The US Attorney for SDNY and the office of the special counsel have both filed memos with the court with regard to the sentencing for Michael Cohen. These memoranda make a few things clear.
1. If what they are saying is true, Michael Cohen is a slimeball. He is guilty of tax evasion on a massive scale. He also traded on his supposed influence in and knowledge of the Trump administration although he actually was not able to deliver anything to those he persuaded to buy such influence etc.
2. Cohen lied to Congress about when the attempts to put together a project for a Trump Tower in Moscow ended. Cohen said it was before January of 2016. That seems weird to me since we know that the President's son, Donald Trump, Jr, testified to the same congressional committee that the attempts went on through the summer of 2016. I'm not sure of the sequence, but I believe that Don, Jr. actually testified first, so it seems weird that Cohen thought it a good idea to lie. As of yet, there are no allegations that Cohen lied at the behest of anyone in the White House or otherwise connected to President Trump.
3. The Stormy Daniels payment was organized by Cohen. He used his own funds to make the payment and then sought and received reimbursement from the Trump Organization (owned by the President). The US Attorney says that the Trump Organization called the repayment "legal services" but it was actually for "disbursements". That's hardly something incriminating. I guarantee that all over the USA companies and organizations list payments to lawyers as legal services without separating out disbursements in their accounting statements. For example, when the Clinton campaign and the Democrat National Committee paid the Perkins law firm some $13 million for the work of Fusion GPS in creating the phony Trump dossier, they accounted for those payments as "legal services" even though they were disbursements.
4. If the memoranda are to be believed, Cohen clearly deserves jail time. Nevertheless, there seems to be nothing here that ties the President in any way to wrongdoing. Indeed, even the testimony of Cohen about an approach by a Russian to him trying to set up a meeting between Trump and Putin ends with Cohen doing and saying nothing about that and no such meeting ever taking place.
I guess we have to wait to see what, if anything, the special prosecutor's team puts in their report to see if they have anything at all that ties to the President. As of now, there is still no evidence of collusion at all.
1. If what they are saying is true, Michael Cohen is a slimeball. He is guilty of tax evasion on a massive scale. He also traded on his supposed influence in and knowledge of the Trump administration although he actually was not able to deliver anything to those he persuaded to buy such influence etc.
2. Cohen lied to Congress about when the attempts to put together a project for a Trump Tower in Moscow ended. Cohen said it was before January of 2016. That seems weird to me since we know that the President's son, Donald Trump, Jr, testified to the same congressional committee that the attempts went on through the summer of 2016. I'm not sure of the sequence, but I believe that Don, Jr. actually testified first, so it seems weird that Cohen thought it a good idea to lie. As of yet, there are no allegations that Cohen lied at the behest of anyone in the White House or otherwise connected to President Trump.
3. The Stormy Daniels payment was organized by Cohen. He used his own funds to make the payment and then sought and received reimbursement from the Trump Organization (owned by the President). The US Attorney says that the Trump Organization called the repayment "legal services" but it was actually for "disbursements". That's hardly something incriminating. I guarantee that all over the USA companies and organizations list payments to lawyers as legal services without separating out disbursements in their accounting statements. For example, when the Clinton campaign and the Democrat National Committee paid the Perkins law firm some $13 million for the work of Fusion GPS in creating the phony Trump dossier, they accounted for those payments as "legal services" even though they were disbursements.
4. If the memoranda are to be believed, Cohen clearly deserves jail time. Nevertheless, there seems to be nothing here that ties the President in any way to wrongdoing. Indeed, even the testimony of Cohen about an approach by a Russian to him trying to set up a meeting between Trump and Putin ends with Cohen doing and saying nothing about that and no such meeting ever taking place.
I guess we have to wait to see what, if anything, the special prosecutor's team puts in their report to see if they have anything at all that ties to the President. As of now, there is still no evidence of collusion at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment