisons policy prompted one federal judge to sternly rebuke the government, saying the procedures were "illogical" and "kafkaesque." In another federal case, a judge ordered prosecutors to explain their release policy after an inmate was told one day that he would be released, only to be told the next day that the Bureau of Prisons had reversed course.
Simply put, the Bureau of Prisons flip-flops are yet another example of Barr's lack of leadership and a sign of a Justice Department in free fall. When I was a federal prosecutor, everything I did in court reflected the position of the U.S. government. That is an awesome, weighty responsibility. But Barr has made that job beyond difficult for the country's approximately 2,300 federal prosecutors.
Recall the Roger Stone case: The career prosecutors in that case filed a sentencing recommendation. Thereafter, Trump tweeted that the sentencing recommendation was "horrible and very unfair" and said he would not allow "this miscarriage of justice!" The next day, Barr made prosecutors dramatically lighten their sentencing recommendation.
www.nbcnews.com/...
- Mazars is a tax advisor to Trump, his family, and the Trump Organization. They have copies of Trump’s past state and federal tax returns, supporting work papers, and maybe some of Trump’s business records.
- Trump’s tax returns alone likely reveal some criminality, but we know from what Michael Cohen told us that a comparison of Trump’s business records and his tax returns will show that the Trump Organization ran two set of books and engaged in rampant NY state financial crimes.
- The Manhattan DA already has Trump’s business records, at least one cooperating witness (Michael Cohen), and may already have his bank records. Once the Manhattan DA gets Trump’s tax returns, it’s a simple matter of comparing the returns to his business records to find the fraud.
- In addition to fraudulent reporting of Trump’s many hush money payments, Cohen already has told us the Manhattan DA will find rampant tax fraud, mortgage, fraud, and bank fraud.
- And these are NY state law crimes for which Trump cannot be pardoned under Presidential pardon power.
- Deutsche Bank is the only bank in the world that would lend money to Trump in the decade before he became POTUS, when Trump was engaged in massive money laundering schemes and triggering “suspicious activity” reports by Deutsche Bank’s internal conpliance department.
- It’s no surprise to find that the subpoena issued to Deutsche Bank came from the House Intelligence Committee. They have reason to believe that Trump is compromised by indebtedness to Russian state banks and money laundering deals with Russian oligarchs (aka, the Russian mob).
- If Trump has Russian oligarchs guaranteeing his loans or Russian state banks doing mirror deals with Deutsche, House Intel will see it. And if he’s been laundering money for the Russian mob, he likely funneled it through “suspicious activity” visible in his Deutsche records.
- And this is what dooms Trump’s re-election campaign. There’s simply no way he can win an election with clear evidence showing he’s compromised by Russia. Maybe some of MAGA will look past it, but not enough. He’ll lose and he knows it.
- And that, folks, is the one-two punch. The Deutsche Bank records doom his re-election and the Mazars documents give the Manhattan DA an air-tight NY state law criminal case for which Trump cannot be pardoned.
- “Go directly to jail; do not pass go, do not collect $200.”