The lawyer is obviously a clever, cunning fellow, and this move is just for show. But if the suit does go through, isn't it possible that it will backfire spectacularly?
1
Sounds like Cohen, Trump and many Republicans including those heading investigations are now or are continuing to attempting to obstruct justice.
2
Wow, how does Mr. Cohen think he is going to cabin discovery in a case he has brought? I don’t think any court is going to be very sympathetic to claims of attorney-client privilege. Moreover, Mr. Cohen had better hope there isn’t evidence that he purposefully destroyed evidence before filing his suit.
When all the lawyers hire lawyers, and then those lawyers need lawyers. The dossier seems pretty well substantiated. From the playbook of "the best defense is an offense" Cohen files a lawsuit to disprove what is likely a truth. More details will come out in Cohen's suit, and he may hope he had just let it go.
2
Trump will be Trump. Suing or threatening to sue is how he operates. Next he’ll declare bankruptcy.
4
Given the recent success of their attempts to censor Mr. Wolff's book, I am sure Trump’s lawyers quickly put an end to incriminating revelations with these lawsuits.
1
Har Har! What a gift. Buzzfeed will be able to compel depositions of Trump, interrogatories and production of documents. I'm sure Mueller is green with envy.
Buzzfeed should file a counter claim against Trump anticipating that Trump will attempt to dismiss the suit when he realizes his blunder. Trump will not be able to dismiss the suit while the counter claim is pending.
5
After the circus we have endured the past year my intuition tells me that dossier is most likely incredibly accurate.
4
Trump strategies when caught in a squirming position:
1. Lie
2. Cheat
3. Fire your staff
3. Insult
4. Don't keep your word or promises
5. Blame the other person
5. Cajole
6. Sue
66
“This is the way Michael Cohen will get back his reputation — through the courts.”
The only reputation that I know that Mr. Cohen has is as a somewhat incompetent attack dog for the Dotard, after working in his various companies for years.
Am I missing something? How does he feel this reputation has been besmirched?
36
Sounds like a page ripped out of Roy Cohn's playbook.
28
All who wish to comment on the Dossier should read the 312 page record of the the nine hour Senate committee voluntary interview with Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS published in the NY Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/us/politics/feinstein-fusion-gps-glen...
Glenn Simpson establishes himself as an impartial investigative reporter with expertise in corporate fraud, embezzlement, and money laundering who has diligently and methodically searched published information and public records to determine whether Donald Trump is as wealthy as he has claimed, the nature of his "opaque' businesses, his business partners and practices, and after exhausting all available public information has hired sub-contractors like Christopher Steele to obtain high quality information from human sources.
Christopher Steele, a retired MI6 expert in Russian espionage and blackmail techniques, has an international reputation for reliable information stripped of falsehoods and disinformation. In the course of his investigation, Steele reached out to notify the FBI that a "crime was in progress" and shared his information with the FBI before election day.
Comey and the FBI need to explain their own interference in the election by their long, fruitless investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server and violation of Justice Dept. prohibitions and against the advice of the Atty. General while concealing their knowledge in their investigation of the Trump-Putin "bromance."
66
Was it Shakespeare who said "First we kill all the lawyers". This Administration single handedly seems to be destroying a lot of lawyers reputations.
Trump has managed to have most people associated with him having to "lawyer up". Trump is poisonous to all he deals with, especially the lawyers. I do not know if Mr. Cohen was "collateral damage", and his defamation case probably won't be settled for years.
I do believe that BuzzFeed did the country a huge service by their printing of the Steele Dossier.
Now for Mueller's deductions after he investigates the dossier.
17
Two things -
Who is paying for Mr Cohen’s lawyers? Something like this has to be very expensive.
Seems that lawyers from Buzzfeed and Fusion would subpoena Trump to be deposed. Do Trump’s people really want that - I think not.
23
The "dossier" also contains substantiated information such as multiple contacts between Trump campaign members and Russian intelligence operatives and offers of illegally obtained information on Hillary Clinton.
The whole story is important.
23
Does Cohen not realize that bringing his lawsuit draws even more attention to this issue? Incompetent bumbling Trump continues to be surrounded by incompetence.
