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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#241576: May 8th 2018 at 3:59:05 PM

[up][up] apparently, the Judge presiding over that case, Judge Ellis, is notorious for ripping into legal teams that walks in his courtroom if they are the slightest bit unprepared or not in line, to the point where people joke about "being Ellised".

edited 8th May '18 4:18:36 PM by megaeliz

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#241577: May 8th 2018 at 4:17:47 PM

Schneiderman is easily replaceable.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#241578: May 8th 2018 at 4:20:32 PM

It feels worth noting that, for better or worse, the Dems who get caught in this stuff are usually quick to acknowledge it while the Republican response is typically denial or doubling down. Al Franken was initially going to accept the Senate hearing into his actions, then bowed out when further allegations came out. Guys like Moore tried to act like they did nothing wrong and, perhaps worse, in their own minds may think that's the case.

LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#241579: May 8th 2018 at 4:25:38 PM

Yeah, I was thinking about that recently, which is why I'm not sure "hypocrisy" is the right word for it.

People talk about Republicans being hypocrites for standing by Roy Moore, but wanting a Democrat accused of the same thing but the difference is that most of them didn't actually believe Moore did it. These people instinctively believe the absolute worst about any Democrat and the opposite of any Republican, so it's not a matter of one being "okay" for one but not the other; they don't believe that most Republicans would do that in the first place.

Obviously they're wrong, and it's terribly toxic, but I'm not sure if "hypocrisy" is actually the right term for the phenomenon.

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#241580: May 8th 2018 at 4:32:56 PM

Mueller's team has questioned a Russian oligarch about payments to Cohen. This could be the route that directly implicates the inner circle with Moscow.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/08/politics/robert-mueller-russian-oligarch-payments-michael-cohen/index.html

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#241581: May 8th 2018 at 4:50:39 PM

More Cohen Stuff explained by Renato Mariotti.

1/ This evening @Michael Avenatti released an "Executive Summary" containing explosive allegations about Michael Cohen. It's worth a read

2/ One of the most important allegations is that Cohen made various misrepresentations to First Republic Bank when he opened a bank account for Essential Consultants LLC, the company he created that was used to transmit the $130,000 payment to Daniels.

3/ Among other things, Cohen allegedly told First Republic Bank that Essential was a real estate consulting company that collected fees for investment consulting work from high net worth individuals and that it would be receiving wires from people within the U.S.

4/ Avenatti claims that Cohen's representations to the bank were false, which appears to be the case because Essential seems to be little more than a shell company used by Cohen to funnel payments. That matters because, as Avenatti notes, bank fraud is a federal crime.

5/ So did Cohen commit bank fraud? It's not clear from the information provided by Avenatti, but it's worth noting that federal prosecutors in Manhattan are reportedly investigating Cohen for bank fraud. Typically, bank fraud is when you purposely deceive a bank to get money.

6/ What's odd about the lies that Cohen told is that while he clearly intended to deceive the bank about the nature of Essential's business, he was not trying to cheat the bank out of money. So it's not a typical bank fraud, with a lie on a loan application or a deposit slip.

7/ Avenatti also alleges that within 75 days of the payment to Daniels, a Russian oligarch "caused substantial funds to be deposited into the bank account" Cohen used for the payment.

8/ If the payment to Daniels was campaign-related, an argument could be made that the Russian provided the money that was used for the campaign-related payment, which could be a crime. Foreign nationals are prohibited from contributing to U.S. elections.

9/ According to Avenatti, the payments to Essential from the Oligarch were routed through a U.S. company called Columbus Nova. This suggests that the oligarch wanted to hide the payment, and might give Cohen the defense that he didn't know that the payment was from the Russian.

10/ @CNN just reported that Mueller's investigators asked the oligarch about payments that the U.S. company (owned by the oligarch) made to Cohen after the election when his jet landed in New York.

11/ According to @CNN, it is unknown whether the oligarch's U.S. company was a client of Cohen's or whether Cohen did work for the company. @CNN reported that Mueller's investigators also asked the oligarch about over $300,000 in contributions to Trump by the oligarch's cousin.

12/ The cousin is the head of the U.S. company, Columbus Nova, that put the money in the Essential account after the payment to Daniels. Also, according to Avenatti, pharmaceutical company Novartis deposited almost $300,000 and AT&T deposited $200,000 into the account.

