Michael Cohen Investigation

[JBJ 3654]

3 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Wrong.  The question is if the payments were of value to the campaign.  If they were . . . and they CLEARLY were . . . then they constitute campaign finance law violations because of the amount.

No it's not.  Every PAC spends millions of dollars every year "of value" to campaigns.  It's doesn't violate laws to spend money to help a campaign.

[jimmyjazz 45903]

11 minutes ago, JBJ said:

No it's not.  Every PAC spends millions of dollars every year "of value" to campaigns.  It's doesn't violate laws to spend money to help a campaign.

The laws I referenced are for individuals.

[JBJ 3654]

3 hours ago, Mojo Hand said:

But they didn't report it as a campaign expenditure.  How does it help him to admit it was for the campaign, and thus needed to be reported? 

It doesn't because it is clearly not a campaign expenditure.

Edwards got in trouble for the same thing.  He funnelled $2.1MM to his mistress originating from his 2008 campaign.  All that happened was he had to repay the funds.

Edited May 4, 2018 by JBJ

[JBJ 3654]

3 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

The laws I referenced are for individuals.

And it makes no difference.  Just replace "PACs" with "persons."  In my statement above.

Edited May 4, 2018 by JBJ

[TahoeHorn 107]

You boys are wallowing in the weeds.  Big picture, Trump is going down or surviving based on whether Mueller finds something that turns our stomach. I think you'll know when you see it whether it meets the test.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

What’s sad is Mueller needs to find something for Trump to be removed.  Trump’s unfitness and danger to the country is obvious without an investigation.

We are getting what we deserve and we really don’t deserve Mueller.

Edited May 4, 2018 by Hugo Stiglitz

[Pods 7552]

30 minutes ago, TahoeHorn said:

You boys are wallowing in the weeds.  Big picture, Trump is going down or surviving based on whether Mueller finds something that turns our stomach. I think you'll know when you see it whether it meets the test.

Which just further illustrates the utter depravity of the GOP. An utterly amoral, hypocritical, serially philandering, serially sexual assaulting, traitorous, narcissistic monster leads your party and you stand by idly and watch him destroy.

You've got one hell of a selectively strong stomach Tahoe. 

Edited May 4, 2018 by Pods

[Brisketexan 105097]

11 minutes ago, Pods said:

Which just further illustrates the utter depravity of the GOP. An utterly amoral, hypocritical, serially philandering, serially sexual assaulting, traitorous, narcissistic monster leads your party and you stand by idly and watch him destroy.

You've got one hell of a selectively strong stomach Tahoe. 

But in fairness, mustard and 57 states.

You understand.

[Pods 7552]

10 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

But in fairness, mustard and 57 states.

You understand.

Well, naturally. Blowjobs, tan suits and feet on the desk really disgraces the Presidency, Oval Office and White House in ways that burning top secret Israeli sources on ISIS and chumming it up with the guys that just attacked your country just doesn't. 

I get it, one set of those events almost seems trivial in comparison to the other set. 

Edited May 4, 2018 by Pods

[Amos Moses 795]

38 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

What’s sad is Mueller needs to find something for Trump to be removed.  Trump’s unfitness and danger to the country is obvious without an investigation.

We are getting what we deserve and we really don’t deserve Mueller.

No, it’s not sad.  That’s how the whole rule of law is supposed to work.

[retread 2951]

Obama filled out those March Madness brackets. Sad!

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

7 minutes ago, Amos Moses said:

No, it’s not sad.  That’s how the whole rule of law is supposed to work.

Look, if Trump’s approval ratings among Republican voters were in the 10-15% range, Trump would have been removed yesterday.

The sad part is the Trumpublicans don’t give a shit what Trump does to the republic because fuck libs!

Removal from office/impeachment has next to nothing to do with the rule of law.

Edited May 4, 2018 by Hugo Stiglitz

[Pods 7552]

37 minutes ago, Amos Moses said:

No, it’s not sad.  That’s how the whole rule of law is supposed to work.

Impeachment is a political process. It is entirely appropriate that Mueller has to find evidence of crimes to convict Trump.

That standard is not required for impeachment, which is a political process. 

It is both sad and pathetic that Trump's 3,000+ lies, along with his constant unprofessionalism, crassness, repeated infidelity and now public record of his having been successfully blackmailed by a porn star are not sufficient for the GOP, supposedly a party of morals, to impeach him.

I will point out one more time, impeachment is a political process and Trump is lightyears beyond what used to be impeachable. It is entirely in the GOP's power to stop Trump and they choose not to for self preservation. 

Edited May 4, 2018 by Pods

[retread 2951]

It would be interesting to go back in time and see if a 1974 Congress would have already impeached Cheeto by now.

[Pods 7552]

6 minutes ago, retread said:

It would be interesting to go back in time and see if a 1974 Congress would have already impeached Cheeto by now.

With the same crimes and events? Absolutely. Trump's actions would shock the conscience in 1974.

I really think FOX is the big reason. They normalized this behavior and let it become mainstream. They're actively whittling away at decency right along with Mueller and Rosenstein on 80-90% of the fronts. People who used to say Trump was an asshole, now are brainwashed and it's "The Art of the Deal™". He's got some sort of masterplan he's working and he's the most successful precedent evar. 