23
The chances of this sleazebag opening himself up to discovery of his questionable business deals, and by extension Trump's, is zero.
17
"a salacious and largely unsubstantiated dossier that purported to lay out how Russia had aided the Trump campaign."
That is about as bad as anything I have seen here at NYT. Your reporting is a sinking down to Faux news level. The wast majority of this dossier is substantiated whereas a small salacious section has so far not been substantiated. Your performance on this issue of Trump campaign and Russia connections is pathetic. Perhaps in order to defend the indefensible fact that you knew about this before the election and instead of investigating and publishing your knowledge you gave Trump a clean bill of health that later events have proven completely indefensible.
48
Hey, Twitter! If criminals are using your service to trumpet lies you might be unethical.
13
“We want to the courts to bring to a head because nobody else was going to bring this to a head,” said David. M Schwartz, Mr. Cohen’s lawyer. “This is the way Michael Cohen will get back his reputation — through the courts.”
Would someone please whisper in Mr. Schwartz's ear that his client first has to have a good reputation in order to gain it back.
23
Maggie Haberman et al at the NYT appear to have an uncomfortable relationship with the so-called Steele Dossier. I say "so-called" because it is actually a collection of field memos containing raw intelligence gathered by former MI-6 intelligence officer Christopher Steele for Fusion GPS. After reading the transcript of Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, I learned that someone from the NYT was briefed by Steele sometime in September 2016. Despite this briefing, the NYT opted to sit on this information. Their defense is that they were unable to corroborate the Dossiers' findings. Strange! As I recall, the NYT showed almost no restraint in reporting the bogus Benghazi and Hillary Clinton email stories. To make this matter worse, the NYT reported on Oct. 30,2016, that there was no information to connect the Trump campaign to Russian hacking. By making this claim, the Times determined that it was in their interest to completely ignore the existence of the Dossier. Doing so, they did a grave disservice to their readers and to the electorate.
Since its disclosure to the public by BuzzFeed, the Times frequently uses the adjective "salacious" to describe the Dossier, and yet only two short paragraphs concerning Russian prostitutes are buried within 35 pages of information. Sounds like a back-handed way to discredit an entire document.
I'm hopeful that the Times Public Editor will look into the strange handling of the Dossier.
73
I completely agree with Mr. Rail. What exactly needs to be verified in the memos for the NYT to stop calling them "largely unsubstantiated"? It seems the FBI has verified much of this material according to the NYT's own reports. Why did you not refer to the Benghazi allegations as "largely unsubstantiated" or "altogether unsubstantiated"? There seems to be a double standard. Forget about the fact that Republicans are able to go on network and cable news stations night-after-night and repeat completely fabracated allegations about Clinton and other dems, but we expect more from the NYT. If you are going to call this material "salacious and largely unsubstantiated" then you need to do the same with Republican statements about, well, just about everything.
46
Mr. Cohen says he was never to Prague and his passport shows this.
When traveling within the EU there are no passport checks at border crossings.
You can drive from Germany to Prague without seeing a border guard.
51
Because that"s what lawyers do. Especially Trump's lawyers. They sue people. What else do they know?
10
You can't sue away the truth.
Tick tock...
20
Tell the whole truth, New York Times. It wasn't just the Democrats who paid. The Republicans paid BEFORE the Dems. PLEASE stop framing this as if the Democrats are in this all by themselves. It is infuriating.
72
Where can I send my donation to Buzzfeed & Fusion?
29
go for it! Discovery should be lots of fun.
17
Pandora's box is being pried open.
Let the interviews of material witnesses begin.
14
What Trump and Cohen constantly seem to forget is that truth is a defense to a defamation claim. Does Cohen really want to get into discovery, get deposed on, get document requests on, etc. whether the dossier's allegations are true? Why would you invite that battle when it surely only leads to Mueller's doorstep? This is all posturing.
31
Many states have what are called Anti SLAPP statutes, https://anti-slapp.org/your-states-free-speech-protection.
The publication of the dossier surely would be consider a matter falling within the scope of public discourse and the protections of the anti-slapp statutes. Moreover, the gist of the dossier has proven to be true.
