09 May 2018
TRENDINGArticle 1. From Politico, May 9, 2018. Avenatti calls on Trump, Cohen to release bank statements
Stormy Daniels' lawyer called on President Donald Trump and his longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen to release bank statements Wednesday tied to newly revealed business dealings after the 2016 election.
Michael Avenatti, the attorney for the porn star who allegedly had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 and whom Cohen paid hush money in 2016, said Trump and Cohen could rebut his claims by providing proof to the contrary.
"Look, let me say this, to the extent that it's not accurate, the president and Michael Cohen should clear this up this morning," he said on "Morning Joe." "They should release the bank statements this morning."
Avenatti shocked the political world Tuesday night when he claimed AT&T, a Russian oligarch and others had contributed to a Cohen bank account for Essential Consultants, the same shell company Avenatti said paid out money to Daniels. The New York Times, NBC News and other outlets subsequently confirmed portions of those claims.
AT&T and Columbus Nova, a company with ties to Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, whom special counsel Robert Mueller questioned earlier this year, acknowledged Tuesday night that they had retained Cohen after the election. But it remains unclear whether any of the transactions violated the law. Columbus Nova said Vekselberg was not involved in its transactions with Cohen.
He told "Morning Joe" that he had no new information on possible payments to other women. But he raised the specter of pay-to-play corruption in the payments tied to AT&T and Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis.
"Look, let me say this, to the extent that it's not accurate, the president and Michael Cohen should clear this up this morning," he said on "Morning Joe." "They should release the bank statements this morning."
"The bigger picture is that we don't know as we sit here today the full extent of the deposits," he said. "Where did the money go? Did all of it go to Michael Cohen? Did some of it go back to the Trump Organization? Did some of it ultimately find its way to the president?
Article 2. What did AT&T and Novartis want from Michael Cohen?
From The DealBook at the New York Times, May 9, 2018
| What did AT&T and Novartis want from Michael Cohen? |
| Washington was abuzz yesterday with the news that Michael Cohen's Essential Consultants received $500,000 from an investment fund tied to the Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. But AT&T and Novartis were also shown to have paid money to the firm — the one that Mr. Cohen used to pay Stormy Daniels. |
| AT&T said Essential was "one of several firms we engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration," and that its contract ended in December. Novartis said that its contract ran for a year, through February. |
| There's no link between AT&T or Novartis and the investigations into Mr. Cohen. But AT&T does have business before the Trump administration, including its $85.4 billion bid for Time Warner. What an unnamed source told the WSJ: |
"Right around [when the] inauguration is happening, we need somebody who knows the administration," the person said. "How does he think? What are their priorities?" |
| The Atlantic notes that AT&T's $200,000 payouts to Essential Consultants put it in the middle of the telecom giant's overall lobbying expenses for last year. |
Please note, AT&T denied they paid Cohen, who is not a registered agent for foreign governments or a registered lobbyist, for lobbying. Their lobbying expense report (cited by the Atlantic and the DealBook article above says otherwise.
Article 3. Crooks and Liars. today.
You really gotta appreciate the depth of commitment Michael Avenatti has to just trolling Trump hard, day in and day out. The only way that he could make him more upset is to appear on Fox & Friends.
And because he is smarter than pretty much the entire Trump team put together, he knows exactly how much he can say explicitly to needle Trump and his band of corrupt grifters.
Avenatti appeared on State of the Union and told Jake Tapper that, like much of the Twitterverse on Friday, he was astounded to find out that rather than make a court appearance, Trump "fixer" Michael Cohen decided to take a well-photographed stroll on the Upper East Side of New York City to sit down and visit with some pals in a sidewalk cafe.
And because Cohen has more bravado than savvy, a few of those friends could tie him to the ongoing Russian investigation of Trump, including one Rotem Rosen, whom TPM tentatively IDed.
Who is Rotem Rosen? I'll let Josh Marshall tell you:
So who is Rosen? These two paragraphs from a piece last year in Politico give you a flavor …Its patriarch, the late billionaire Tamir Sapir, was born in the Soviet state of Georgia and arrived in 1976 in New York, where he opened an electronics store in the Flatiron district that, according to the New York Times, catered largely to KGB agents.Trump has called Sapir "a great friend."
In December 2007, he hosted the wedding of Sapir's daughter, Zina, at Mar-a-Lago. The event featured performances by Lionel Ritchie and the Pussycat Dolls. The groom, Rotem Rosen, was the CEO of the American branch of Africa Israel, the Putin oligarch Leviev's holding company.
So
https://crooksandliars.com/2018/04/michael-avenatt...a
One tweet, one chart and Other articles.
The tweet (from Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe):
One chart ( from Wapo Journalist, Philip Bump):