13/ It's not clear what Cohen was doing with all of the deposits, but it's easy to see why law enforcement is investigating whether Cohen committed bank fraud or campaign finance violations.

14/ The key questions are (1) whether Cohen deceived the bank to obtain money or property; (2) whether he funneled campaign-related payments from foreign nationals and hid the source of the payments; and (3) whether he broke other laws to hide this activity.

15/ As I've typed this thread, I've noticed many of you are talking about money laundering. Typically money laundering is when "dirty" money from criminal activity is made "clean," and usually requires proof of underlying criminal activity (called "specified unlawful activity").

16/ While these transactions are very unusual and may be criminal, as I discussed above, this doesn't look like money laundering unless the money from the oligarch's company was obtained via criminal activity. /end

edited 8th May '18 4:51:31 PM by megaeliz

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#241582: May 8th 2018 at 4:54:38 PM

Yeah, I was thinking about that recently, which is why I'm not sure "hypocrisy" is the right word for it.

People talk about Republicans being hypocrites for standing by Roy Moore, but wanting a Democrat accused of the same thing but the difference is that most of them didn't actually believe Moore did it. These people instinctively believe the absolute worst about any Democrat and the opposite of any Republican, so it's not a matter of one being "okay" for one but not the other; they don't believe that most Republicans would do that in the first place. Obviously they're wrong, and it's terribly toxic, but I'm not sure if "hypocrisy" is actually the right term for the phenomenon.

Yeah this is an extremely important point, for understanding how they think if nothing else.

Frankly I think this makes it slightly better, obviously not good by any measure but it's not like they think they'e guilty and vote for them anyway (or at-least most don't). Though it's still not worth respect.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
TheRoguePenguin Since: Jul, 2009
#241583: May 8th 2018 at 5:34:53 PM

It is hypocrisy in the sense that they hold a double standard for belief. If a Democrat is accused, the victims must be believed. For a Republican they circle the wagons and the victims suddenly become liars.

edited 8th May '18 5:35:34 PM by TheRoguePenguin

Ominae Since: Jul, 2010
#241584: May 8th 2018 at 6:34:21 PM

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20180509_05/

Looks like sanctions are going to be placed on Iran again and Trump doesn't want to save the deal.

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#241585: May 8th 2018 at 6:41:22 PM

I think you guys are looking for the term "moral myopia" rather than hypocrisy. Of course their guys can't do any wrong. Those are their guys, and therefor morally upstanding! Anything they're accused of is either morally correct or just didn't happen.

TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#241586: May 8th 2018 at 6:52:14 PM

~Charles Phipps

My post:

Megaeliz posted this story on the bottom of the prior page, and I posted it a few pages back, and I really want to encourage EVERYONE to read it.

TLDR version is that Trump’s entire business empire was built on aggressive use of debt and borrowing, even more so than the standard practice in real estate, which makes a lot of use of this. Then suddenly about a decade before the 2016 election, Trump starts buying everything in cash, no borrowing, no outside investors to pool the risk, nothing. Due to how opaque Trump’s finances are, (ditto for his business) nobody knows how he came up with the money or where it came from. It’s pretty powerful, albeit circumstantial, evidence that he’s either working for Russian money laundering, or is being directly paid and backed by Putin and his allies.

Charles' post:

Is the debt thing news?

Anyone who knows ANYTHING about Trump's business practices knows he's been about attaching his name to businesses in exchange for cash, taking a cut, and then moving on. He provides legitimacy for illegitimate businesses in foreign companies, launders money for criminals, and is the king of illegal behind the scenes deals that provide gentrification for areas that he wants to sell to rich people.

He also probably murdered his Atlantic City business partners by arranging their helicopter crash through his mob ties. No, I'm not making that up.

This has been known for decades and why Trump started doing business outside of America.

I certainly think it is. Not because of Trump's debts or questionable business practices. But because of what is implied by this in the larger picture.