I anticipate that Michael Cohen will be withdrawing his suit when the defendants file a counterclaim under the anti-slapp statutes.
20
I would like to see Mr. Cohen's pleadings as to why he believes the dossier is defamatory. Unless I am missing something, the dossier only stated, "COHEN's secret meeting/s with Kremlin officials in August 2016 was/were held in Prague."
That passage in itself does not accuse Cohen of committing a crime or of having engaged in an act of moral turpitude. While it may be an error that Cohen ever went to Prague, such error does not defame Cohen.
Additionally, if the defamatory statement is that Cohen met with Kremlin officials, then such assertion has interesting implications for AG Sessions. We know Sessions met with Kremlin officials and did not tell the whole truth about these meetings. Thus, if Cohen believes meeting with Kremlin officials is defamatory, Cohen must be asserting by implication that AG Sessions committed an act of criminal conduct or an act of moral turpitude. Is Cohen saying that Sessions' meeting with the Kremlin officials destroys the AG's reputation? If he is, then he would have to argue Trump should have fired Sessions for lying to Congress about the Kremlin meetings. But since Cohen is not saying this, his basis for being defamed is puzzling.
And if he is filing a suit when there is no basis for being defamed, then clearly his suit violates the anti-SLAPP statutes.
3
Verification of the infusion of Russian money - hundreds of millions -ia the acquisition of apartments in various Trump properties ought not to be too difficult even though the acquiring entities are invariably LLCs the sources of whose money you then need to trace.
12
Not sure how Fusion GPS could be liable. The dossier really doesn’t assert an opinion or conclusion. They are really just notes turned over to the FBI for further investigation. Even if certain allegations were made, Mr. Steele was simply noting what others said. So, what is the defamatory act?
22
Trump could clear this all up by releasing his taxes. Just like he promised.
54
Ah, yes. Traitor Trump's "thug in residence," who used to carry a gun in an ankle holster to threaten any and all.
I think I'll send a list of Trump lawyers licensed to practice in New York and Washington, D.C. to the respective courts to investigate these slime balls for disbarment proceedings.
22
Fun fact about defamation is that all you need to defend yourself is to prove what you published is true.
16
I'm increasingly convinced that the real motivation here is to get discovery into Fusion's sources so that they can be "silenced." Scary times indeed.
11
“This is the way Michael Cohen will get back his reputation — through the courts.”
I think Mr. Cohen actually needs a time machine - going back to when he made the decision to work for Mr. Trump - to make the repairs his reputation need.
26
If it goes to court, lawyers could be calling all sorts of witnesses and getting testimony that would really hurt these guys. The FBI surely has additional info to substantiate the claims with wiretaps, and docs and who knows what all. Under oath, who knows who will crumble. Papadopolis, Flynn, Manafort all figure there. Maybe even the Russian "bed wetters". This could be a really dumb move and another book for Wolff. "Cohen Down the River" or like the Benny Goodman tune "Sing, Sing, Sing"
12
dve, awesome "bed wetter" quote!!!
2
Michael, the defendant gets to depose you. Hope you have a good lawyer.
19
Poor guy. I wonder how often he thinks about why he studied law in the first place and how he ended up here.
And then the bottle and the gun in his desk drawer.
10
Question: Who’s paying for the efforts to discredit all investigations of Kremlin involvement in our 2016 election? Who are those patriots?
20
"The dossier — a set of reports paid for by Democrats —"
The NYT needs to stop using this construction.
The release of Senate Judiciary testimony by Dianne Feinstein yesterday reveals that REPUBLICANS were paying Fusion GPS for this work 9 months before Democrats did, and it was after the Republican funded efforts revealed extensive Russian ties that Steele was hired.
98
Right, by occasionally printing truths the NYT is ruining it's reputation as a fake news outlet.
2
The dossier was paid for by Democrats, as stated by the Times.
If someone else payed Fusion previously it has no relevance.
Also, the idea that "REPUBLICANS were paying Fusion" came from the counsel to Senate Democrats after repeated leading questions failed to get the witness to make such an implication.
1
That the research was first begun under Republican party interests was reported long before Trump was elected, Comey fired or the special counsel even created.