No FOX, even this Congress would have acted. 

Edited May 4, 2018 by Pods

[retread 2951]

After firing Comey (by 1974 sensibilities), I think the Lester Holt interview coupled with blowing the Israeli spy's cover would have done it. Very likely he would have been impeached, imo.

[JimmyJames 12271]

18 minutes ago, retread said:

It would be interesting to go back in time and see if a 1974 Congress would have already impeached Cheeto by now.

In 1974 the greatest generation was in power so trump would never have been elected to be the mayor of shitsville, much less impeached as the president of the USA. 

In 2018 forty years later the baby boomers are in power, so not only is trump the president and at least now not going to be impeached despite his obvious crimes and unfitness to hold the office, he actually has a substantial minority amount of support. 

That’s the difference. 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

15 minutes ago, Pods said:

With the same crimes and events? Absolutely. Trump's actions would shock the conscience in 1974.

I really think FOX is the big reason. They normalized this behavior and let it become mainstream. They're actively whittling away at decency right along with Mueller and Rosenstein on 80-90% of the fronts. People who used to say Trump was an asshole, now are brainwashed and it's "The Art of the Deal™". He's got some sort of masterplan he's working and he's the most successful precedent evar. 

No FOX, even this Congress would have acted. 

It’s not just Fox but years of...yes I’m going to say it...ACTIVE MEASURES.

[Pods 7552]

You'll get shit for that, but it's because you are correct. 

[ShaggyBevo RIP 3868]

5 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

You guys are really overthinking a hush money payment to a porn star.

That’s hilarious in itself 

A writer at DCReport pointed out the Giuliana's story indicates Trump truly is a paper tiger 'billionaire' and needed an installment plan to pay off $130K to Stormy Daniels.  

https://www.dcreport.org/2018/05/03/whopper-of-the-week-the-broke-billionaire/

Edited May 5, 2018 by ShaggyBevo RIP

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Trump’s so broke!

How broke is he?

He had to set up a payment plan to pay off a porn star he never slept with. 

[burntorangebongos 10710]

I already did that joke. Man, I bet it pisses Michell Wolf off that this didn't come out already. The jokes against SHS would have really landed all the better. Fuck that  Huckabeast!

[Pods 7552]

27 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Trump’s so broke!

How broke is he?

He had to set up a payment plan to pay off a porn star he never slept with. 

 

[burntorangebongos 10710]

hahahahha!!!!! Fuck....I peed myself.

[Pods 7552]

Yet another version of the Cohen/Stormy/Trump saga. If the sources are lying, they need to burn them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/04/us/politics/trump-hush-payment-stormy-daniels.html

Trump Is Said to Know of Stormy Daniels Payment Months Before He Denied It

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR, MAGGIE HABERMAN, JIM RUTENBERG and MATT APUZZOMAY 4, 2018

Quote

WASHINGTON — President Trump knew about a six-figure payment that Michael D. Cohen, his personal lawyer, made to a pornographic film actress several months before he denied any knowledge of it to reporters aboard Air Force One in April, according to two people familiar with the arrangement.

Quote

How much Mr. Trump knew about the payment to Stephanie Clifford, the actress, and who else was aware of it have been at the center of a swirling controversy for the past 48 hours touched off by a television interview with Rudolph W. Giuliani, a new addition to the president’s legal team. The interview was the first time a lawyer for the president had acknowledged that Mr. Trump had reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the payments to Ms. Clifford, whose stage name is Stormy Daniels.

It was not immediately clear when Mr. Trump learned of the payment, which Mr. Cohen made in October 2016, at a time when news media outlets were poised to pay her for her story about an alleged affair with Mr. Trump in 2006. But three people close to the matter said that Mr. Trump knew that Mr. Cohen had succeeded in keeping the allegations from becoming public at the time the president denied it.[/quote

, which was mainly through payments of $35,000 per month from the trust that contains the president’s personal fortune, according to two people with knowledge of the arrangement.

Quote

Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, has known since last year the details of how Mr. Cohen was being reimbursed

Edited May 5, 2018 by Pods

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Sigh, the story will keep changing and remain in the news all next week.

They finally found a non-Russia scandal that sticks in the media but ultimately only reinforces everything we already knew.

[triplehorn 2664]

3 minutes ago, 5 5 said:

I wonder if Cohen was a source. 

msnbc's Kyle Griffin:

Quote

Trump Org. CFO Allen Weisselberg has known since last year the details of how Cohen was being reimbursed, NYT reports. If Weisselberg was involved in directing the use of funds to silence Daniels, it could draw the Trump Org. deeper into the Cohen probe.

 

[burntorangebongos 10710]

Found this on Avenatti's twitter feed:

If he can get the Suspicious Activity Report released then it might show the money trail of the hush money.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

I hope he didn’t use any of that money to pay off the hackers in Prague... you know, like it clearly says he did in the dossier.

for reference 

Edited May 5, 2018 by Hugo Stiglitz

[achooloco 1067]

7 hours ago, TahoeHorn said:

You boys are wallowing in the weeds.  Big picture, Trump is going down or surviving based on whether Mueller finds something that turns our stomach. I think you'll know when you see it whether it meets the test.