We have a guy who, despite his glitzy image, went from being the head of a dwindling and failing empire, as both newspapers reported and Ivanka herself detailed in a semi-famous story she told about her father's failing finances. (“I remember once, my father and I were walking down 5th Avenue, and there was a homeless person sitting right outside of Trump Tower. And I think I was probably nine, ten something like this, it was right around the time as the divorce. And I remember my father pointing to him and saying ‘That guy has $8 billion more than me.’ Because he was in such extreme debt at that point. And me thinking ‘What are you talking about?’ He was sitting outside of Trump Tower, and I didn’t understand. I just thought about it a year or two ago and thought it interesting. It makes me all the more proud of my parents that they got through that.”)

Now Trump gradually came back slightly from those lows, mostly by getting into the name endorsement business, but no matter what he says, he definitely wasn't sitting on loads of money. And his business dealings for two decades bore that out: he spent those 20 years or so hoarding every cent of his own, leveraging his debts and using every shady trick in the book to make sure that it's never his money going into anything, just everyone else's.

Then he turns on a dime and goes on a 400 million dollar (yes, that's not a typo, four hundred million, $400,000,000) spending spree buying up properties all over the world without getting any loans, without any outside investors that are pooling the risks, just pure cash. So where does the cash come from? (And that's just what he spent to acquire properties, never mind what more money wasn't being spent, or was used to do things like ignore the $250 million that just one of those properties has lost since buying it rather than trying to sell it off.)

What the article can't say, because it can't prove it, but what is all but certain, is that the answer is Russia and Vlad and his cronies. Which would mean that even that Trump is on the hook to them. Furthermore, he got on the hook to them while Russia and Putin/his cronies were under sanctions from the United States government and business were basically forbidden from doing business with Putin's inner circle.

That info might not be as sexy as "Did Trump pay to cover up a mistress having an abortion?" but if it's true then it would be an easy way to show that Trump is incredibly compromised, not to mention the potential for it to be "high crimes and misdemeanors." And if the Washington Post could get that much just from public records, how much could the Mueller probe or other, similar investigations get with subpoenas and by raiding records?

This is why you always the follow the money.

edited 8th May '18 6:53:04 PM by TheWanderer

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#241587: May 8th 2018 at 6:57:44 PM

Mord Cohen analysis:

1. There are MANY big points in this report, but it's clear that to see those figures, Mr. Avenatti and his associates have to have obtained access to Cohen's bank records. OR Vekselberg's/his cousin's.

2. I have no idea HOW they would have obtained those records, but Mr. Avenatti showed docs to @CNN and he will be on @The Last Word tonight with @Lawrence at 10, so tune in, bc if someone can find all of it out, that's Lawrence.

3. I am guessing here, bc I don't know what went on. My guess is the discovery process allowed Mr. Avenatti to obtain access to the transactions related to Cohen's LLC, bc that's where the payment to Ms. Daniels came from.

4. By paradox, the key here might be Stormy's former attorney Keith Davidson, whom @Michael Avenatti mentioned as having extensive conversations with Cohen in Oct. 2016 re: the payment to Stormy needing to be made BEFORE the election.

5. Davidson had what appeared to be a fraudulent relationship with Cohen, that involved payments to other women, like Karen Mc Dougal. This was a specific part of the search warrant on Cohen: docs regarding these payments.

6. Mr. Avenatti may have obtained access to the Cohen LLC bank records bc that's how they paid Davidson as well. So in order to verify how many payments the LLC actually made to Davidson, they'd request those records and obtain them.

7. The focal point here is this: if Mr. Avenatti was able to find this much out, you can rest damn well assured that Mueller has not just this but 100 times more bank transactions for Cohen AND everybody else. And now SDNY has it all, too.

8. More importantly, this obviously puts Mueller's wittle "stop and roll" surprise to Vekselberg at the airport in a very different light. It looks like Mueller had THIS specific reason (transactions with Cohen) to stop Vekselberg and search his electronic devices, too.

9. As @David Corn observed on @The Beat With Ari , having a sanctioned Russian oligarch tied to the Kremlin WIRE you money, repeatedly, to the same LLC, before and after Trump was sworn in, when you're supposed to be HIS LAWYER, is BEYOND stupid. (Not Money Laundering but still is likely illegal)

10. I will repeat what former Watergate prosecutor Nick Ackerman said. THESE payments may constitute CONSPIRACY w/Russia to steal emails and distribute them, in order to influence vote.BC they were REPEATED monthly payments.

