Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen was in court yesterday to accept a plea deal on federal charges. Cohen has been working with New York state authorities and federal authorities for months now, basically ever since his home and office were raided. Cohen “flipped” with relative ease, because he knew that the state and federal authorities had him on dozens – if not hundreds – of crimes. Cohen also knew that he was never the endgame, and that he could tell the truth about his dealings with the Trump family and get a better deal, especially from special counsel Robert Mueller. So that’s what Cohen did. Throughout the day on Thursday, so many fun details started spilling out from Cohen’s plea deal. Some highlights:
The $50 million penthouse. From Buzzfeed’s exclusive: “President Donald Trump’s company planned to give a $50 million penthouse at Trump Tower Moscow to Russian President Vladimir Putin as the company negotiated the luxury real estate development during the 2016 campaign, according to four people, one of them the originator of the plan.”
Don Jr. and Ivanka. According to Vanity Fair, Don Jr. “has been telling people he’s very worried after today,” and that he believes he’ll be indicted soon. Ivanka is “being eyed” by Mueller and his team for her involvement in the Moscow Trump Tower deal too, because Cohen was copying Ivanka and Don Jr. on everything.
Putin’s Kompromat. Basically, Cohen connects a lot of dots that suggest (if not prove) that Putin has held compromising information on Trump and his family for YEARS.
The Perjury Trap. Personally, I don’t understand why people act like it’s only JUST NOW that Trump could be caught up in his scheme of lies. He’s been lying to everyone, about everything. But the story is that Mueller laid a trap for Trump by waiting until Trump turned in his written answers about his dealings with Russia, and now Cohen’s testimony will be the final nail in the perjury coffin. Or something.
We’ve been talking about all of this for so long, and it feels like the facts have gotten mixed up with the speculation and suppositions, but I’ll just say this: I’m hopeful. I feel like things are going to really start moving around in the final weeks of 2018, and then by January, it should be Indictments Gone Wild. Merry Christmas!
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
Maybe we’ll get something for each night of Chanukah. Why wait?
Love it! And perfect, let’s shed some light into these dark places.
It’s a miracle!
Oh s**t this reminds me we’ll probably get images of Ivanka and Jared lighting the menorah with their kids…oy vey.
That made me think of the line from The Addams Family:
Debbie: “Where do you find these Addams men?”
Morticia: “It has to be damp.”
I’m really curious, can these two be excommunicated or something like that? Seriously they are ok with antisemitism and caging babies. Can they get kicked out of their faith like Keebler?
Not really. An individual community could kick them out. But it’s not really done. You might be interested in reading about agunahs and gett abuse. If a man were excommunicated he might be able to just join a different community.
I want them to hurry up and ruin the holiday for the whole lot of them. 😀
This is all very interesting but I’m kinda all out of hope that Trump or anyone in his circle will face any consequences. His tweets today have been crazy…but they’ve always been crazy. Not sure I see evidence that he’s more panicked than usual.
Maybe it’s one too many “it’s finally happening” takes but I’ll believe it when I see it. And in the meantime keep despairing at what Trump and the GOP has wrought.
Except a bunch of them have already been indicted (what is it, 25, 26 indictments out of the investigation?) I share your pessimism, but there’s a flicker of hope alive. They clearly did lie and lie a lot about many, many things.
It’s not “finally happening” *yet*, but when I woke up this morning and twitterers are still gleeful about Cohen, when Hoarse Wisperer is saying that one of Cohen’s final court dates is Dec 12 and that at that court date, Mueller is going to gut Trump like a fish with news, when I keep seeing multiple people mentioning President Pelosi…. we’ve turned a corner.
Mueller will be reading the charges and we will know. He and GOP can try to suppress the report but it’s too late. These are all entered into public record! Mueller is smart!
I agree, unfortunately. I have lost faith.
I still hear people saying “poor Trump, why won’t the Democrats just leave him alone,” because after 50,000 smoking guns they would have cheerfully crucified Hillary or Obama for, they still love this guy.