For the cocksucker idiots that voted for him (not a slight against homosexuals but even me having to say that sucks but still true; either way a topic for another thread) At least get it right. The traitor deserves removal for everything he has done so far but as more astute posters have mentioned, senate won’t convict. I’m not there yet but I don’t think they’re wrong (yet)

[burntorangebongos 10710]

Did he pay hackers or other porn stars? That chick that got 1.6 to stay quiet about an abortion from that fat dude is still out there. Maybe it wasn't his abortion but Trump's.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

5 hours ago, burntorangebongos said:

Did he pay hackers or other porn stars? That chick that got 1.6 to stay quiet about an abortion from that fat dude is still out there. Maybe it wasn't his abortion but Trump's.

Who knows with this den of liars.

[David Dennison 18854]

It's becoming clear that people continue to support this president purely out of spite.

 

[retread 2951]

5 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

It's becoming clear that people continue to support this president purely out of spite.

tbh, I really didn't think the Rs had it in them. Limbaugh et al have been whipping the R base into a frenzy for 25 years, and people have been told that the Ds get the best of the Rs at every turn. Now that the base has a full-blooded narcissist at the helm, they know they have someone who will not bend to pressure from the Ds or from the media. In a lot of their minds, it's payback time. Team > Country. If they have to swallow some adultery, lying, porn-star payoffs, light treason, etc., then so be it.

Edited May 5, 2018 by retread

[Judge Roybeanbag 11819]

12 hours ago, burntorangebongos said:

hahahahha!!!!! Fuck....I peed myself.

Damn and I missed it!

[David Dennison 18854]

33 minutes ago, retread said:

tbh, I really didn't think the Rs had it in them. Limbaugh et al have been whipping the R base into a frenzy for 25 years, and people have been told that the Ds get the best of the Rs at every turn. Now that the base has a full-blooded narcissist at the helm, they know they have someone who will not bend to pressure from the Ds or from the media. In a lot of their minds, it's payback time. Team > Country. If they have to swallow some adultery, lying, porn-star payoffs, light treason, etc., then so be it.

If everyone who could vote did vote, Republicans would be a minority party from here on out.

Democrats just need to get voters out.

Edited May 5, 2018 by David Dennison

[Brisketexan 105097]

It's becoming clear that people continue to support this president purely out of spite.
 

That really is something that just blows me away. Why do you support this guy? “BECAUSE FUCK YOU, THAT’S WHY!” That’s it. End of reasoning. Sure, they try to cloak it with an issue or two from time to time, but for the bulk of Trumpkins...that’s it.

Everything awful about our human nature, distilled and personified.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Hugo Theory:

Let’s assume the FBI took the Steele Dossier seriously and investigated the most serious criminal aspects of it first.  

The last two pages of the Dossier are all Michael Cohen working out how to make cash payments to the hackers in Prague sometime in Aug/Sept 2016.  Steele had already reached out to the FBI office in Rome at this time.  

Assumption: Michael Cohen was a TARGET from very early on in the Russia investigation, Comey was probably looking at him.

Given the information the FBI had to work with on Cohen, the first place investigators would have looked would have been the MONEY.

Now we know Cohen had access to at least $700,000 in cash to work with from leveraging his property and the property of his wife’s parents, who are Ukrainian by the way.  We know this was basically a huge petty cash fund to at least payoff Trump’s playmates and porn stars but there’s still a lot of money unaccounted for.

Here’s my theory: 

Mueller followed the fuck out of the money and had Cohen dead to rights on Russian interference related charges for a long time but he came across these porn star and playmate payoffs that have nothing to do with Russia but everything to do with the election and campaign finance violations.

Once Mueller wrapped up his Cohen-Russia investigation he kicked up the other criminal investigation stuff to Rosenstein who handed it off to the SDNY and we are watching that unfold now via the raid.

Now, Cohen leveraged a bunch of his own property to pay for Trump’s nefarious shit but it doesn’t look like Trump ever paid Cohen back, likely to give Trump some plausible deniability if shit ever hit the fan.

However, about a year ago, Michael Cohen was named deputy finance chair of the GOP.

 

The GOP  would have been a good vehicle for Cohen to slowly reimburse himself over time for all his fixing during the election season.  The GOP has also been paying Trump and Don Jr.’s legal bills which I’m sure Cohen was a big part of making that happen.

In conclusion, they’re all fucked.

 

Who indicts Cohen first, Mueller or SDNY?

Edited May 5, 2018 by Hugo Stiglitz

[Chooky 13307]

23 hours ago, Kyrie Eleison said:

 

At the :33 mark it sounds like someone might've farted.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Good article that just came out on Cohen.

Would have been useful before election.

He was a personal-injury lawyer who often worked out of taxi offices scattered around New York City.

There was the one above the run-down auto repair garage on West 16th Street in Manhattan, on the edge of the Meatpacking District before it turned trendy. There was the single-story building with the garish yellow awning in the shadow of the Queensboro Bridge. There was the tan brick place on a scruffy Manhattan side street often choked with double-parked taxis.

And then there was his office on the 26th floor of Trump Tower overlooking Fifth Avenue, right next to the one belonging to Donald J. Trump.