5
Cohens' attorney stated that Cohen thru the lawsuit will be able to get back his reputation. The question I have is why would he want that back?
5
The best form of defence is offense, as it is widely believed. However, this is an interesting turn of events. The dossier in question will be meticulously dissected in court, the plaintiff compelled to produce evidence of unjust character stain. However, while Cohen may get his day in court, the collateral damage to the Trump administration may prove cataclysmic as lines of questioning expose the truths, untruths, or "alternative facts" that constitute the Russian meddling crisis. Even if Cohen is exonerated, others will be excoriated.
15
Cohen's the hack whose kids don't even trust him, correct?
10
This article was posted after Sen. Feinstein's release of the very relevant 312 page transcript of Glenn Simpson, a principal of one of the two entities Cohen is suing. Yet no mention -- why not? (The clue is on page 178 of that transcript.) NYT really needs to clean up its act with regard to reporting of corruption, or it will fade in reputation to just another shallow lifestyle tabloid.
13
They allow endless appeals from a prison cell so good to know Michael Cohen will always stay busy in his chosen profession.
6
The white house is heating up. Mueller and news are getting too close to the truth and t-rump. Calling out all the stops so Cohen and the repulsives are making all info faux and suing them. Obstruction, collusion.
5
"Largely unsubstantiated" dossier?? Are you kidding me? I was under the perfectly reasonable impression - based upon reporting by this newspaper and many other media outlets - that in fact most of the memoranda comprising the "dossier" had been corroborated and substantiated by other intelligence and law enforcement sources. Only the most salacious parts remain unsubstantiated and I don't expect we'll know whether those are true until Putin uses them to blackmail Mr. Trump - which was Mr. Steele's original concern!
As for who originally employed Fusion GPS to gather dirt on Trump, it has been clearly reported - again by the NYT and many other news media - that it was a conservative think tank in the employ of one of Trump's presidential primary campaign opponents.
A bit of journalistic honesty from these co-authors would be really nice...
72
Why does this article not specify that the Dossier was the result of opposition research begun by Conservatives and instead only mention Democragts?
78
“The dossier — a set of reports paid for by Democrats — contains unsubstantiated allegations ...”
Why do you not mention that it was Republicans who originally commissioned and paid Fusion GPS for their oppo research? Also, why only mention the unsubstantiated allegations, but not mention that much of the dossier HAS been substantiated?
90
Can't wait for the depositions!
6
Cohen feels so strongly about his case that he waited till the very last minute.
Trump pays generously for the loyalty of his armies of lawyers and fall guys -- it's rare that we get to see someone who is member to both camps.
And this desperate little play is barely a bump in Trump's road to ruin.
So it must be that Trump's running out of chances to try and cast doubt on the Dossier and Mueller.
In fact, Time's Up.
12
In fact "IT'S MUELLER TIME.
10
Show us your taxes Donald!! Stop hiding and lying!!
25
Sez who?
1
this lawsuit could wind up being as important as times v. sullivan, depending on the defenses that are raised.
cohen will have to show that the dossier is materially false; that the false claims of fact actually are defamatory (injurious to reputation)--ie, not just that the "wrong location, prague" was identified as a meeting place; and that in releasing the dossier the defendants "recklessly disregarded the truth".
we can't wait for the depositions, in which, presumably, cohen will lack attorney client privilege regarding his ties to trump's business interests. so, forego motions to dismiss and get right to discovery--i hope. likely, trump would be a witness subject to deposition.
13
I agree - discovery is the key. Cohen should also provide access to his phone, which can show where and when he traveled overseas during the past few years. As Trump's attorney, he cannot defend his claims unless he discloses information about his whereabouts on Trump's behalf.
I think this lawsuit is just a sham, another distraction. Cohen is not going to subject himself to pursuing this in court if he has to disclose any of his personal secret travels for Trump. It will be interesting to find out more about his wife and father-in-law, though. More Russians...
18
It is not all about Trump. Republican lawmakers should be investigating Russia's attack on US and figuring out how to protect us in the future. As bad as Trump is turning out to be, I am even more afraid of those Republicans in Congress who have shown no inclination to defend our democracy from a hostile foreign power. They look more guilty of collusion than the Trump team.