Marcy Wheeler is on today’s Pod Save America. Her break down of the timeline will give you hope.
Thank you, I was just about to head to the gym with my earbuds and have PSA already queued up.
Something so complex and important as this takes time to build from the bottom up, and it will be revealed from the bottom up. I am certain there will be consequences. If Congress fails us, the citizens have the opportunity to vote him out in less than 2 years.
Mueller has done very well so far. I don’t think we’ve seen his best work yet.
I agree, Tiffany.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, and Mueller isn’t “wrapping things up”, as is so often reported.
He’s just getting started, and there will be many more bombshells to come, so everyone should stay tuned!
You’re right, Tiffany. I just listened to the Pod that Megan mentioned above and it all seems very solid. I guess I’m just discouraged by so many people are still screaming “witch hunt” right along with Trump. How we can have such deep levels of denial and so many mindless MAGAts is so deeply disturbing to me.
That’s just sunken cost fallacy at work. At this point, they’ve gone so deep into denial because acknowledging the reality would make them look more the fool.
I agree. It’s facinating how Drumpf comes out of the gates twitting away, oh he’s a liar and he’s a liar and this is a witch hunt…I’m the victim. No Drumpf, we are the victims, as will our children and our grandchildren for the destruction you have caused in the short two years you have been a POS POTUS. No more clean air, water or federal lands. No more wild horses, buffalo, polar bears or climate change commitments, just lining your pocket and the pockets of your buddies. Furthermore, to decry that the CIA finding is regards to Khashoggi are false just so you can sell your weapons. Such a disgrace on the American public and our standing in the world. Drumpf you are an embarrassment and a liar. May you and your family rot in jail or hell, which ever comes first.
You shouldn’t focus on his Maga fans, they *know* he is scum but love him because he is *their* scum. Trying to change the minds of those people isnlike trying to break a person out of a cult. The important thing is that Trump is toast. His Achilles heel has always been his financial dealings with Russia. This has been his red line because he knows it can legitimately break him and his company. He doesn’t care about impeachment, he cares about being penniless.
The GOP will stand with him until he ends up pleading guilty in a court of law. Republicans supported Richard Nixon up until the day he left office, then you couldn’t get any of them to admit they voted for the guy. It was “Nixon who?”
I love seeing the glee in Rachel Maddow’s eyes each night – it’s like a kid at Christmas!!!! Magic! 🙂
Oh yeah – party time…
Love Mueller and his team! I think they are “very legal and very cool” 😉
His tweets this morning have the air of being written by Nagini. The world is closing in on the icy snake princess and it is going to be fascinating to watch. But first, she’s going to enjoy every taxpayer funded moment of her Argentina G20 vacation where she gets to do diplomat cosplay and throw herself at Justin Trudeau again.
What is her reason for being in Argentina? Surely she has no reason (or Jared for that matter) to be there. Tax money being wasted.
If you see her on a balcony greeting the people with her arms up like Evita, then you’ll know why she’s in Argentina.
To promote herself, to collect bribes. To hurl herself at Justin Trudeau
Oh, thank you for that “Evita” imagery. It’s perfect!
This is the first time she and Jared have a legitimate reason to be present. Jared helped negotiate NAFTA 2.0 and is getting an award from the President of Mexico so she is his +1. Of course she spends the time handout with her Daddy instead of the husband she’s ostensibly there to support.
Let her play First Lady, Muller’s and the State of NY will be coming for her soon enough!
So which minute change did Jared make in NAFTA 2.0, and did little Ivanka go running to daddy proudly and show him hubby’s work? And then daddy Trump said, “Good job, Ivanka, I’m so proud of you! Come sit on my lap and I’ll tell you about how I’m going to bring you both to Argentina with me! Mr. Putin would really like to see you again, he thinks you’re so ho- spitable….”
So if you’re caught lying through your teeth, it isn’t getting caught doing something you’re not supposed to be doing, it’s a trap and somehow unfair. Got it. But as usual he tweets that shiz out and all of a sudden his followers are jumping on it that he may have lied (but it somehow doesn’t count because he was “trapped” into admitting it), but that still doesn’t mean there was collusion.