Before he joined the Trump Organization and became Mr. Trump’s lawyer and do-it-all fixer, Michael D. Cohen was a hard-edge personal-injury attorney and businessman. Now a significant portion of his quarter-century business record is under the microscope of federal prosecutors — posing a potential threat not just to Mr. Cohen but also to the president.

Mr. Cohen’s businesses are private entities, making it difficult to get a full picture of their finances and operations. But a New York Times review of thousands of pages of public records, and interviews with bankers, lawyers and businessmen who have interacted with Mr. Cohen, reveal the degree to which he has often operated in the backwaters of the financial and legal worlds.

While he has not been charged with a crime, many of his associates have faced either criminal charges or stiff regulatory penalties. That includes partners in the taxi business, doctors for whom he helped establish medical clinics and lawyers with whom he worked.

He has spent much of his personal and professional life with immigrants from Russia and Ukraine. His father-in-law, who helped establish him in the taxi business, was born in Ukraine, as was one of Mr. Cohen’s partners in that industry. Another partner was Russian. And Mr. Cohen used his connections in the region when scouting business opportunities for Mr. Trump in former Soviet republics.

More recently, Mr. Cohen and his father-in-law lent more than $25 million to a Ukrainian businessman who has a checkered financial record and a history of defaulting on loans. And Mr. Cohen long held a small stake in his uncle’s catering hall, which was frequented by Russian and Italian mobsters.

In addition to his legal and taxi businesses, Mr. Cohen has had a seemingly charmed touch as a real estate investor. On one day in 2014, he sold four buildings in Manhattan for $32 million, entirely in cash. That was nearly three times what he paid for them no more than three years earlier.

“This is the type of person you’d see most bankers steer clear of,” said Ben Berzin, a retired executive vice president and senior credit officer at PNC Bank who clashed with Mr. Trump in the early 1990s over loans to the future president’s troubled Atlantic City casinos. The speed with which Mr. Cohen successfully flipped real estate stands out, Mr. Berzin said. “You have to ask what’s going on.”

Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, had already been examining Mr. Cohen’s conduct as part of his ongoing inquiry. Last month, federal agents executed search warrants at Mr. Cohen’s home, his office and a hotel room where he was staying. The warrants sought documents related to Mr. Cohen’s business associates, among other things. That investigation, being conducted by the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan, is apparently based on information provided by Mr. Mueller’s team.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers are resigned to the strong possibility that the investigation of Mr. Cohen’s businesses could lead him to cooperate with federal prosecutors.

Mr. Cohen, after being sent a detailed list of questions about his business interests, responded in a text message, “You need to do real fact checking as your questions are totally inaccurate.” Neither he nor his lawyers have offered further comment.

Mr. Trump, for his part, has said that Mr. Cohen was “a good guy” and that federal investigators were “looking at something having to do with his business. I have nothing to do with his business.”

But the president has long entrusted Mr. Cohen to represent him in matters both public and deeply private: real estate negotiations from Fresno, Calif., to the Republic of Georgia, and the hush-money payment to an adult-film actress who said she had had an affair with the future president. Or, as Mr. Trump put it, “this crazy Stormy Daniels deal.”

The $130,000 payment to the actress is in a way emblematic of Mr. Cohen’s many business dealings. Its provenance is murky, obfuscated by a private agreement, pseudonyms and evolving explanations. President Trump said this past week that he had paid Mr. Cohen a retainer that was used to reimburse the $130,000, directly contradicting his earlier statements that he knew of no payment to Ms. Daniels.

Within the Trump Organization, it was Mr. Cohen’s job to deal with Mr. Trump’s thorniest problems. But now, whatever problems investigators find in Mr. Cohen’s own array of businesses could double back on Mr. Trump.

Family Ties

The son of a Holocaust survivor, Mr. Cohen grew up in the Five Towns area of Long Island, just east of the New York City borough of Queens. It was a comfortable life — both his father and an uncle were doctors, and he attended a local private school then called Woodmere Academy.

“My cousins are all either lawyers or doctors,” Mr. Cohen told The New York Times last year.

One of those relatives was his uncle Dr. Morton W. Levine. Uncle Morty, as he was known to his family, had no children of his own, and he and Mr. Cohen were close. He even let his nephew drive his Bentley.

Dr. Levine, a family practitioner, provided medical assistance to members of the Lucchese crime family, “which aided their illegal activities,” according to a sworn affidavit in 1993 from an F.B.I. special agent. The agent was involved in the investigation of the Lucchese underboss, Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso, who “regarded Levine as someone who would do anything for him,” according to the affidavit. That account was buttressed by testimony from a longtime Lucchese associate in an unrelated 2006 federal trial. In 1992, Dr. Levine bought Mr. Casso’s home while Mr. Casso was a fugitive. Dr. Levine has acknowledged in court documents that Mr. Casso was a patient. But he said he did not know that the house belonged to Mr. Casso and denied any wrongdoing.

Dr. Levine also owned El Caribe, a Brooklyn catering hall that for decades was the scene of mob weddings and Christmas parties. Two of New York’s most notorious Russian mobsters once maintained offices there.

Mr. Cohen was among the minority owners of El Caribe, Dr. Levine has said, although he added that Mr. Cohen gave up his ownership stake after the 2016 election.

