Tag: Daily

Daily Check-In 04/23/2018

Monday, April 23rd and the weekend.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

So, here’s the short version:

Took off from Asheville, 9:15PM Thursday Nov 7.

Landed Moscow 6:15AM Friday, Nov 8.

Saturday, Nov 9, Trump was pictured at the Ritz, tweeted he got a tour of Moscow. This is the next day, so he must have spent Friday night in Moscow, right?

Sunday, 1AM, November 10- Trump attends Miss Universe Pageant After Party.

Take off from Moscow, 3:58AM, Sunday, November 10.

Land at Newark 4:11AM Sunday, November 10.

Trump claims the allegation can’t be true, because he never even spent a night in Russia, but the travel shows otherwise.

Trump told James Comey multiple times that he wasn’t in Russia long enough to sleep.  While it’s possible that he didn’t sleep in the hotel, it strains credulity.

Trump notoriously sleeps only a few hours a night, typically about 4-6.  Assuming he slept on the plane right up to landing, and didn’t succumb to jet lag, he’s trying to push the tale that he was up for two days straight.  Not a lot of senior citizens can stay awake without assistance for that long.  And by assistance, I mean drugs.  Lots of drugs.  Coke and other uppers.

So, he took enough drugs to kill a small horse to stay awake and party for two days, or he slept in Russia, thus leading credence to the pee pee tape rumors.

Here’s an old article from last summer, where Bloomberg recreates Trump’s Two Nights of Parties in Moscow Echo Years Later.

I mentioned this for the first time on Daily Check-In 04/18/2018.  Looks like New York is working fast.

Two words:  Sealed Indictments.

Flynn Jr. is now saying his father never lied to Pence about his interactions with Kisylak. Which, if he is telling the truth, would mean:
  1. Pence, who has said he had no knowledge of the conversations Flynn was having with Kisylak and other Russian officials, actually did know.
  2. Trump’s reason for firing Flynn doesn’t hold water since the former national security adviser didn’t lie to Pence.
  3. Flynn chose to lie to the FBI about his dealings with the Russians during the transition but told the truth to the incoming vice president about those same interactions.

Flynn Jr. is not a very bright man.  This time, his stupidity may have accidentally tripped over the truth and shone a light on how much Mike Pence knows.

Flipping Flynn lays out how much trouble both Mike Flynn’s are in.

UPDATE: Just as I was finishing up, I ran across This article showing that Flynn Jr. is a subject of the Russian Investigation.  This leads credence to the standing hypothesis that Daddy Flynn flipped to protect his son.

Might have something to do with the fact that she’s a Russian spy.  Natalia Veselnitskaya is a cut-out for Russian Intelligence.  Even the Swiss called her a spy (Daily Check-In 01/29/2018).  If Mueller’s team or the FBI show up to interview her, they’re taking her back with them into custody.

 

COHEN: SEAN HANNITY’S REAL ESTATE EMPIRE

The records link Hannity to a group of shell companies that spent at least $90m on more than 870 homes in seven states over the past decade. The properties range from luxurious mansions to rentals for low-income families. Hannity is the hidden owner behind some of the shell companies and his attorney did not dispute that he owns all of them.

Sean Hannity, the man who sang about the evils of Obama’s government, built a real estate empire based off of government loans.

On the surface, this looks shady, but might not be illegal.  If everything was done above the board, then he’s just a rich old white guy benefiting off of the pain and misery of poor people.

Thanks to this post from Reddit /u/Diosjenin for tying the threads together:

You’re still missing it. It’s right at the end.

In footage unearthed this week that was broadcast on Fox News in January last year, Hannity mentioned having discussed an unidentified $2bn property venture in Dubai with Cohen.

“I said, ‘I’m interested in that deal myself,’” said Hannity.

It just so happens that Donald Trump also dabbled in a $2b property venture in Dubai with Michael Cohen.

It also just so happens that Donald Trump habitually uses large construction projects as a means of money laundering for shady friends (such as this project here).

It also just so happens that the United Arab Emirates, the country where Dubai is located, has served as a facilitator for back-channel Trump-Russia communications, and has used unregistered agents to influence US foreign policy up to and including pushing to fire Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State.

Which means Sean Hannity has probably partnered with Russia to launder money through real estate, in exchange for… something.

Wonder if that has anything to do with Julian Assange accidentally contacting the wrong Sean Hannity to offer dirt on ranking Senate Intelligence Committe Democrat Mark Warner via “other channels”.

