Daily Check-In 05/30/2018

Daily Check-In

Wednesday, May 30th.

 

COHEN:  THE SHREDDER

Michael Cohen is a fucking idiot, part 317:  Types of shredders.

Straight cut shredders use cutting blades that move in one direction and produce long, skinny strips of paper.  Cross-cut shredders use blades that cut in two directions which produce tiny diamonds.  Micro-cut shredders turn the paper into dust.

Straight-cut documents can be put back together “fairly easy.”  Cross-cut is harder, requiring scanners and computer software.  Micro-cut shredders require a time machine.

A smart person looking to destroy things in 2018 would use a micro-cut shredder, or at the very worst a cross-cut.  Micro-cut shredders exist across all price points.  Someone could get one of these from Staples for less than $100.

Michael Cohen uses a straight-cut shredder.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s ten years old and has a name, like Old Cutty.  The FBI will have recreated everything they found in Old Cutty within the next couple weeks.

Michael Avenatti has withdrawn his request to represent adult film star Stormy Daniels in the case centered on the FBI raid of President Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen.

Shortly after a conference hearing Wednesday in a federal district court in Manhattan, Avenatti withdrew his request to weigh in on the case.

…

In the document Avenatti filed in court Wednesday, he said he is withdrawing his request to intervene and will re-file it, if necessary, at a later time.

There’s a lot of legalese involved, but the short version is that Avenatti’s still representing Stormy Daniels.  It’s just that he’s not currently involved in the evidentiary process of United States vs. Cohen because he’s already working with them, and another lawyer working with Stormy that is natively licensed in New York can speak for them.

The cost to perform this review is substantial.  How much?  Let’s figure that out…

According to the transcripts, Cohen’s lawyers have been working “day and night” for weeks.  They have 15 high priced lawyers, plus 2 data entry folks.  Per yesterday’s report on the Special Master (Daily Check-In 05/29/2018), an hourly rate of $700 per hour is not unreasonable for this work.  The data entry folks will cost less, but I’ll say $100 per hour.

To me, “working day and night” is a minimum of 16 hours per day, but to keep from killing people, I’ll use 80 hours per week.  That’s a full shift on top of normal work, but enough to be spread out over the weekends.

So, we have 15 lawyers at $700 per hour working 80 hours a week, plus 2 data entry people at $100 per hour at 80 hours per week.  [(15 * 700 * 80) + (2 * 100 * 80)] = [ 840,000+ 16,000] =$856,000 per week.  Considering this has been going on for weeks, and assuming this lawyer wasn’t blowing smoke up the judge’s ass, Cohen’s legal bills from this procedure will approach $4 million, and that’s before they go to trial.

He might flip just to avoid going broke.

The fact that the inauguration meeting included all three parties could perhaps be understood as a coincidence. Vekselberg, after all, is Intrater’s cousin in addition to running an affiliated company, the Renova Group. And the inauguration is an event with many attendees and perhaps some impromptu introductions and meetings. That idea that Cohen may have met Vekselberg there without them forming a relationship and without Vekselberg being involved in Columbus Nova’s hiring of Cohen is plausible.

But three meetings involving both Intrater and Vekselberg? That reduces the likelihood that this was just happenstance. The Times reported a couple of days ago that Vekselberg met with Cohen “multiple times.” Now we know the details of the first meeting and that there was a third — which may have even come after Columbus Nova hired Cohen (he was hired in late January, after the inauguration). That’s a lot of meetings to have, in relatively proximity, with a third party who had nothing to do with the arrangement between Columbus Nova and Cohen.

Are we to believe Cohen’s business relationship with Columbus Nova didn’t come up at these meetings? Are we to believe Vekselberg somehow didn’t know about it and didn’t use it to push for influence over the Trump administration’s Russia policy (which was the stated subject matter for the first meeting)? At the very least, having a Russian oligarch in these meetings at a time when the Trump campaign’s Russia ties were at-issue would seem to be a bad decision just from a pure public relations perspective. And since then, Vekselberg has featured on a list of oligarchs who have been sanctioned by the Trump administration.

Three meetings in a short time span with Vekselberg and his cousin.  Like Admiral James T. Kirk said in the Wrath of Khan, “This is damn peculiar.”

 

COLD WAR 2.0:  BILL BROWDER ARRESTED, RELEASED

Bill Browder was arrested earlier this morning on an Interpol warrant issued by Russia.  This isn’t the first time Russia has tried this shit.  This happened a few months ago, but it doesn’t usually result in Bill getting arrested.

Fortunately, he was able to get this cleared up, and he’s back in London.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

 

PUERTO RICO DEATH TOLL 

 

TRUMP HATES IMMIGRANTS

 

VOTING STORIES

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS:  WHERE’S MELANIA?

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE: AMBIEN DOES NOT CAUSE RACISM

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

NFL:  THE F IS FOR FASCISM

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for today.  There is a difference between the parties, and I think I’m going to write about it when I get time.  That’s the joke now.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

Published by noneofthisisnormal

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