Dr. Levine had crossed paths with Mr. Trump years before his nephew went to work for him. The doctor was part of an investment group with some garment executives that unsuccessfully challenged Mr. Trump’s 1989 bid for the Atlantis Casino in Atlantic City.

 

Dr. Levine declined to comment.

Mr. Cohen began his professional legal career at a personal injury firm in 1992, the year after he graduated from Cooley Law School in Michigan. His boss at that first job would later plead guilty to bribery.

Mr. Cohen’s marriage in 1994 gave him entree to communities of immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

His new father-in-law, Fima Shusterman, had emigrated from Ukraine in 1975. By the time of the wedding, Mr. Shusterman had landed in serious legal trouble. In 1993, he pleaded guilty to evading federal reporting requirements for large cash transactions, admitting that he had cashed $5.5 million worth of checks to evade disclosure laws. Mr. Shusterman cooperated with prosecutors in a related case and was sentenced to probation.

In the years after his marriage, Mr. Cohen began doing business with Ukrainian and Russian immigrants. They hailed from New York, Chicago and Florida, in neighborhoods like the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn and parts of Miami like Sunny Isles, known as the Russian Riviera, communities through which a vein of organized crime ran.

In 1999, Mr. Cohen would find himself in the middle of a Sunny Isles real estate deal involving a hockey player and a purported figure from the Russian underworld.

Nearly 20 years later, the details of the transaction remains unclear, but Mr. Cohen received a check for $350,000 from a Russian player for the Montreal Canadiens that was part of a deal involving an apartment in Sunny Isles.

The player’s agent later testified that the money was intended to go to Vitaly Buslaev. Mr. Buslaev, who has been identified by multiple Russian media outlets as a Mafia figure, was a friend of one of Mr. Cohen’s business partners, according to two people who knew both men.

 

Mr. Cohen said in an interview last year that he did not know Mr. Buslaev. He declined to identify the person to whom he sent the $350,000, saying only that he had honored the athlete’s request. “The money went to where it was directed to go,” he said.

Mr. Cohen’s ventures with business partners from the former Soviet Union continued, including a 2003 investment in a Florida casino boat with several Ukrainian immigrants that failed. After that, he helped members of his own family set up an ethanol production business in Ukraine.

The Taxi Business

It was through his wife’s family that Mr. Cohen would be introduced to the taxi business, which would ultimately allow him to pull in millions of dollars.

Mr. Cohen’s father-in-law, Mr. Shusterman, initially found work as a taxi driver after arriving in the United States. By 1993, he accumulated nine taxi medallions — the coveted metal placards that permit people to own or operate cabs — then worth roughly $1.5 million.

Mr. Shusterman circulated among his fellow taxi operators, trying to help Mr. Cohen find work. He introduced his son-in-law to Ilya Palinsky, a longtime fixture in the business. Mr. Palinsky said his impression of Mr. Cohen was that “he talks a lot, screams, you know. He’s a hyper guy.”

Not long afterward, Mr. Cohen began building his own taxi business, even as he was taking on personal injury work as a lawyer.

He partnered with Symon Garber, another Ukrainian-born businessman, who was borrowing large amounts of money to finance taxi businesses in both Russia and the United States. A lawyer for the two men said in a court filing that he had helped them lay the groundwork for a planned taxi business in Moscow in the mid-1990s, although it never materialized.

 

Mr. Cohen borrowed from a half-dozen banks and credit unions to buy taxi medallions. Then he used the medallions as collateral to borrow more money to buy more medallions, former colleagues said. He quickly amassed 30 medallions, each then worth about $250,000, but racked up millions in debt.

Together, the two men managed 260 cabs in the late 1990s and early 2000s, some for other owners. Drivers paid them $100 a shift. Millions of dollars in cash flowed in. Mr. Cohen at some point began carrying a licensed pistol in an ankle holster.

In 2007, Mr. Cohen started working for the Trump Organization. While there are varying accounts of how he met his new boss, Mr. Trump said Mr. Cohen appeared on his radar after he began buying up properties in Trump buildings — by then, Mr. Cohen’s office addresses included tony Fifth Avenue locations. For his part, Mr. Cohen has said that the job came after he helped resolve a board dispute at one of the Trump buildings where his family owned several units.

Mr. Cohen became a roving fixer for Mr. Trump. In his first year on the job, he and Ivanka Trump kicked the tires on a potential golf course development project in Fresno, Calif. A year later, he was named chief operating officer of Affliction Entertainment, a mixed martial arts venture that Mr. Trump had started. Mr. Cohen traveled to the former Soviet bloc on Mr. Trump’s behalf, visiting Georgia in 2010. He even scouted out Iowa for Mr. Trump ahead of the 2012 presidential campaign and set up a website called ShouldTrumpRun.org.

During Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, Mr. Cohen pursued plans for a Trump Tower in Moscow with Felix Sater, a Russian immigrant and friend of Mr. Cohen, who had worked on other real estate development deals with Mr. Trump and had explored possible ventures in Russia. Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen worked with Mr. Sater even after his role in a stock manipulation scheme involving Mafia figures and Russian criminals was revealed. (Mr. Sater pleaded guilty and became an informant for the F.B.I. and intelligence agencies.)

