Tag: Confirmation

Daily Check-In 04/18/2018

Wednesday, April 18th.

 

COHEN/HANNITY

We’ve established that Michael Cohen is a fucking idiot.  He’s also a loudmouth bully, and up to his neck in illegal shit.

On top of that, he would flip on Trump to save his own neck.  As tough as Cohen thinks he is, the threat of 30 years in prison on Bank Fraud charges will change his mind.

Also, here’s a trivia question.  Who was the attorney representing Karen McDougal, Stormy Daniels, and Elliot Broidy’s not-to-be-baby-momma?

Keith Davidson.

In all three cases, Keith Davidson was the attorney for the women, convincing them to sign the worst NDA ever made.  A half-way competent lawyer who had their clients interest at heart would have fought against the clauses in the contract, or challenged it completely.

But, what if Davidson was in on the scam?

I can accept him not being complicit if he represented one of the women, maybe two.  But all three?  Something’s fishy.

Keep his name on the radar.  I’ve got a feeling he’ll pop back up again.

 

STORMYWATCH

I don’t like to talk about The Dotard’s tweets, but in this case he done fucked up.  He’s in the middle of a civil lawsuit against Stormy Daniels, and she has a competent lawyer.  Calling her a liar through his “official” Twitter feed, which has been argued by the White House as official communications, is an open and shut case of defamation.  He is trying to discredit his opponent in the media, intending to do harm to a private citizen.

Also, Trump claims that she’s lying about the encounter in the parking, as though he knows what happened.  Does he not know that making that claim implies that he had knowledge of events, and that tweeting that would open him up to that line of questioning?

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

 

COMEY DON’T PLAY THAT

“These people don’t represent anything I believe in. … I see the Republican Party, as near as I can tell, reflects now entirely Donald Trump’s values. It doesn’t reflect values at all. It’s transactional, it’s ego-driven, it’s in service to his ego. And it’s, I think, consoling itself that we’re going to achieve important policy goals — a tax cut or something.”

 

COLD WAR 2.0: SYRIA, SANCTIONS, AND KOREA

Have they NOT been paying attention for the last couple years?

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

RED STATE TEACHER STRIKES

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

Fox News host and media analyst Howard Kurtz on Wednesday criticized his network colleague Sean Hannity for not disclosing his legal relationship with President Trump‘s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, when defending Cohen on his show in recent days.

…

“Sometimes people in journalism, on the news or opinion side, find themselves covering folks with whom they have had friendships or professional dealings,” Kurtz wrote. If the relationship is serious enough, it may require recusal. If not, the best course is being transparent and disclosing it.”

“Hannity doesn’t believe his friendship with Cohen rose to that level,” he continued. “But by making that choice, he gave his detractors ample ammunition against him.”

 

CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA AND FACEBOOK

A lawsuit in Illinois making it illegal upload biometric data, like pictures of a persons face, without consent of said person has gained class action status.

 

ELECTIONEERING FOR FUN AND PROFIT

Even without foreign interference, elections in recent years have been marred by software glitches, clerical errors, and machine failures that have prevented people from voting, caused long lines at polling places, and prompted some voters to give up and walk away. (In 2006, for instance, it has been estimated that twenty per cent of voters in Denver were dissuaded from voting after a software failure led to long lines.) If these bugs were to be turned into features and deployed systematically by malicious actors, as Michael Daniel, the Obama Administration’s “cyber czar” pointed out recently, on “60 Minutes,” chaos would ensue.

This is pretty interesting, and could easily be the future of elections.  Here’s how it works…

Instead of picking only one choice on the ballot, voters rank their preference, from first to last.  The votes are tallied, and if anyone gets a majority of the first-place votes in this first round, they win.  If not, the candidate who received the least first-place votes is eliminated, and everyone who voted for that person is then counted in with their second-place votes.  This process continues until there is a winner with more than 50% of the vote.

For example, let’s look at the 2016 GOP Primary.  There were 17 candidates that ran for office, and in almost every state, especially early on with the large crowd, the winner would get less than a majority.