12. Regardless, as the payment to Stormy Daniels was made to keep a scandal HIDDEN in order to influence the election, if Vekselberg reimbursed Cohen for the Stormy money, that ALONE constitutes conspiracy with Russia to influence the election.

13. Mind you, as @Natasha Bertrand and other guests were noting on @hardball, it's also possible that due to Mr. Avenatti being a very public figure now, people with access to the bank records who want the truth out gave him the pertinent docs.

13. Mind you, as @Natasha Bertrand and other guests were noting on @hardball, it's also possible that due to Mr. Avenatti being a very public figure now, people with access to the bank records who want the truth out gave him the pertinent docs.

14. It's clear from very specific figures and dates that Mr. Avenatti is in possession of specific bank documents. Now @thedailybeast has a different source confirming hundreds of thousands of dollars being paid to Cohen by Vekselberg.

15. Also bear in mind that @NatashaBertrand DID manage to contact Cohen's lawyer and the lawyer was all "it was not a payment" Err what? So it was a gift? LOL OK then. But, the fact Cohen's lawyer does NOT deny transactions says it all.

Michael Cohen’s attorney, Steve Ryan, won’t discuss the $500,000 Michael Avenatti says Cohen received from Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg in 2017. “I understand the shorthand you’re using, but it wasn’t a payment,” Ryan says before hanging up.

16. Now interestingly, Rudy Giuliani said that Trump repaid Cohen for the Stormy money through "a retainer" and the total of the payments he mentioned was about $470k. Except it was VEKSELBERG making the payments?

16. Now interestingly, Rudy Giuliani said that Trump repaid Cohen for the Stormy money through "a retainer" and the total of the payments he mentioned was about $470k. Except it was VEKSELBERG making the payments?

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#241588: May 8th 2018 at 6:58:48 PM

Frankly, I think it's important to remember the story of where that comes from.

Also, bluntly, the conspiracy theory about where Trump's finances got their boost isn't necessary because we actually know where it came from. Trump's dirty business practices that got him up where he is currently have been pretty well documented despite (or because?) of his best efforts.

It's covered a bit in the Trump episode of DIRTY MONEY (available on Netflix).

Russia almost certainly bribed Trump (an oligarch bought a 40 million dollar house for 100 million) but I think if Trump was already sliding into bankruptcy as a whole then he wouldn't be useful to his allies across the pond.

http://amp.miamiherald.com/news/business/article135187364.html?__twitter_impression=true

I actually also feel bad for Trump's owners as he's very ill inclined to honor past bribes.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/donald-trumps-worst-deal

The Azerbaijan hotel was almost certainly a money laundering scheme between Trump and the criminal families involved.

edited 8th May '18 8:15:56 PM by CharlesPhipps

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#241589: May 8th 2018 at 7:04:11 PM

[up]. If people are able to figure out all this crap through Open Source, imagine how Mueller knows.

edited 8th May '18 7:05:56 PM by megaeliz

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#241590: May 8th 2018 at 7:06:30 PM

Just to summon up what just happened: The US broke a deal which benefitted more or less everyone involved EXCEPT the Iran, which just get the assets back it owned anyway. Then the Trump threatened everyone who breaks the sanctions he decided to insist on....and then the EU leaders basically said: Don't care, we hold onto the deal.

So, congratulations, Trump has a crisis where none was and managed to drive away the closest allies of the US.

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#241591: May 8th 2018 at 7:16:04 PM

This is interesting, from someone who has lived and worked with several Narcissists.

Bookmark this for later:

That $50 mil. “loan” Trump made to his campaign during the election...

It will be eventually revealed that he paid himself back by misappropriating funds from his inauguration. [1]

Just to layer on top of this for a minute, narcissists are entirely consumed by insane notions of entitlement.

They hold insane, harebrained ideas of why and how they’re owed more, more, more. 1/

The narcissist in my life fully believed she was owed an expensive gift because I had gotten free tickets to the Super Bowl.

These are unrelated, of course... but that’s how narcissists work.

They think the world owes them at all times. They expect to win every coin flip. 2/

It’s a compulsion. They can not remotely handle ANY value exchange where they weren’t the lopsided beneficiary.