While juggling his Trump duties, Mr. Cohen turned over management of his cabs to Mr. Garber in 2006 and received as much as $1 million per year, legal records show. After a falling-out with Mr. Garber, Mr. Cohen became partners with Evgeny Freidman, known as Gene, an immigrant from St. Petersburg, Russia, who had assembled a large taxi fleet.

Both of Mr. Cohen’s taxi partners had a history of legal run-ins. Each has been made to pay more than $1 million for overcharging their drivers, according to the New York State attorney general. Former business partners also accused each of them of forging signatures, stiffing lawyers and dodging debt collection efforts.

The Chicago authorities found that Mr. Garber and his taxi businesses used 180 unauthorized cars as taxis in that city; he agreed to pay a fine of nearly $1 million.

In 2016, a federal judge found that Mr. Freidman had transferred more than $60 million into offshore trusts to avoid paying debts. Last April, New York City regulators barred him from continuing to manage medallions. He currently is awaiting trial in Albany on charges he failed to pay $5 million in taxes.

Despite the prohibition issued by city regulators, Mr. Freidman is still managing Mr. Cohen’s medallions, both men have said.

“Cohen associated himself with the most reckless and greedy players in the industry,” said Bhairavi Desai, the executive director of the Taxi Workers Alliance, a group that represents cabdrivers. “They have simultaneously worked to inflate the value of their medallions and rip off their drivers.”

Patrick J. Egan, a lawyer for Mr. Freidman, said his client denies all the allegations against him. Mr. Freidman, he said, has been the victim of “fabricated claims” by former colleagues and politically motivated prosecutors.

Mr. Garber did not respond to requests for comment.

Moving Money

From 2009 to 2014, Mr. Cohen — by then a trusted member of the Trump Organization — plowed $5.7 million into 22 Chicago taxi medallions, records show.

The investments were ill timed. The ascent of ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft decimated the value of medallions. Since 2014, Mr. Cohen’s companies have been falling behind on taxes. Over all, his taxi businesses in New York and Chicago owe more than $375,000 for a variety of tax, insurance and inspection problems, according to records. Fourteen of his 54 cabs were suspended.

 

But even as the industry has buckled, Mr. Cohen has continued to use his medallions as collateral to borrow money. In December 2014, with his medallions worth $35 million, he took out loans totaling at least $20 million from Sterling National Bank and Melrose Credit Union, according to a banker who reviewed the transactions. (Documents related to both lenders were among the materials sought by federal prosecutors in their search warrants.)

In 2016, Mr. Cohen went so far as to dabble in financial engineering. He spoke to investors about pooling distressed loans that financed taxi medallion purchases, repackaging them and selling them to investors, according to a person with direct knowledge of the discussions. He also explored buying up such loans at a bargain price in anticipation that their value would recover, the person said. The outcome of those discussions was not clear.

The financial maneuvering has continued even after the federal search warrants were executed. On April 24, Mr. Cohen refinanced all 16 of his taxi company medallion loans. The transactions, with Sterling National Bank, appeared to extend the due dates on the loans by four years, according to public filings on the refinanced loans. And they added a new, unusual source of collateral: If Mr. Cohen were to default, Sterling would have the right to any money that Mr. Freidman owes Mr. Cohen.

Many of Mr. Freidman’s taxi companies have declared bankruptcy. Asked about the loans, Mr. Freidman’s lawyer said his client had “no assets” that could be used as collateral.

Spokesmen for Sterling and Melrose declined to comment.

It was unclear what Mr. Cohen has done with all the money he has borrowed in recent years. But he received some of the funds around the time that he and his father-in-law, Mr. Shusterman, lent a combined $26 million to a Ukrainian immigrant and taxi-fleet operator named Semyon Shtayner, real estate records show.

The transactions were unusual: Mr. Shtayner has had nearly $1.7 million in judgments and liens against him over the years, yet Mr. Cohen made large loans backed by collateral that appears to be worth less than the value of the loans.

Since 2012, Mr. Cohen has lent $6 million to Mr. Shtayner, whose family owns Chicago Medallion Management Corporation, which manages more than 300 cabs in that city — including those owned by Mr. Cohen. The only collateral on the loans appears to be the Shtayners’ condominium in Sunny Isles, purchased in 2009 for $2.35 million.

Nevertheless, Mr. Cohen and his father-in-law were willing lenders to Mr. Shtayner, who recently entered the marijuana cultivation business in Nevada.

Since last summer, Mr. Shusterman has lent $20 million to Mr. Shtayner’s wife, Yasya, and two limited liability companies she controls.

This is a business exchange, that’s it,” Yasya Shtayner said in a brief phone interview, when questioned about the loans from Mr. Cohen. Asked whether she had a lawyer who could speak on her behalf, she said yes. Then she hung up.

Clinics, and Questions

After he had built a taxi operation and a personal injury legal practice, there was another element to Mr. Cohen’s business dealings, this one involving doctors and companies that operated on the fringes of the medical field.

Starting in 2000, Mr. Cohen set up a series of companies in New York City. There were two medical practices, an acupuncture office, two medical billing companies, two management companies and a transportation company.

The ventures were noteworthy, in part, because they were created at a time when countless phony companies were cropping up to exploit so-called no-fault auto insurance laws in New York and other states. Hundreds of doctors, businesses owners and others would eventually be criminally charged or accused of fraud by insurance companies.