33
I do wish that the Times and other news outlets would accurately portray who paid for the Fusion GPS work: a Republican right wing organization initially hired Fusion GPS to look into Trump and when he won the nomination, dropped it. It was then picked up by Democrats. Both sides of the aisle were funders of this work. The Times needs to be accurate about the original two sponsors.
Moreover, the transcript of Glenn Simpson's 10 hours of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee underscores the bi-partisan interest in Trump, up until the election and Fusion GPS's bi-partisan roster of clients.
Every move by Trump, Cohen and Trump's other cohorts only keeps the story alive longer. Attempts at suppression or claims of libel only spread interest in and attention to the unrefuted allegations.
55
The discovery process will be brutal and I suspect that Cohen will invoke client privilege to avoid answering pointed questions. It may, however, provide fresh leads for investigators … unless, of course, Cohen draws out the process for a couple of years.
6
The only thing negatively impacting Mr. Cohen is his enthusiastic willingness to participate in and defend the unethical behavior and business practices of Donald J. Trump. Own it sir.
9
If this suit does produce a trial it might be the legal venue to shed some light and info on the actions of this presidency and its enablers before we can get the real thing, i.e., impeachment proceedings.
1
Well, he's made a career out of filing lawsuits for Stable Genius that go nowhere. Why stop now?
46
Enough is enough is right...with this attack on the 4th estate. With the lies. With all of it.
7
Sue if something comes up that threatens the Trump regime. Good luck with the case - the Book does more damage to the regime than the dossier.
4
What I want to know is who bankrolls these lawsuits. As always, follow the money!
8
If not Prague, where?
As far as I can tell, the meeting is not denied, just its location
32
I’m not sure we can trust Fusion gps any more than we can trust Trump aids. Likely they got paid a lot of money to write a story to discredit the Trump administration as part of the process of dirty campaigning. Also, we talk about the “former British spy” like it must be true. Just because your a “former British spy” does not mean you’re smart or honest.
I think the trump administration stinks as much as the next trump hater but I also think this investigation stinks and will likely prove to be a waste of money.
Reality will end up being that some Trump aids foolishly met with Russians but no direct link to Trump will be found.
If they loose the libel suit the judge should force them to change their name to “Fiction gps” And the former British spy” should be tarred and feathered. That was a suitable punishments for red coats so it should be OK now
Where’s Wikileaks when you need them
1
Wikileaks is hardly a reliable source. In fact they are part of the disinformation process.
9
How can you be so cynical as to trust no one except for WikiLeaks, run by a guy holed up in an embassy and used as the vehicle to deliver the emails that the Russians hacked?
9
Steele was a British intelligence officer with the Secret Intelligence Service MI6 from 1987 until his retirement in 2009. He then started his own business as he had a specific skill set and sources. He is known to the FBI as he helped them with the FIfA soccer corruption case. It is true he is a 'former British Spy'. Mr. Steele is more patriotic to the US than the Trump aids
His notes (the dossier) were early drafts and not a fine tuned document, so yes there were typos and I have heard rumblings that the Cohen mess is due to the incorrect location of the meeting, not the meeting itself.
No way, no way, a firm like Fusion, which has been around for awhile would just say "Hey lets make up something - he maybe DJT liked a fetish 'thing' with prostitutes." You are trying to hear zebras when you hear the hoof beats, not horses.
5
A publicity stunt.
Given the public persons involved, the case should be quickly dismissed. If not, discovery would likely be very embarrassing to Trump. I doubt Cohen will pursue it very long.
21
Oh, great idea. I'm sure this will work.
3
This is a smokescreen from Cohen. Team Trump have lied at every turn. We’re not buying it, Cohen!
17
"Though investigators and journalists have developed extensive evidence linking some of Mr. Trump’s associates to operatives for the Russian government, no evidence of a direct connection between Mr. Trump himself and the Kremlin has emerged."
You guys are just doubling down on this line, huh?
Read the Washington Post today, which takes note of the NYT's now infamous Oct. 31 article stenographing FBI claims there was no investigation of Trump. The Post notes that article played a role in Steele breaking off contact with the FBI as he didn't know if the agency had been compromised.