I can’t stop myself from reading the latest, but I’m trying very hard to put it on the back burner because I am desperately trying to have Christmas spirit this year. I’ll say it again – I hope Robert Mueller is as smart as we all think he is because the closer all this gets to 45, the more he’s going to try to kill the investigation and fire RM. And he can do it.
Here’s a small takeaway, hopefully it will cheer you up. Trump tried to bribe a PRESIDENT of another country with a luxury loft. Which tells me he is a-okay with receiving bribes as well, and he probably has received illegal bribes, and Mueller will uncover those, too.
They have been openly accepting Pay to Play bribes since the start. You want Trump to talk to you? Hand $50 million to Ivanka’s women’s fiund.
Exactly. He offered a luxury loft to the President of Russia, a sanctioned country, as a means of appealing to Putin and attracting other oligarchs who would want to have a residence near him.
Then he refused to impose sanctions on Russia which would effect not only Putin, but also the many other Russian oligarchs who he was planning on selling housing to.
So his anti-sanctions policy has always been part of his business deal-making. No sanctions = bigger personal profit margin for the Dumpster.
Which is a really, really big no-no!!!! (Oh, and by the way he lied about it!)
He also ‘sold’ seats at his inauguration to Russian oligarchs who ‘donated’ truck loads of cash to his campaign and business. He’s been selling USA to them a piece at a time.
Word in NY is that he has been money laundering for Russian oligarchs for years. I think his financial crimes will put him in prison or at least in court for years. Also wouldn’t be surprised if republicans throw him overboard at some point. He’s an insane embarrassment every day. They can still get their horrid judges if pence is president and his racism is quieter and more acceptable (ugh).
How could he have fallen for a Mueller trap? He has a very good brain.
I know, right? A stable genius that he is.
And not just that, but he has a GUT that is better than scientists’ brains! His GUT tells him this!! His Big Mac-Cheeseburer-KFC-Coke filled gut tells him EVERYTHING!
Tanguerita, that almost sounds like a line from Gilbert and Sullivan:
🎵 A stable genius am I 🎵
He also hires the best people. Surely one of those best people advised him on how to avoid perjuring himself
No, he has an amazing “gut”, the best gut….
The Spirit of Covfefe wasn’t with him…?
Well he did say his “gut tells him more sometimes than anybody’s else’s brain can ever tell him”. This guy is a closet genius…..Lol! U can’t make this up, he’s the president.
@ Darla : I hate the term “perjury trap” that gets thrown around on Fox News (“Mueller is setting a perjury trap for Trump!” screams Judge Jeanine”). I was a lawyer for 20 years and the only people at risk of a perjury trap are those who are LYING! If you aren’t lying, then all the perjury traps in the world can’t hurt you.
But he WASN’T lying. He was just stating alternative facts….
Until they are led away shackled and wearing orange jumpsuits, it is best to remain cautious and vigilant. The man is feeling cornered and will lash out. He will not go down without a fight
True story. This will get really, really ugly.
I honestly think that he’d have to declare martial law in order to halt a legal juggernaut of this magnitude.
And i could see him actually trying to do just that, but I imagine his demands would fall flatter than his demands for a dictator-style military parade did.
We all know he’s done a lot of terrible and stupid things but I feel like it’ll be something stupid that’ll take him out. Like lying about eating a fourth cheeseburger or something. I mean, I’ll take what I can get, but there’s so much he needs to go down for.
Funny you mentioned cheeseburgers. I was watching the reel of his “no Russher”claims and thought he will someday deny he ever had any burgers from McD’s, too.
He eats McDonald’s because the burgers are pre-made and he fears being poisoned. Rumor is that he has had this fear for years. Hmmmmmm…….Who do we know of that poisons people like it’s going out of style? *cough* Putin! *cough*
Maybe a Russian agent could get a job at McDonald’s? Asking for a friend.