With ranked choice voting, let’s assume that Trump only received the first votes from 30% of the voters, but was the last-choice vote for the rest of the candidates.  All 16 of them.  And the voters for the other 16 candidates all had variations of Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, and Ted Cruz as their second through fourth choices.  After their first choices get eliminated (Jeb Bush, Carly from HP, Ben “Dining Room Table” Carson), those voters add to Marco’s, Lindsey’s, or Ted’s totals.  Eventually, we get to a situation like the following:

  1. Trump 30%
  2. Marco 25%
  3. Lindsey 25%
  4. Ted Cruz 20%

Assuming that Ted’s voters split between Marco and Lindsey, the next round looks like this:

  1. Marco 35%
  2. Lindsey 35%
  3. Trump 30%

Still no majority, but now Trump is in last place.  He gets eliminated, and either Marco Rubio or Lindsey Graham would win.  My guess is Lindsey since Marco sounds too… ethnic for a lot of Trump’s primary voters.

Ranked voting is a combination of being liked the most and hated the least.  This is important in a race with more than two competitors, especially when people use their votes as a protest.

 

NEW YORK 40.20 AND DOUBLE JEOPARDY

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman asked the main lawmakers in the state of New York to close a loophole in state law which puts a higher double jeopardy standard on the prosecution.

Double Jeopardy, aside from being the harder questions of the show, is the legal concept that a person cannot be tried twice for the same crime in the same jurisdiction.  If John is tried for murdering Tom, but is found not guilty at trial, he can’t be retried again, even with new evidence like Tom bragging about the murder on Facebook, or uploading video of the murder to YouTube.

New York has a higher standard for double jeopardy in that if someone is tried for the same or similar crime in Federal court, they can’t be tried in New York.  This is problematic if someone received a presidential pardon, then New York couldn’t prosecute them for that specific crime.  They could still prosecute other crimes, but only ones that aren’t pardoned.

What Schniederman is asking the State Legislature to do is close the loophole that prevents them from prosecuting people in the state if they were pardoned at the Federal level for the same or similar charges.

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

Bruno, a Hall of Fame wrestler, Italian immigrant, and native of Pittsburgh, grew up in the same neighborhood as Andy Warhol and Dan Marino.  Dan’s family was back-door neighbors with Bruno’s family.

 

 

RUMOR MILL:  PROPER PROTEST ETTIQUETTE

Vlad’s tips for effective peaceful protests:

Please:

  • Dress nicely: Undermine the Fox/GOP narrative that all protesters are ominous black-clad masked Antifa members
  • Wear solid comfortable shoes: Be prepared to stand, walk, and have your feet accidentally stepped on
  • Be positive: Your mood is infectious
  • Talk to strangers! Get to know your fellow citizens and what you have in common
  • Make sure you and everybody around you knows their civil rights: This expedites the collective and personal decision-making process if civil disobedience is called for (ACLU guidelines for protesters – PDF link)
  • DO NOT allow yourself or those around you to be baited into a potentially violent situation: Expect interactions with counter-protesters and instigators who want to manipulate the tone of this demonstration (Advice on dealing with agent provocateurs)
  • Have a plan in case you are separated from your friends: Designated meet-up locations at designated times are a good way to mingle but also stay together

Bring:

  • Extra water & snacks
  • Portable battery chargers: Plug all your shit in now
  • Something warm (if necessary): A big square scarf can double as a blanket, etc
  • Sunscreen: Even if the weather is overcast it is easy to get burnt
  • Small amount of cash
  • Identification and important phone numbers written down
  • Flags: If you must bring one, use some floppy white PVC as a flagpole for safety reasons
  • NOTHING that could potentially be a weapon. At all: Unarmed, we are stronger than them.
  • Signs: Bring poster board and markers to share
  • First aid kit: For the usual bumps and scrapes – if you get thousands of people together, someone is inevitably going to twist an ankle etc
  • Garbage bags: Something dry to sit on, collect garbage in, emergency poncho etc
  • Fun stuff: Inflatable beach balls, musical instruments, etc. This is serious, but it is important to keep the tone positive.