That was part of the GPS testimony released yesterday, which the Times also forgot to mention. Strange how that works.
57
When you can't trust the press to print truth to power, democracy dies.
4
Everything you credit the Post for was also in the transcript. The Times printed the transcript.
1
That was a LONG transcript. The Post and other news organizations highlighted important areas for their readers, most of whom don't have the time to read the transcript of a 10-hour meeting.
I expect more from the NYT than rear-end covering.
6
They're trying to discredit the report on the basis of apparent inaccuracies regarding Trump's role. But Trump's collusion or hi-jinks are not important -what's important is that Putin wanted Trump to be President, and helped him to get there. That's not in dispute - it doesn't matter if Trump wanted his help or not.
23
Buzzfeed and GPS should do crowd-funding to pay for these ridiculous lawsuits.
Michael Cohen is a mafia lawyer. WE THE PEOPLE must stand up to him and his "clients" and demand they be kicked OUT of OUR governments at all levels.
86
“The dossier — a set of reports paid for by Democrats — contains unsubstantiated allegations of questionable real estate deals, secret coordination with Russian operatives who hacked Democratic targets during the 2016 election and evenings that Mr. Trump is said to have spent with prostitutes.”
The research was initially started by a conservative news site during the primaries and then later paid to continue by the Clinton campaign. Please stop getting this important detail wrong.
167
I am confused, why does that make a difference? So if a conservative organization does it then it is ok if the Democratic candidate for the president of the United States does it?
Since when do two wrongs make a right?
Will K - I think it makes a difference to people because the current right-wing talking point is that the dossier is garbage because it was funded by Democrats, therefore politically motivated. In truth, it was first funded by conservatives and then democrats (not that, in either case, the question of funding answers whether anything in it is true or not).
8
as if being associated with Donald Trump wasn't proof enough of malfeasance...
19
“Paid for by Democrats” - but a wealthy republican donor and conservative publication - the Washington Free Beacon—funded this from the beginning, it was picked up by Dems only after Trump won the nomination. A salient piece of evidence, no? Why the omission?
Also, many of the allegations in the dossier—raw intel reports—have since proven to be true. Again, no mention of this by Ms. Haberman—why is that?
Very curious.
182
Yes, agree with this question of accuracy by the NY Times. Once again they print untruths concerning who paid for the dossier, leaving the conservatives who began this research out of the story. And there is a history of this going back to 2016. The reports were intelligence reports by a man known to be the top expert in Russian intelligence in the UK.
NY times has done this before. 2016 story saying thee was no collusion found.
4
We’re in danger of justice grinding to a halt not by virtue of the actions of Donald Trump, or Hillary Clinton, or stonewalling by a Republican Congress, but the blizzard of lawsuits naming the U.S. government as defendant by people and organizations who don’t like the way it’s governing.
Can due process effectively be exploited to circumvent democracy? There’s a lawsuit in that, too.
5
Ultimately, actions in this vein are obviously meant to add to the ongoing false innuendo being created to discredit the Mueller Investigation. And in the true spirit of the Trump Administration we can only judge this incident as another example where our 'free press', our Constitution are coming under attack by either Donald Trump directly or someone connected to him.
28
If Michael D. Cohen were to satisfy the requirements for defamation suit success (tsk...tsk) -- a high bar, indeed, made the higher still where, as 'here,' the plaintiff is a "public figure," -- his reputation should earn him the same award as his biggest client (our "very stable genius"...tsk...tsk...tsk...tsk...tsk) was awarded when he, for the U.S.F.L. sued the N.F.L. for anti-trust violations: 1 U.S. Dollar (w/o, however, the tripling to 3 bucks that anti-trust statutes provide).
6
I'm not sure Michael would be considered a public figure for libel analysis, where his notoriety exists only by virtue of the report.
1
Personally, I would like to know the individuals and/or organizations contributing to Mr. Cohen's and Mr. Gubarev's legal defense funds. Doubtful that either legal actions are self-funded. Remember Mr. Thiel's involvement with "Hawkers demise...is Buzzfeed next?