I’m dreaming of a Trump family Christmas picture of them all in orange jumpsuits, posing together in their jail cell. Please, Santa!
Until we get the real photos, enjoy this-
https://whatwouldjackdo.org/2018/07/28/all-i-want-for-christmas-is-to-see-the-trump-family-in-orange-prison-jumpsuits/
I won’t be happy until a new reality show is pitched about the Trumps’ lives in orange jumpsuits.
Not me. Spectacle TV about horrible people was never my thing and I will never, ever watch another thing like it. The Great British Bake-off is as racy a reality show as I ever want to see.
But actually seeing the Trump goons in their orange jumpsuits? Yes, I will be very excited for that. Very.
Omg, the bake-off show is my new show! I really don’t watch reality cuz I’m a cringer, but I’ll watch documentary style shows about criminals. However, I’ve been so filled with hate for this administration, I don’t want anything written or produced about them with serious and dramatic flair. I want it to be the joke that it is. I want their base to be pummeled with ridicule and laughter and then forgotten. Imo, they’re traitors. This administration is a traitorous farce. I want, “Lock them up,” to be the rallying cry that buries them all lol.
I just popped in to say that I am obsessed with The Great British Bake-off! Obsessed! The desserts! All the whipped cream! The meringues! Le sigh!
Working title – “Orange Is Our New Brand”.
Make our jails great again.
Where the swamp flows.
The drain ends here.
The shades of orange.
He’s already got the hair and the face for it hahaha!
Trump Is The New Orange.
Ivanka knows foreign policy alright… if you include the inner workings of slave labor needed for her clothing line.
I’m cautiously hopeful that something great is coming our way from Mr. Mueller.
Why can’t trumpleskilsen realize that most of Mueller’s team is republican??? He drives me crazy with all of his inaccurate rantings but this one really gets me PO’d.
There is no way I’ll ever believe this will happen.
But…
If Trump goes down, then Pence and Nancy Pelosi becomes president, my body will never be the same after the laughing fit I’ll experience.
Pence is definitely in the loop. He was hand-picked by Manafort. Personally, I want HIM webbed first, THEN Dump and Daughter-Wife, Con Jr, etc. That way, NP is in perfect place w/out any RepubliTHUG power plays in the way.
Does anyone else have the hope that Donnie just abandons ship and stays in Argentina?
Maybe he can just board his buddy’s plane and head off to ‘Russher’ together.
I wish he would!
Quid pro quo, Clarice. Quid pro quo.
—Hannibal Lecter
What exactly was the inducement for offering a free $50 million penthouse suite to Putin in a proposed TT Moscow?
How did Mueller trap Emperor Zero by having a 10-day stay on Manafort’s court appearance and dropping the bomb on Cohen?
When did Mueller know that Junior and Ivanka were cc’d on emails from Cohen regarding a proposed TT Moscow?
Why did the Germans raid Deutche Bank and how is the coordinating raid in Chicago linked to both the German raid and EZ’s life?
How might the linkage between Corsi, Stone, and Assange prove to be a coffin nail?
What does the Miami Herald story on Epstein have to do with EZ and Alan Dershowitz and government official Acosta and why is its timing so relevant?
Happy Friday!
The ducks are being lined up for the Dems to subpoena the sh!t out of everything come January. Mueller is making sure this is all public record to stop IQ45 and the Russian Republicans from covering it up.
I wonder what EZ will do when the indictments start coming for Uday and daughter/wife. She’ll find out the hard way that wearing tight tops and no bra won’t stop her from being dragged to jail where am sure she’ll have lots of ‘friends’.
I wonder what stunt he will pull in Argentina to take focus away from all this.
Also Mueller has perfect timing, he seems to do things like this when the orange one is about to leave the country and face the international community. Its as if he’s deliberately setting out to humiliate him in front of other world leaders. Honey, keep doing it.
Dig Uni
Notice how quiet “acting AG” Whitaker has been? It’s almost as if he doesn’t have authority over Mueller or Rod Rosenstein.