Most of all, bring a good attitude. The world will be watching, and what we do at these protests will be a part of history. Keep it peaceful. Be your best selves.

 

That’s it for today.  I’ve got a few things in the pipeline for articles over the next few weeks, mostly in the Cast of Characters.  But, that assumes I get time to do that.  Things are getting busy in the real world.  I’ll explain later.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

 

 

Daily Check-In 04/17/2018

Tuesday, April 17th.  Tax Day in the United States.

 

COHEN

 

STORMYWATCH

He looks like a douchier, Dollar Store version of Tom Brady.

Oh, here we go again.

Barbara Moore was the December 1992 Playmate of the Month.

 

COMEY DON’T PLAY THAT

“President Trump, I don’t follow him on Twitter but I get to see his tweets tweeted, I don’t know how many, but some tweets this past couple of days that I should be in jail. The president of the United States just said that a private citizen should be jailed. And I think the reaction of most of us was, ‘meh, that’s another one of those things.’ This is not normal. This is not OK,” Comey told NPR in an interview broadcast Tuesday morning. “The reason I’m talking in terms of morality is, those are the things that matter most to this country. And there’s a great danger we’ll be numbed into forgetting that, and then only a fool would be consoled by some policy victory.”

…

“This is not some tin pot dictatorship where the leader of the country gets to say ‘the people I don’t like go to jail.’ Our Lady Justice wears a blindfold. And the reason all those statues all over the country have a blindfold is, that’s the way it has to be,” Comey told NPR. “Lady Justice can’t be peeking under the blindfold to see if Donald Trump wants her to convict so-and-so and not convict so-and-so. If we lose that, we’ve lost the rule of law, and so there’s great danger in the president of the United States saying ‘you should be in jail.’”

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Back in the 90’s, Ken Starr was the Special Counselor investigating Whitewater, a land deal involving the Clinton family. That morphed into corruption in Arkansas, a couple claims of sexual assault, and eventually Bill Clinton lying under oath about getting a blowjob from Monica Lewinsky.

Throughout the whole process, there were several court cases that were heard, but many of the documents were sealed. On Monday, a judge decided to unseal 11 cases related to the Clinton Investigation.

Before anyone gets off a tizzy screaming “But Hilary” or “Why are reliving this crap?”, this is actually a pretty cool thing. These cases dealt with unprecedented legal items at the time, like “Can the White House be subpoenaed to turn over their visitor logs?” or “Are physical descriptions of the President’s penis admissible in court?” or “Does attorney-client privilege extend to all matters that take place in front of an attorney?” Prescient questions that we’re asking today.

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA AND FACEBOOK

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

On May 25, 2017, KFAQ, a radio station based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, received a cease-and-desist letter signed by two lawyers for Hannity: Victoria Toensing and Jay Alan Sekulow. Toensing’s signature sits above her name and that of her husband Joseph E. diGenova, the members of diGenova and Toensing LLP, who are identified as “Counsel for Sean Hannity,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Atlantic. Sekulow is also identified in the letter page as a “Counsel for Sean Hannity.”

Sekulow is now the only known personal attorney for President Trump working full-time on the response to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry. Sekulow recently announced that diGenova and Toensing had been hired to join him, before reversing course. The letter to the radio station was sent before Sekulow joined Trump’s team.

The advisor, Elizabeth Pierce, is the former chief executive of Quintillion, an Alaska-based fiber optic cable provider operating out of Anchorage. In her capacity as CEO, Pierce allegedly raised more than $250 million from two New York-based investment companies using forged contracts with other companies guaranteeing hundreds of millions of dollars in future revenue. Pierce resigned from Quintillion in August of last year, and she stepped down from her role in Pai’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) the following month.

“As it turned out, those sales agreements were worthless because the customers had not signed them,” US attorney Geoffrey Berman said in prepared remarks, as reported by the WSJ. “Instead, as alleged, Pierce had forged counter-party signatures on contract after contract. As a result of Pierce’s deception, the investment companies were left with a system that is worth far less than Pierce had led them to believe.” Pierce was trying to raise money to help build out a fiber optic system that would wire Alaska with high-speed internet and better help connect it to networks in other US states. Pierce was charged with wire fraud last Thursday and faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

Did I go through the complete list of victims? No.