So, we have Sean Hannity, Michael Cohen, and Donald Trump all involved in the same Dubai deal, likely as payoff for his work with the Russians.

By the way, Sean Hannity has been under an FBI Counterintelligence investigation since at least last August (Daily Check-In 8/3/2017).

 

#NEVERAGAIN

Reinking threatened someone with an AR-15 then drove to a public pool and exposed himself to others, said the USA TODAY Network’s Tennessean, citing police records. He has also threatened to kill himself and said he thought singer Taylor Swift was stalking him, according to the Associated Press.

Another case of White, Right-Wing, Domestic Terrorism.  This guy was crazy enough that law enforcement took his guns from him and gave them to his father, his next of kin.  His father then gave his son back his guns, and four people are dead because of it.

 

COLD WAR 2.0

Two words:  Magnitsky Act.  Freeze and seize their assets around the world.  Freeze the accounts of everyone they hang out with, they’re related to, and they know in passing.

Remember when Republicans gave a shit about using unsecured communication methods to relay classified information?  Something something buttery males.

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE/TECH WOLRD PROBLEMS

 

STORMYGATE

Jessica Drake, an adult-film star who claims she refused a $10,000 offer to have sex with Donald Trump after meeting him at a Lake Tahoe golf event in 2006, says Stormy Daniels told her Daniels was threatened by someone to stay silent about Daniels’ alleged sexual tryst with Trump.

…

“She actually told me about the threat twice,” Drake said. “So the first time she told me about the threat was shortly after it happened. She relayed the experience to me. I said something like, ‘I’m so sorry, I can’t even imagine. What are you going to do?'”

Know what’s more trustworthy than one porn star accusing Trump of using his goons to threaten her?  Another porn star backing it up from years ago.

 

RED STATE TEACHER STRIKES

 

SAY GOODBYE TO THE ECONOMY

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

BLUE WAVE

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

73 years of marriage, and less than a day after her funeral, George HW Bush is in intensive care in the hospital.  It’s like The Notebook, but in this case Ryan Gosling ran the CIA for a couple years.  Still a better story than Drive.

 

RUMOR MILL

 

 

 

That’s it for today.  Quite a few things happened over the weekend, but I still don’t think we’ve gotten to the bottom of the Sean Hannity story.  Until and unless Cohen’s emails show that his is all he worked with Sean on, I’m waiting for even worse stuff to come out about him.  The rumors floating around him involved quite a bit of SIGINT on him, as well as some sexual kompromat.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

 

 

Daily Check-In 04/20/2018

Friday, April 20th.  4-20.  Happy Weed Day, if you’re into that kind of thing.

 

COHEN IS FUCKED HARDER THAN STORMY DANIELS IN BONE APPETITE (2003, FROM THE INTERNET ADULT FILM DATABASE (YES, THAT REALLY IS A THING))

The consensus thought is that Michael Cohen will flip on Donald Trump as soon as charges are brought against him.  Cohen loves to talk tough, but he’s probably never been in a real fight in his life, and you never know how you’ll react until you get punched in the face.  He’s bragged about how he would take a bullet for Trump, but there is a world of difference between taking a bullet and spending 30 years in prison.

Remember on Daily Check-In 04/18/2018 when I said to keep an eye out for Keith Davidson?  Looks like we don’t have to wait to find out news about him.  He’s already working with the feds against Cohen.  My guess is that they found some incriminating evidence against Davidson, and gave him a simple option; work with them against Cohen or look at a VERY long prison sentence and disbarment.

On top of his federal problems, Cohen owes $174,000 in back taxes on his taxi cab companies.  Those tax problems are on top of his other legal issues.

There’s only one word that describes how I feel watching Michael Cohen squirm.

Schadenfreude.

 

DNC SUES TRUMP FOR RUSSIAN COLLUSION

Coming right out of the Watergate playbook, the Democratic Party has sued the Trump Campaign, the Russians, and all of the players in Federal Civil court in SDNY in Manhattan.  You know, the same place that’s going through Trump’s lawyer’s documents with a fine toothed comb.

It would be a shame if Trump had to split his attention among another lawsuit.

 

STORMYGATE:  STORMY SUES TRUMP FOR DEFAMATION

Look, another lawsuit!  This time because Donald Trump called a woman he was involved in a civil lawsuit with a liar.