Hint:
He doesn’t
I’m purchasing popcorn futures!
Yeah haven’t seen his mug in the news recently. Plus have just read on HuffPo that Comey asked a federal judge yesterday to BLOCK a subpoena from the GOP members of the Judiciary house committee that would have forced him to testify at a closed door deposition. He had his lawyers fight it as he wants transparency – said he’s willing to testify but it has to be public so the people can see it.
What are they desperate to hide?!?!!?
There’s been speculation by the legal eagles in Twitter that when Whitaker took over he got a look at all the evidence and decided his hide was more precious than protecting the Orange Rump so he’s just hanging back. There’s also some speculation that Rosenstein is still very much in charge.
Thanks so much for mentioning that article in the “Miami Herald” about Acosta, Epstein, and Dershowitz. I tried to scream about that yesterday, but the comment wasn’t posted. That is such a huge story that needs to be read by every American. And it finally makes sense about why Alan Dershowitz is so insistent about Trump not being indicted.
@Cay I was hoping that CB would do a separate post on the Miami Herald story. It’s that heartbreaking, but also that important. Gruesome.
Yeah, that Miami Herald story is definitely worth reading. I certainly hope that the Deutche Bank (the money launderers’ bank of choice) raid uncovers some dirt on Justice Kennedy’s son.
Dershowitz passionate defense of Trump was always so puzzling to me, until I read the Miami Herald story. What a horrible bunch of men.
Do you think the FBI raid on Ed Burke is related to the Deutche Bank raids? (He apparently did Trump Chicago taxes for 12 years).
I sincerely hope so.
Kaiser, I love reading your take on this and look forward to the pages and pages you’ll be writing as each and every one of these criminals who tried to ruin the world go down!!
I’m trying to enjoy all this while trying not to hope for too much all at once. Just enjoy Trump’s desperation and panic as it all rolls out…
Kaiser, you are again on point with photos – Nagini looks like she’s wearing handcuffs! Please Santa make that happen.
Let’s not forget that Russian spy Maria Butina is also about to make a plea deal with federal prosecutors. Although she isn’t directly linked to the Russia probe, she has connections to John Bolton, Paul Erickson, Jeff Sessions, Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Scott Walker, and, of course, all of the NRA officials.
Yeah, she’s got a lot of tea to spill about them all. The NRA has long been suspected of being in Putin’s pocket, wonder how the fanatical gun toting rethugs react to what she has to spill about them.
Hasn’t she been accused of using sex as a way to get some of this tea – wonder what daughter/wife would say if Tom Riddle was one of those conquests.
Damn, you are on fire Digital U! I’m dying here, laughing my way through your comments. Really hoping you are right at the same time:)
It’s already been proven that Russia has been funneling $$$$$$ into the NRA, which then turns around “laundering it” into (mostly) RepubliTHUG campaigns. Mueller is just looping into one, nice, neat circle-of-life (jail sentences!).
So Putin summoned his minion Emperor Zero to have “an impromptu meeting” at theG-20 when EZ had claimed, and SENATOR GRAHAM praised, no meeting.
What the actual F#*%!
And “summoned” is the expression the Russians are using to describe this.
They said that Trump’s cancellation of the meeting was “unacceptable” so they would “summon” him.
well, it WAS time for his quarterly review.
“Perjury trap” makes it sound hilariously well conceived, when in reality, they’re idiots. He’s just always had the money and connections to get himself out of consequences. The FBI and CIA don’t mess around, though, particularly if they think treason is involved.
I hope this isn’t thread hi-jacking, but this is such an important article, so much dirt on so many key people in and around this administration, just depraved…
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article219494920.html
Wow on the Miami Herald article.
If anyone hasn’t read the Miami Herald article, I highly advise that you do. It is incredible what powerful men will do to protect other powerful men from consequences. There needs to be accountability, and the more attention drawn to this matter the better.
I want to jump in on the Deutsche Bank raid yesterday. This is possibly MUCH MORE significant than it looks on the surface.