There is one victim. None of us want talk about him.

But given my age, I have the courage to say it. This victim, his name is Alexandre Bissonnette.

Alexandre, before being a killer he was a victim himself. Before planting his bullets in the heads of his victims, somebody planted ideas more dangerous than the bullets in his head.

This little kid didn’t wake up in the morning and say ‘Hey guys instead of going to have a picnic or watching the Canadiens, I will go kill some people in the mosque.’ It doesn’t happen that way.

Day after day, week after week, month after month, certain politicians unfortunately, and certain reporters unfortunately, and certain media were poisoning our atmosphere.

-Imam Hassan Guillet

A Phoenix judge denied Arpaio’s request to erase his conviction entirely, saying in October that the presidential pardon didn’t “revise the historical facts of this case.” The appeals panel, by a 2-1 vote, said that since the U.S. Justice Department won’t defend that ruling, an outside lawyer must be appointed to argue against Arpaio.

 

SAY GOODBYE TO THE ECONOMY: SPECIAL TAX DAY DAY BEFORE TAX DAY SPECIAL

China’s Commerce Ministry said Tuesday that customs officers will charge importers a fee of about 179% on US sorghum after an investigation found the shipments were unfairly subsidizedand damaging Chinese producers.

Sorghum is a grain that is used to feed livestock and make a liquor that’s very popular with Chinese drinkers.

China is the largest buyer of American sorghum products. Its imports of the crop were worth about $960 million last year, according to Chinese customs data.

Yes, I had the exact same question.  What the hell is sorghum?

 

CAN WE GET BACK TO POLITICS?

 

RUMOR MILL:  CALLING A MOBBED-UP SPADE A MOBBED-UP SPADE

Lincoln’s Bible has made digging into Trump’s mob ties into an art form.  Now that Jim Comey called Trump’s presidency a Mob Coup, it’s time to go back and look at all of the hard work he did.

Spicy Mic posted Russia’s Telegram ban is a big, convoluted mess | The Verge earlier.  Russia is trying to ban Telegram, a messaging app that is not infiltrated by Russian Intelligence.  Problem is, their attempts at turning it off are breaking everything else.  Spicy’s holding on to something related to this, and she’s teasing that it’s big.  Let’s wait and see.

Former NSA analyst connects the dots between Sean Hannity, Julian Assange and Russian spies

It’s nice to see the MSM picking up what we’ve been talking about for over a year.

 

That’s it for today.  I was going to get into more detail, but something came up in the real world that I have to take care of.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daily Check-In 04/16/2018

Monday April 16th.  It was a nice, quiet Monday, right?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Fuck that.

 

MICHAEL COHEN IS FUCKED HARDER THAN STORMY DANIELS IN VENDETTA (2017 from Wicked Pictures link to IAFD potential NSFW)

First, the Wall Street Journal discovered that Michael Cohen used Essential Consultants LLC, the same company that he used to pay off Stormy Daniels, to receive payment from Elliot Broidy.

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, used the same Delaware limited-liability company in two secret deals relating to alleged sexual encounters involving his clients, according to people familiar with the matter.

Venture capitalist Elliott Broidy paid an initial installment of $62,500 to the company, Essential Consultants LLC, as part of Mr. Cohen’s $250,000 total fee for negotiating a nondisclosure agreement related to Mr. Broidy’s affair with a former Playboy model who alleged he had impregnated her, a person familiar with the matter said.

Federal prosecutors are examining money flowing in and out of Essential Consultants as part of a broad investigation into Mr. Cohen’s activities to silence women with allegations against Mr. Trump or those in his orbit, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the $1.6 million agreement between Mr. Broidy—the Republican National Committee’s deputy finance chairman with ties to Mr. Trump—and the model on Friday. Mr. Broidy later resigned his RNC post.

Cohen assisted Broidy in his abortion hush money, and had him pay Essential Consultants 1/16th of a million dollars, or 1/4th of 1/4th of a million dollars.

