Tag: Michael Cohen

Judge puts Stormy Daniels case on hold for 90 days, citing likelihood Michael Cohen will be indicted

The following article by Beth Reinhard was posted on the Washington Post website April 27, 2018:

Adult-film actress Stormy Daniels made a statement outside a Manhattan federal court April 16. (Reuters)

A federal judge on Friday granted Michael Cohen’s request for a delay in a lawsuit brought against him by porn star Stormy Daniels, saying it appeared likely Cohen will be indicted in a related criminal investigation.

Judge S. James Otero’s order for a 90-day stay comes two days after Cohen, President Trump’s personal attorney, said he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself in the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of the Central District of California. Cohen’s declaration cited the investigation by federal prosecutors in New York, who are examining his role in quashing embarrassing stories about Trump during the 2016 campaign, according to a person familiar with the matter. Continue reading “Judge puts Stormy Daniels case on hold for 90 days, citing likelihood Michael Cohen will be indicted”

Judge puts Stormy Daniels case on hold for 90 days, citing likelihood Michael Cohen will be indicted

The following article by Beth Reinhard was posted on the Washington Post website April 27, 2018:

Adult-film actress Stormy Daniels made a statement outside a Manhattan federal court April 16. (Reuters)

A federal judge on Friday granted Michael Cohen’s request for a delay in a lawsuit brought against him by porn star Stormy Daniels, saying it appeared likely Cohen will be indicted in a related criminal investigation.

Judge S. James Otero’s order for a 90-day stay comes two days after Cohen, President Trump’s personal attorney, said he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself in the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of the Central District of California. Cohen’s declaration cited the investigation by federal prosecutors in New York, who are examining his role in quashing embarrassing stories about Trump during the 2016 campaign, according to a person familiar with the matter. Continue reading “Judge puts Stormy Daniels case on hold for 90 days, citing likelihood Michael Cohen will be indicted”

Did Trump just make a ‘hugely damning admission’ in the Stormy Daniels case?

The following article by Aaron Blake was posted on the Washington Post website April 26, 2018:

President Trump, for the first time, said that Michael Cohen represented him in efforts to silence Stormy Daniels in an interview with “Fox & Friends” April 26. (Allie Caren/The Washington Post)

President Trump made a rare public comment about the Michael Cohen-Stormy Daniels case Thursday morning, playing down the lawyer’s work for him and insisting that he didn’t know about Cohen’s business activities.

But Trump also said something that would seem … less than ideal. While describing Cohen’s allegedly limited work for him — a “tiny fraction” of his legal work, Trump assured — Trump confirmed to “Fox and Friends” that Cohen “represented” him in the Daniels case. Continue reading “Did Trump just make a ‘hugely damning admission’ in the Stormy Daniels case?”

Trump’s past comments about pleading the Fifth look pretty ominous now

The following article by Aaron Blake was posted on the Washington Post website April 25, 2018:

President Trump has been very critical of those who plead the Fifth Amendment. His lawyer just invoked the Fifth. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)

Donald Trump the presidential candidate said lots of things that have turned out to be rather inconvenient for Donald Trump the president. Ranking high on that list are the things Trump said pertaining to legal proceedings. And as Trump and those around him get into deeper legal crises, few have offered more damning commentary about what that means than Trump himself.

Trump’s longtime personal lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen has now indicated that he intends to plead the Fifth Amendment in the civil case involving his hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, citing the fast-materializing criminal case stemming from that same payment. Continue reading “Trump’s past comments about pleading the Fifth look pretty ominous now”

Trump publicly panics his fixer is exposing him to legal danger

The following article by Oliver Willis was posted on the shareblue.com website April 21, 2018:

Trump launched into his latest public meltdown about the likelihood that his personal fixer Michael Cohen is exposing his secrets to federal investigators.

Credit: AP/Evan Vucci

In a panicked Twitter tirade Saturday morning, Trump publicly admitted his fear that his personal fixer Michael Cohen is revealing his secrets to federal investigators.

Trump could’ve asserted that he had done nothing wrong that would be of interest to the investigation of his presidential campaign. Instead, he attacked New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman.