You see it with Trump all the time. 3/

Case in point, demanding Junior’s charity pay to use a Trump golf course for an event. In Trump’s mind, SOMEONE was making money off the event so he was OWED a win himself. 4/

The one saving grace in this all-consuming compulsion to take, take, take:

It’s so irrational, it results in wholly idiotic decisions that aren’t remotely hidden. 5/

If faced with a choice between forgoing something he felt entitled to or risking getting caught, Trump would risk gettin caught EVERY. DAMN. TIME.

The man is incapable of being a shrewd criminal because he CANNOT stop from greedily grabbing for the cash bag. 6/

Mark my words:

By the time this is over, we will learn of an insane volume of greedy acts so voluminous and so varied, it will be dizzying. 7/

The ones that will shock the most will be the small ones...

...the tiny amounts it was insane to steal because they mattered so little.

Trump is entirely controlled by his sense of entitlement.

It makes him a complete thief... and the scale will prove breathtaking.<end>

[2]

edited 8th May '18 7:17:15 PM by megaeliz

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#241592: May 8th 2018 at 7:17:30 PM

[up][up]I think we all kind of knew this was coming the moment Trump won in 2016. I think the only ones here surprised by this outcome are those who are more cynical when it comes to the EU and its spine when it comes to dealing with the USA.

edited 8th May '18 7:17:58 PM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised
LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#241593: May 8th 2018 at 7:20:23 PM

So, will we be getting the primary results tonight?

TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#241594: May 8th 2018 at 7:20:42 PM

Then the Trump threatened everyone who breaks the sanctions he decided to insist on....and then the EU leaders basically said: Don't care, we hold onto the deal. So, congratulations, Trump has a crisis where none was and managed to drive away the closest allies of the US.

Yep. I've been saying for a long time now that exactly this would be the result, and I posted as much on here as soon as I heard about the decision by the Orange Dumbass.

What a predictable and pointless flushing of the country’s soft power and credibility in the world. Our nation’s word is no longer worth the paper it’s printed on. The takeaway that every country in the world now has to legitimately consider is that every 4 years we may vote someone into our highest office who has no respect for, and will not honor peace treaties, trade deals, international laws and customs, etc. And no close ties, no historical bonds, no internal checks on executive power will get in the way.

And during all this, nearly half the country will applaud rapturously.

And there’s no hope to even gain anything from it. So the U.S. is going to impose sanctions? So what? We have virtually 0 trade with Iran anyway, and the rest of the countries that used to be part of the sanctions aren’t going to impose them again, so either we’re going to make ourselves look incompetent and impotent, or we’re going to declare war on a country again for no good reason and not even a fig leaf of a rationalization.

There’s no rational reason any country should trust us longer than, at most, a single election cycle again. We’re fucked, and we did it all to ourselves.

The only thing I have left to hope at this point is that Trump and co. won't start a war with Iran before there's (hopefully) a Democratic congress in place to (*fingerscrossedpleasegodthatidon't believeinletthemfindthegutstostanduptohimandsayno*) restrain him from going to war.

Edit: [up] A lot are staring to come in. Check here for updates and here for 538's live blog.

edited 8th May '18 7:30:56 PM by TheWanderer

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
TheRoguePenguin Since: Jul, 2009
#241595: May 8th 2018 at 7:25:44 PM

[up][up]They're coming out.

  • Ohio: Cordray, De Wine advance to gubernatorial election; Renacci wins GOP Senate primary
  • Indiana: Braun wins GOP Senate primary
  • West Virginia: Patrick Morrisey wins GOP Senate primary

edited 8th May '18 7:29:37 PM by TheRoguePenguin

tclittle Professional Forum Ninja from Somewhere Down in Texas Since: Apr, 2010
Professional Forum Ninja
#241596: May 8th 2018 at 7:27:06 PM

AP BREAKING: Don Blankenship has conceded in the West Virginia GOP Primary.

"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#241597: May 8th 2018 at 7:29:17 PM

[up] Even if this means Manchin will have a harder race, I can't help but be okay with this. Blankenship's a piece of shit who tries to stir up people with Yellow Peril bigotry. As someone of Asian descent I find that particularly vexing.

Disgusted, but not surprised
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#241598: May 8th 2018 at 7:31:28 PM

I think that the US will actually have a hard time going to war in Iran without the help of its allies.

LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#241599: May 8th 2018 at 7:39:31 PM

Going to war? Absolutely.

Winning the war? Not really.

Oh really when?
kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)

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