That payment to his shell company destroys the argument that it was created and only used for Stormy Daniels.

Mr. Broidy paid the remaining fee installments totaling $187,500 directly to Mr. Cohen after the Journal revealed in January that the Clifford payment was made through Essential Consultants, the person said.

The last three installment payments were paid directly to Cohen.

The monthslong investigation stemmed partly from “suspicious activity reports” filed by banks, including one that included details of Mr. Cohen’s payment to Ms. Clifford, people familiar with the matter said.

A suspicious activity report?

The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office is examining whether Mr. Cohen committed bank fraud by, among other things, taking out a home-equity credit line to pay for the Clifford agreement, a person familiar with the matter said.

Why the hell is a man who’s supposedly worth $10 million refinancing his home and taking out a second mortgage to make a $130,000 payment?

Mr. Cohen transferred the payment to an attorney for Ms. Clifford from an Essential Consultants account at First Republic Bank, according to people familiar with the matter. He has said the funds came from his home-equity line at the same bank.

Investigators are examining whether Mr. Cohen fraudulently used a bank loan for something other than the purpose he described on his loan application, the person said.

The Journal previously reported that First Republic Bank, which Mr. Cohen used to wire the payment to Ms. Clifford’s lawyer in October 2016, conducted its own investigation into the transaction after receiving a subpoena from federal authorities, according to another person familiar with the matter.

First Republic sent its findings to the Treasury Department in a so-called SAR, or suspicious-activity report, the person said. Such reports are required to be sent to the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network when banks observe transactions that have no apparent lawful purpose or deviate inexplicably from a customer’s normal bank activity.

Oh, shit.  FinCEN doesn’t fuck around.

Part of the investigation into Mr. Cohen involves payments made by American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer, and its officials including Chairman and Chief Executive David Pecker, a person familiar with the matter said.

Mr. Cohen communicated with Mr. Pecker and AMI’s chief content officer, Dylan Howard, during the course of negotiations for AMI to pay another Playboy model, Karen McDougal, to sell her story of an alleged 2006 affair with Mr. Trump to the National Enquirer, a person familiar with the matter said.

The Journal first revealed in November 2016 that AMI paid $150,000 to Ms. McDougal for her exclusive story of the alleged affair, which it then didn’t publish, a tactic known in the tabloid world as “catch and kill.”

Ms. McDougal filed suit last month seeking to extricate herself from that contract.

They’re tying  AMI/National Enquirer directly to the Cohen investigation?  They are fucked.

Separately, Mr. Cohen succeeded around 2013 in killing a story Us Weekly was preparing about an alleged affair between Donald Trump Jr., who had been a judge a year earlier on the television show, “Celebrity Apprentice,” and one of the contestants, Aubrey O’Day, a member of the singing duo Dumblonde, according to people familiar with the matter.

The magazine, then owned by Wenner Media, had what staffers believed to be a solid source on the alleged affair by the younger Mr. Trump and called the Trump Organization for comment, according to the people involved in the matter. They received a call back from Mr. Cohen, who threatened legal action and became so irate that they muted the call while he spoke, one of these people said.

“We were all on speakerphone and huddled around the phone,” this person said. “He was just one of these New York characters where he was just like swearing at us and totally over-the-top threatening.”

The magazine’s staff didn’t believe it was a big story that would be worth a legal fight and had a good working relationship with the elder Mr. Trump on stories related to the TV show “The Apprentice,” so they dropped the story.

The story of the alleged affair was reported in entertainment media last month when Donald Trump Jr.’s wife filed for divorce; Mr. Cohen’s involvement in the Us Weekly story hasn’t previously been reported.

Holy Shit, this was kicked off from an SAR sent to FinCEN?! Cohen is fucked. Like, seriously, ultimately, dead man walking fucked.

FinCEN is the investigative and crime fighting arm of the Treasury Department. They are more than capable of taking down white-collar crime by themselves, but if they referred this to the FBI, it means that not only did they find enough shit to bury him alive for financial crimes, but they dug up shit on him that is outside of their purview, and they felt that it was so serious that they had no other choice than to refer this to the FBI.