23
Filing a lawsuit to protect one's personal honor, and simultaneously exposing your client to interrogatories, subpoenas and depositions (all under threat of perjury) hardly seems commensurate with a lawyer's professional duty to his or her client. My guess is that Mr. Cohen quietly drops the suit within days.
94
"...a set of reports paid for by Democrats..." That's misleading! Wasn't the Fusion GPS research initiated and originally paid for by Washington Free Beacon, a conservative group? And then paid for by Democrats?
142
The discovery in this case should be interesting. It seems likely that in order to defend the suit BuzzFeed will have the right to explore not only Cohen's finances, but Trump's, Jared's and Don Jr.'s as well. Maybe we'll finally see Trump's tax returns. And Cohen will run into problems if he asserts privilege, since that may make a full defense impossible and result in dismissal of his suit. It the suit goes forward I doubt his chances of success. When Diane Feinstein says theres's a there there, I'm pretty sure most of the dossier is true. Lie down with dogs, Cohen, get up with fleas (sorry dogs).
184
Does one actually expect trump and relatives to ever disclose their finances?
How would Buzzfeed have the ability to subpoena those records? I believe they could ask, but I would imagine only a judge could do so. Please correct me if I am wrong- I hope I am.
This is where I pause to examine what is going on. As a lawyer, I sympathize with Mr. Cohen. We lawyers are required to get fully involved with our clients to provide them with the best representation. This regularly results in the cliché of "bad optics,"--defending clients who are on bad-behavior and making it look like we are their cohorts rather than their mouthpieces. Think of all the criminal lawyers who zealously defend killers and marauders. But, we are required to respect the "red line" that prohibits us from participating in our client's shenanigans. This all looks, to most outsiders, that we are involved up to our necks in the sordid affairs of our clients. 99% of the times we are not. We also must keep our mouths shut and not give up any secrets that our clients tell us as to their past behavior--regardless of how bad the conduct. But, while we must counsel caution and make sure that what happened in the past remains defendable, we must warn against any rule-breaking or illegality occurring in the present or future. If so, on our watch, we MUST report it to law enforcement.
So, I would look to see if this report, which characterizes Cohen as a "co-conspirator" is really a critique of a lawyer who is doing a very difficult job at lightning speed, just because the authors do not agree with the point of view that he is defending.
9
Interesting that you don't see a possible secret meeting with a Russian official as something to be investigated.
44
I see your point. However, there is something wrong in this country when lawyers can say "I didn't do anything, I just told my client what was legal or not." and then the lawyer makes a killing from the profits of said client. Where are the ethics in this? I am so so tired of conservatives saying we need less regulation, while they and their attorneys then look for legal but clearly unethical ways to conduct all sorts of business. They can't have it both ways. These people either need ethics and morals, or we all need more regulations to control people who have no morals.
10
Is any meeting with a Russian official illegal or wrong in some way?
As in the entire 'Russiagate' campaign, complete dependence on insinuation, innuendo and smear -- there really isn't any "there" there.
1
"no evidence of a direct connection between Mr. Trump himself and the Kremlin has emerged" you write with caution - but there have been articles about attempts by Trump people to create indirections that could conceal connections. In addition, one of the people at the Donnie Jr Trump Tower meeting on June 9, 2016 - Kaveladze of the Crocus Group has been reported as "linked to a money laundering investigation." Concealment of connections is usual for affairs of this nature. Donnie Jr was careless. Donnie Sr during at least one campaign speech asked Russia to find the "33000 missing emails." Even the most patriotic Republicans have seen enough to fear for US national security.
87
Ivanka is the direct connection between Trump and the Kremlin. She sat herself down in Putin's desk chair on a visit to Moscow and the inner lair of Vlad in the company of Comrad Sater, the partner of Trump in the Trump Soho debacle and possessor of Trump Org. business cards with his name on them. He is identified as Russian mafia in open sourced info. Read the 300+ pages of the Fusion testimony and the connections become abundantly clear. There is never a direct line to the Kremlin, just a highway to oligarchs and businessmen, with a back alley to Putin in the background. Trump is a money launderer for the bad guys, and Cohen handled the arrangements.
3