There is no evidence that Mr. Cohen or the companies he created were part of such schemes. Nor is there evidence that Mr. Cohen did anything other than register the companies with state authorities.

 

The no-fault insurance schemes, which were often masterminded by organized crime figures from the former Soviet Union, all followed a basic template. Staged or exaggerated car accidents were used to generate a tidal wave of “patients.” Transportation companies then took the patients — often low-level criminals — to what in many instances were sham medical clinics, diagnostic testing offices, and acupuncture and physical therapy offices. Billing companies were created to collect money from insurers, and management companies then siphoned the funds out to the scheme’s operators. Some operators were so bold that they sued insurers that had stopped paying after they realized they were being defrauded.

Mr. Cohen’s role, if any, in the operation of the companies he helped set up was unclear. The only people listed in the incorporation papers as having roles in the businesses are the two doctors, Aleksandr Martirosov and Zhanna Kanevsky, who were each affiliated with a medical practice.

But both of those doctors were accused of insurance fraud in connection with different medical practices they operated.

Dr. Martirosov was arrested and charged with insurance fraud and grand larceny in 2003. A little more than a year earlier, Mr. Cohen had registered Avex Medical Care in Dr. Martirosov’s name.

In 2005, Dr. Kanevsky was indicted on state racketeering charges, the result of a lengthy wiretap investigation into phony accidents and medical claims. Mr. Cohen had registered Life Quality Medical Care on Dr. Kanevsky’s behalf in April 2002.

Dr. Kanevsky pleaded guilty to scheming to defraud in the second degree. A man who answered two phone numbers listed in her name said “no comment” and hung up.

The charges against Dr. Martirosov were later dropped. He did not respond to calls for comment or a message left at his home. The same year he was arrested, Dr. Martirosov was named in a civil racketeering lawsuit brought by the insurance company Allstate, in connection with his work for another medical business. The suit accused dozens of doctors and business owners of trying to defraud insurers. Dr. Martirosov denied wrongdoing.

Avex Medical Care continued to operate after Dr. Martirosov’s arrest. The company later sued insurers at a frenetic pace that averaged almost one lawsuit a week from 2003 to 2008. The suits targeted insurers that had balked at paying for treatments for accident victims.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Mr. Cohen’s personal injury practice filed hundreds of lawsuits largely stemming from auto accidents. For part of that time, a bustling bullpen of clerks and paralegals worked the phones at his Long Island City office. They sought settlements with insurers and churned out suits on behalf of clients, many of whom were referred to clinics that were later caught up in no-fault insurance fraud investigations.

One of the personal injury lawsuits that Mr. Cohen filed was in connection to a 1999 auto accident in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of Brooklyn. Both his client and the defendant were later indicted on insurance fraud charges related to the accident, Rolling Stone recently reported. The lawsuit filed by Mr. Cohen was dropped.

A Minor Baron

During his time working at the Trump Organization, Mr. Cohen became a minor real estate baron in his own right.

While his business is dwarfed by Mr. Trump’s assemblage of properties, it is not insignificant. From 2011 to 2015, limited liability companies connected to Mr. Cohen purchased at least five buildings in Manhattan, public records show.

Like many of Mr. Cohen’s business dealings, the transactions were unconventional. His companies would buy a building, often in cash. Soon after, they would flip the building in another all-cash deal for four or five times the previous purchase price. The buyer was generally another limited liability company.

In October 2011, for example, a limited liability company listing as its address Mr. Cohen’s apartment at Trump Park Avenue purchased a building on Rivington Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side for $2.1 million. In 2014, Mr. Cohen sold the building for $10 million in cash — nearly five times what he paid three years earlier.

 

That same day, Mr. Cohen sold three other Manhattan buildings, also entirely for cash. In total, the four buildings sold for $32 million — nearly triple what Mr. Cohen had paid for them in the span of no more than three years.

It is not known who owns the limited liability companies that purchased the properties from Mr. Cohen or why they agreed to pay such rich prices. Mr. Cohen told McClatchy, which first reported the transactions, that the sales were in cash to help the buyers defer taxes in other transactions.

Richard K. Gordon, director of the Financial Integrity Institute at Case Western Reserve University’s law school, said that such real estate transactions — large profits, achieved quickly, involving cash purchases by L.L.C.s — should raise red flags.

“If I were the bank, I’d either refuse his business up front or rate him extra high risk,” said Mr. Gordon, who once led anti-money-laundering efforts for the International Monetary Fund.

Mr. Trump is closely monitoring the investigations into his longtime counselor. In recent weeks, he has moved to simultaneously embrace Mr. Cohen and keep him at arm’s length.

“Most people will flip if the Government lets them out of trouble,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter last month. “Sorry, I don’t see Michael doing that.”

A few days later, Mr. Trump asserted that the investigation was unrelated to Mr. Cohen’s work for him.

 

“From what I understand, they’re looking at his businesses,” Mr. Trump said. “I’ve been told I’m not involved.”

The president added: “I hope he’s in great shape.”

[Sawbonz 27547]

Isn’t the nyc taxi system like one of the most corrupt industries there is? Like New Jersey waste management industry dirty?