Not only did they find proof of money laundering and bank fraud, but they found proof of other, non-financial crimes.  Considering that Michael Cohen has been tied to everything from extortion to espionage, it makes sense why they were called in.

Oh, but things get worse.

Cohen threatened journalists back in 2013 to spike a story about Donnie Jr. fucking one of the apprentices on Celebrity Apprentice.

So, not only did Cohen take part in TWO taxi medallion scams in TWO different cities with TWO groups of Russian Mafia and La Cosa Nostra, but he sent emails about his taxi business FROM HIS TRUMP ORG EMAIL.

What are taxi medallions?  Taxicabs of the United States – Wikipedia gives an explanation, but the short version is that it’s a system of regulating the number of certified cab drivers in a city, but the lack of medallions usually means that there is a tiny  supply available.  Organized crime has long used these medallions as a method of Money Laundering

Oh, but it still gets worse…

Last week, instead of showing up at his court hearing last week, Cohen went out on the town to hang out with some friends.  One of them appears to be Rotem Rosen, and another is James von Moltke, CFO of Deutschebank.

Hanging out with a known link to Russian Oligarchs and the Kremlin, and a link to a bank under investigation for laundering Russian money while one is supposed to be Federal court explaining that they didn’t do anything violating the law requires a special kind of stupid.

Oh, but it gets even worse…

Third, [huge redaction], further belying the notion that Cohen is currently engaged in any significant practice of law.

Fourth, the USAO-SDNY has specific reason to doubt that the seized materials will include the volume and nature of attorney-client communications that Cohen claims. This is because the USAO-SDNY has already obtained search warrants – covert until this point – on multiple different email accounts maintained by Cohen, and has conducted a privilege review of the materials obtained pursuant to those warrants. The results of that review, as resported by the USAO’s Filter Team, indicate that Cohen is in fact performing little to no legal work, and that zero emails were exchanged with President Trump.

So, at best, Cohen has three legal clients, and according to the prosecution, hasn’t practiced law in a long time.  Instead, he’s a fixer, someone who does the dirty work that a respectable lawyer wouldn’t do.  He’s a consigliere, Saul Goodman without the legal talent.

Cohen’s team already identified the first two clients in Donald Trump and Elliot Broidy.

Cohen was reluctant to name his third client…

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE: SEAN HANNITY IS COHEN’S THIRD CLIENT

Sean Hannity aired an entire episode last week, two days after the FBI raided Michael Cohen, explaining how Mueller was secretly corrupt. Trump, the President of the United States, endorsed this episode from Twitter. This was TWO DAYS after the FBI raided their shared attorney’s home, office, and hotel room.

Sean Hannity now enters a world of hurt. He and Trump conspired to mislead Hannity’s viewers into going after the FBI and the Rule of Law. Aside from all of the other crap that Hannity’s been rumored to be a part of, this is evidence of Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice.

 

STORYMWATCH

 

COMEY

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

“The same people who would criticize me for filing this bill would be absolutely angry if I wasn’t pounding the table for this bill if we were dealing with Hillary Clinton,” he argued. “So spare me your righteous indignation.”

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

Crosseyed Huckster posted a pic from the Situation Room during the Syrian attack showing VP Mike Pence taking part in the attack.

One problem, Pence was in Peru during the attack.

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA AND FACEBOOK

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

RED STATE TEACHER STRIKES

 

BLUE WAVE

 

 

IN OTHER NEWS

 

IN MEMORIAM

 

RUMOR MILL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s it for today.  This is the new normal.  The more that comes out about Cohen, the worse things will get for Trump and his team.  The worse they think things get, the worse they’ll act.  The worse they act, the worse the reactions against them, creating a feedback loop.

Mueller.  Comey.  Cohen.  Stormy.  Hannity.  Pruitt.  Pompeo.  Putin.  All of them are coming to a head, at once.

And I’m here, keeping an eye on it all, enjoying the shitshow.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Cooperating Witnesses

Cooperating Witnesses are people that help investigators by providing information against others that committed crimes, often times crimes that the witness either took part in directly or personally witnessed.  Usually, they’re cooperating with the prosecution and investigators for consideration of leniency in their own sentencing.