Gee, I REALLY hope he can focus his energies and doesn’t have to deal with ANOTHER lawsuit.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION:  McCABE SUES TRUMP FOR DEFAMATION, WRONGFUL TERMINATION.  SESSIONS THREATENS TO RESIGN IF ROSENSTEIN IS FIRED, DID TRUMP SLEEP IN MOSCOW?

That’s at least two lawsuits filed and another promised in ONE FUCKING DAY.

And Rudy?  That fucker hasn’t been in a courtroom since the 80’s.  He’s brash, obnoxious, and under investigation for passing on classified information from FBI agents to the press.  Which may be the only use he has in this case.

 

COMEY DON’T PLAY THAT:  FALLOUT FROM THE MEMO RELEASE

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS: STOLEN VALOR

Claiming to serve and fight when one didn’t is such a scummy, slimy, cowardly move, and that kind of claim is easy to prove or disprove.  It’s not like anyone could look up the division, find out where it was headquartered, contact the base, and ask someone to look up the personnel records from over almost 30 years ago.  Or, track down a few soldiers from that unit and ask them “Did you serve with this guy?”

Fuck Pompeo, and fuck Pruitt.  I haven’t talked about him enough, but his corrupt ass really needs to spend some time in the barrel.

 

#NEVERAGAIN

19 years ago, two kids rolled in to Columbine High School and shot up the place, in what was at that the time the worst shooting in a school.  Since then, over 200,000 school aged kids have been exposed to gun violence in this country, while the Republican Party accepted more and more money from the NRA to block any and all attempts at gun control, no matter how common sense the ideas were, like keeping guns out of the hands of people with violent criminal histories or mentally unstable people.

An entire generation of kids grew up under the specter of violence in school.  And we let it happen.  Gen-X, Gen-Y, the Boomers, all of us let this happen.

We need to stand with this next generation to solve this problem.

 

TRUMP ORG AND CORRUPTION, FROM THE WATER IS WET DEPARTMENT

These stories about Trump calling reporters to leak stories about him have been circulating since the 80’s, but it looks like a reporter found their old collection of tapes where “John Barron” talked about how great Trump is.

If that name looks familiar, Trump later named his last son Barron.

 

SMALLVILLE AND SEX TRAFFICKING

Ok, this is pretty fucking weird, and I know it doesn’t have anything to do with Russia, politics, or treason.

A couple weeks ago I ran across a story from Artvoice posted on Reddit about a self-help multi-level-marketing system that is actually a pyramid scheme sex cult.  I didn’t catch all of the details, but it was just weird enough to might have a piece of truth to it.

Well, turns out that Clark’s blonde friend from Smallville was running a sex cult, complete with branding her slaves with her initials on their vaginas.

This is 2018, that will be the craziest thing to happen for at least 20, maybe 25 minutes.

 

SMOKE’EM IF YOU GOT’EM

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

That last article was from Fox Business, claiming to have insider information about the Mueller Investigation.  I’m calling bullshit.

Mueller’s team has been a black box.  No one knows what they’re doing until they do it, and any info that does come out only comes from the defense attorneys that get interviewed.  On top of top of that, Fox News Channel is under a counter-intelligence investigation.

So, why in the Crystal Pepsi-flavored fuck would anyone from the Mueller team talk to Fox Business and Fox News?

 

CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA AND FACEBOOK

 

CA CREW

 

RUMOR MILL:  90 DAYS

We’ve entered a new phase, where multiple investigations in several jurisdictions are taking place simultaneously. Mueller’s work in EDVA and DC, Cohen and the DNC lawsuits in SDNY, and now EDNY subpoenaed Jared’s businesses over their rent-control scam.

4 federal attorney offices are actively investigating people close to the President.  And they know they’re screwed.  Even Cohen’s own lawyer expects him to be indicted within 90 days.

I find 90 days an interesting time, and makes me think that we’re going to see a major change in the strategy.

Why?  That’s how long it would take to change New York state law to remove double jeopardy protection for people pardoned in federal court.  I mentioned in Daily Check-In 04/18/2018 about the efforts to amend New York 40.20.  If that change goes through, then it’s game on, as New York won’t have to worry about what crimes get pardoned.  If anything, the pardons would make it easier for them to charge people in state court, since as I mentioned before in GTKYG-Pardon Limitations that accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt and waives their fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination.

 

That’s it for today.  I’m not sure what I will write this weekend.  Most likely, I will update the Cast of Characters.  Maybe I’ll start up a tally with all of the known lawsuits floating around.  We’ll see where things go from here.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 04/16/2018

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