[Degenerate Gardner 4085]

That article is a font of fonts.

 

[bolverk 29670]

 

[Goredho 17399]

On 4/26/2018 at 7:48 AM, Mojo Hand said:

Yep.  His life up until now is a series of failures and bailouts by his dad, siblings, or the bankruptcy court. 

Trump is an astonishingly American figure.  Greedy, self-absorbed, spoiled, entitled, stupid and arrogant.  He pretty much embodies our worst.  A walking, talking caricature.  Like the ridiculous Japanese mini-sub pilot that doesn't know that WWII is over on Gilligan's Island.

Except Trump's for real.  And he's our President.  Russia, China, NK, Iran, etc.. must all be scrambling to figure out how they can keep him at the wheel past 2020.        

[Goredho 17399]

dupe

Edited May 5, 2018 by Goredho

[Goredho 17399]

dupe

Edited May 5, 2018 by Goredho

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13583]

Dupe wadda diddy...

[Brian Fantana 6685]

19 hours ago, achooloco said:

For the cocksucker idiots that voted for him (not a slight against homosexuals but even me having to say that sucks but still true; either way a topic for another thread) At least get it right. The traitor deserves removal for everything he has done so far but as more astute posters have mentioned, senate won’t convict. I’m not there yet but I don’t think they’re wrong (yet)

Depends on whether it's felonious cocksucking with intent to swallow the evidence. 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

I don’t think people realize what is coming.

If this is anything like Watergate, which I think it’s actually bigger, political fallout from the non-Trump indictments might be politically damaging enough to sway public opinion, at least a little.

To put this in perspective, here’s what Watergate looked like:

The Watergate scandal resulted in 69 government officials being charged and 48 being found guilty, including:^[3]

1. John N. Mitchell, Attorney General of the United States who resigned to become Director of Committee to Re-elect the President, convicted of perjury about his involvement in the Watergate break-in. Served 19 months of a one- to four-year sentence.^[18]
2. Richard Kleindienst, Attorney General, convicted of "refusing to answer questions" (contempt of court); given one month in jail.^[86]
3. Jeb Stuart Magruder, Deputy Director of Committee to Re-elect the President,^[20] pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to the burglary, and was sentenced to 10 months to four years in prison, of which he served 7 months before being paroled.^[87]
4. Frederick C. LaRue, Advisor to John Mitchell, convicted of obstruction of justice. He served four and a half months.^[87]
5. H. R. Haldeman, Chief of Staff for Nixon, convicted of conspiracy to the burglary, obstruction of justice, and perjury. Served 18 months in prison.^[88]
6. John Ehrlichman, Counsel to Nixon, convicted of conspiracy to the burglary, obstruction of justice, and perjury. Served 18 months in prison.^[89]
7. Egil Krogh, aide to John Ehrlichman, sentenced to six months for his part in the Daniel Ellsberg case.^[87]
8. John W. Dean III, counsel to Nixon, convicted of obstruction of justice, later reduced to felony offenses and sentenced to time already served, which totaled 4 months.^[87]
9. Dwight L. Chapin, deputy assistant to Nixon, convicted of perjury.^[87]
10. Maurice Stans, United States Secretary of Commerce who resigned to become Finance Chairman of Committee to Re-elect the President, convicted of multiple counts of illegal campaigning, fined $5,000 (in 1975 – $22,700 today).^[90]
11. Herbert W. Kalmbach, personal attorney to Nixon, convicted of illegal campaigning. Served 191 days in prison and fined $10,000 (in 1974 – $49,600 today).^[87]
12. Charles W. Colson, special counsel to Nixon, convicted of obstruction of justice. Served 7 months in Federal Maxwell Prison.^[86]
13. Herbert L. Porter, aide to the Committee to Re-elect the President. Convicted of perjury.^[87]
14. G. Gordon Liddy, Special Investigations Group, convicted of masterminding the burglary, original sentence of up to 20 years in prison.^[87][91] Served 4½ years in federal prison.^[92]
15. E. Howard Hunt, security consultant, convicted of masterminding and overseeing the burglary, original sentence of up to 35 years in prison.^[87][91] Served 33 months in prison.^[93]
16. James W. McCord Jr., convicted of six charges of burglary, conspiracy and wiretapping.^[87] Served 2 months in prison.^[92]
17. Virgilio Gonzalez, convicted of burglary, original sentence of up to 40 years in prison.^[87][91] Served 13 months in prison.^[92]
18. Bernard Barker, convicted of burglary, original sentence of up to 40 years in prison.^[87][91] Served 18 months in prison.^[94]
19. Eugenio Martínez, convicted of burglary, original sentence of up to 40 years in prison.^[87][91] Served 15 months in prison.^[95]
20. Frank Sturgis, convicted of burglary, original sentence of up to 40 years in prison.^[87][91] Served 10 months in prison.^[95]

 

Edited May 6, 2018 by Hugo Stiglitz

[Pods 7552]

1 hour ago, Degenerate Gardner said:

That article is a font of fonts.

 

The autocorrect on here is weird when you paste articles. If you go in and try to edit and take out the pictures, or the giant title, it converts the other nearby font to the size of the caption or title. Pretty sure that's what happened to Hugo there.