He whined that the Times and Haberman are “going out of their way to destroy Michael Cohen and his relationship with me in the hope that he will ‘flip.’” He added, “Most people will flip if the Government lets them out of trouble, even if it means lying or making up stories.” Continue reading “Trump publicly panics his fixer is exposing him to legal danger”

A Short History of Threats Received by Donald Trump’s Opponents

The following article by Decca Muldowney was posted on the ProPublica website April 20, 2018:

The pattern goes beyond Stormy Daniels.

Stormy Daniels exits US District Court for the Southern District of New York on April 16, 2018. Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

When Stormy Daniels spoke to “60 Minutes” last month, the porn actress described a threat she received years ago after speaking to a journalist about her alleged affair with Donald Trump. A stranger approached her in a parking lot in Las Vegas. Daniels was there with her baby daughter. “Leave Trump alone,” Daniels recalled the man warning her. “That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.”

Daniels did not report the threat to the police. On Wednesday, Donald Trump tweeted that Daniels’ account of events was “a total con job” about a “non-existent man.”

As it happens, other people in disputes with Trump have also found themselves the targets of threats — and sometimes they’ve reported it to authorities. Continue reading “A Short History of Threats Received by Donald Trump’s Opponents”

Trump lashes out at New York Times over Michael Cohen coverage, vows his attorney won’t ‘flip’

The following article by David Nakamura was posted on the Washington Post website April 21, 2018:

Here’s a breakdown of the people that President Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen dealt with and the investigations he’s entangled in. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump vowed Saturday that his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, will not “flip” and cooperate against him in the special counsel investigation into his campaign’s connections to Russia, attacking a New York Times story as part of a “witch hunt” against him.

In several morning tweets, Trump also lashed out against the Times over its coverage of the investigation. He slammed Maggie Haberman, the lead reporter on a new story, and called a former aide quoted in the story as a “drunk/drugged up loser.” Continue reading “Trump lashes out at New York Times over Michael Cohen coverage, vows his attorney won’t ‘flip’”

Michael Cohen’s mystery third client was Fox News host Sean Hannity

The following article by Emily C. Singer was posted on the Mic.com website April 16, 2018:

Credit: Evan Agostini

Fox News host Sean Hannity is caught up in the brouhaha surrounding the FBI’s raid of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen, it was revealed on Monday afternoon. Cohen went to court Monday to try to convince a judge that he should be able to review documents federal agents had seizedbefore federal investigators, in order to determine whether or not the documents were privileged.

But Federal investigators say Cohen’s claim would set a “dangerous precedent” that would allow “every person who has communicated with a lawyer” to “turn every search warrant into a subpoena and to demand the return of lawfully-seized evidence in order to undertake their own review of the evidence.”

In the course of Monday’s hearing, Cohen had to prove that he really is a practicing lawyer, which required him to reveal the number of clients he’s done work for, according to reports from inside the courtroom. Continue reading “Michael Cohen’s mystery third client was Fox News host Sean Hannity”

Sources: Mueller has evidence Cohen was in Prague in 2016, confirming part of dossier

The following article by Peter Stone and Greg Gordon was posted on the McClatchy website April 13, 2018:

Michael Cohen Credit: Mary Altaffer, AP

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department special counsel has evidence that Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and confidant, Michael Cohen, secretly made a late-summer trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Confirmation of the trip would lend credence to a retired British spy’s report that Cohen strategized there with a powerful Kremlin figure about Russian meddling in the U.S. election. Continue reading “Sources: Mueller has evidence Cohen was in Prague in 2016, confirming part of dossier”

Trump After Dark: ‘Untruthful slime ball’ edition

The following article by Henry C. Jackson was posted on the Politico website April 13, 2018:

The James Comey media tour hadn’t even started, really, before President Donald Trump responded with anger and indignation.

Then the revelations started to leak out.

“He is a weak and untruthful slime ball who was, as time has proven, a terrible Director of the FBI. His handling of the Crooked Hillary Clinton case, and the events surrounding it, will go down as one of the worst ‘botch jobs’ of history. It was my great honor to fire James Comey!” Trump wrote in one of a series of tweets. Continue reading “Trump After Dark: ‘Untruthful slime ball’ edition”