Just as with most other criminal cases, in the Mueller Investigation, a cooperating witness has to be able to offer something more than themselves.  They have to be able to provide evidence on someone or something more important than them.  For example, if a witness robbed a bank, and they can only provide evidence against someone committing petty vandalism, the prosecutor won’t work with them.  However, if the bank robber can implicate the rest of their crew, or provide evidence against the crime boss that ordered and planned the robbery, the prosecution might be willing to make a deal for testimony.  This deal could include a reduced prison sentence, immunity against certain crimes, or other considerations like serving a sentence in a specific prison or getting extra privileges.

This article, which will be updated over time, lists the confirmed, rumored, and disproven cooperating witnesses, and will be updated over time.

 

CONFIRMED

George Papadopoulos:  Member of the Foreign Policy team, he was the first person known to flip.  George was arrested in July 2017, and pled guilty to lying to the FBI in October 2017.  His deal was first reported on Daily Check-In 10/30/2017.  George reported to jail on Daily Check-In 11/26/2018.

George Nader: Assistant and confidant of Erik Prince, with deep ties to the United Arab Emirates.  A convicted pedophile, his deal was reported on Daily Check-In 03/06/2018.

Richard Pinedo: Sold bank account information on the Dark Web to Russians working for the Internet Research Agency so they could spoof PayPal.  First reported on Daily Check-in 02/16/2018.

Rick Gates:  Former business partner of Paul Manafort, was Deputy Campaign Manager of the Trump Presidential Campaign from June 2016 until the end.  Following the campaign, he was the Chief of Staff to the Chairman of the Trump Inaugural Committee chairman Tom Barrack.  His deal took a long time to work out, but was finalized on Daily Check-In 02/23/2018.

Mike Flynn: Former National Security Advisor to President Trump.  Pled guilty to lying to the FBI in exchange for his cooperation in multiple legal affairs on Daily Check-In 12/01/2017.

Jeffrey Yohai:  Paul Manafort’s former son-in-law, his deal became public on May 18, 2018.

Evgeny Freidman: Michael Cohen’s former business partner in Taxi Medallion businesses.  He pleaded guilty to tax evasion and agreed to testify against Donald Trump’s personal attorney on   May 22, 2018.

Sam Patten: A lobbyist that worked with Paul Manafort, he also worked for the Opposition Bloc, arranged a deal to funnel at least $50,000 of Ukrainian money into the Trump Inauguration Committee, and worked at SCL/Cambridge Analytica on messaging for Vladimir Putin.  His deal became public on Daily Check-In 08/31/2018.

Paul Manafort: Former Campaign Chairman for the Trump Presidential Campaign.  He agreed to a plea deal involving a cooperation agreement on Daily Check-In 09/14/2018.  The Special Counselor’s Office broke that deal on Daily Check-In 11/26/2018 after they announced that Manafort had lied repeatedly during the cooperation period.

Michael Cohen: Former attorney for Donald Trump.  He’s rumored to be cooperating with the Mueller Investigation, but as of this time does not have a formal agreement.  UPDATE: Formal update confirmed on Daily Check-In 11/29/2018

 

RUMORED

Steve Bannon:  Former White House Chief Strategist.  He’s rumored to have spilled the beans on Trump, Cambridge Analytica, and the Mercers to avoid espionage and treason charges.

 

DISPROVEN

Alex Van Der Zwan:  Rick Gates’ former attorney.  Convicted of lying to the FBI, serving a 30 day sentence in prison.

 

UPDATE HISTORY

April 15th: Began article and listed names.

May 18th:  Added Jeffrey Yohai.  Fleshed out details of each person.

May 22nd:  Added Evgeny Freidman.

September 3rd:  Added Sam Patten.

September 16th: Added Paul Manafort.

November 27th: Paul Manafort is no longer a cooperating witness.

December 6th: Michael Cohen is officially cooperating with Robert Mueller’s team as of November 29th, 2018.