Yes, it was raided because of it’s ties to Russian Mob Money and we know this because they were literally busted for exactly that in 2017 and agreed to pay 8 billion + in fines.
This raid yesterday snagged bankers who set up off-shore accounts so money couldn’t be traced. Investigators found that these off shore accounts were for various people from–NEW YORK.
Now, let’s circle back to this summer when Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy abruptly resigned. Who’s son is a top ranking executive at Deusche Bank, who was in fact THE person who was responsible for approving loans in the hundreds of millions to EZ and company? Hmmm, Justice Kennedy’s son? Why YES, yes, it was.
What we don’t know is WHY Justice Kennedy resigned so suddenly? Was he told to resign so they could put their patsy Kavenope in place? And if yes, why? To protect his son? To protect himself? Both?
So now, we have a possible connection to the corruption of the SUPREME COURT, too.
Also, a NYTimes reporter has a new book out called, “House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Trump and the Russian Mafia.” It’s by Craig Unger. He gave a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” segment. In it he said that he believes much of the Republican party is compromised by the Russians and it started in the 90s with I believe Tom DeLay in TX and went on from there. He said that MITCH MCCONNELL is in deep and has received tens of millions of dollars from the Russian’s and that is why he rolls over and blocks anything to do with oversight against them . . .
If this is true — HOLY MACARONI, Mueller and co is literally gonna have to burn the house down to disinfect from the filth that is ensconced there for so long. . .
Thank you for this, such an interesting collection of info. I never bought Justice Kennedy’s official reason. I want more out about the ties from Russia to his son, and what is clearly a broader system of compromising links between the GOP and dark money whether from Russia, Saudi, or elsewhere. I also keep thinking, the Russians hacked GOP emails but haven’t leaked them, so what are they using as leverage? One more thing, what happens to the policies and measures these criminals have been able to get away with, like placing Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court? If they get away with it all, then what’s the risk to anyone in the future to follow the same playbook…? Crazy times…
I’m guessing once all of this stuff comes out, Kavanope will be walking the straight and narrow. Sotomayer said in an interview when he first joined that he’s given a clean slate when he joined. What matters now is that he upholds the rule of law. That was one very big hint.
Chances are good ole Brett will not be siding with these treason weasels when the chips come down. I doubt he is a “yes” on the can’t indict POTUS thing. They all think it’s a sure thing because of the right majority but Rump already pissed off Roberts.
@Holly — oh interesting with the whole “clean slate” thing. I still have doubts that he’s not carrying water for his righty masters, though.
Also, would his seat be in jeopardy if the Dems decided to hold a true investigation into all those past activities? As well as, the more recent hinky things regarding money? A 250,000 gambling debt mysteriously taken care of, living in a house that based on his family income he literally shouldn’t be able to afford, a membership at a swank country club that should be out of reach for him considering the high membership fees–yet there he is: debt free, living in a mansion, golfing with the “elites” and now, sitting on the supreme court. . .that Mitch McConnell and Co shoved through the system? Something stinks here, and I wonder if this is connected to the whole corruption/Russian money thing as well.
My Christmas Wish is to see this entire family get what’s coming to them. Dannemora is lovely this time of year.
We wish you a Mueller Christmas!
We wish you a Mueller Christmas!
We wish you a Mueller Christmas!
And impeachment next year!
This is my new favorite Christmas Carol!!
Yes, yes – Mueller Christmas everyone!!!
This is AWESOME.
Why is Ivanka in Buenos Aires?! It ENRAGES me.
And she had a front-row seat, no less, at this morning’s press event. I would love to know how much she is charging to taxpayers, besides her salary.
I know I won’t get it, but a great Christmas present would be seeing the Great American Dictator (along with his kids Uday, Qusay, and Raghad Trump) indicted.
You’uns* have outdone yourselves with the informative and witty comments on this post. I need to re-read all of them just to process all of the information here.
* PA equivalent to “ya’ll,” pronounced “yuns.”
Liar-in-Chief