This also means that Cohen’s testimony and cooperation was not useful enough to the investigation to warrant a reduced sentence.
Which means, either he was telling them stuff they knew already, or he didn’t give that much up on Trump.
Individual-1 shits his pants.
As well as a dude who owns a building with his name on it that Cohen did X for… etc, etc.
It’s all public information.
Actual, Mueller’s sentencing memo (on lying to Congress) offers leniency, while SDNY does not. Seems like Cohen cooperated with the SCO but not with the Federal prosecutors at SDNY.
I suspect some of it was the cooperation end. And since he’s fucking stupid he probably didn’t say things he knew until they already knew them. I’m betting Flynn undercut the shit out of him. Being the 2nd guy to flip and give information isn’t worth nearly as much as being the first guy. You wanna get in early if you go state’s witness.
I can see this also. Cohen is banking on a pardon. He can’t get a pardon on state stuff, so he was more cooperative.
Federal though? Bare minimum, cause Trump is gonna pardon me anyway.
Donald Trump is going to start a war this weekend.
Bad week to be Iran.
Basically, SDNY alleges that Trump committed felony campaign finance violations (coordinating the payments to women) and possibly conspiracy to commit fraud (due to the fraudulent way Cohen was reimbursed, with phony invoices).
Important because it shows the Russians trying to make contact with team Trump in Nov. 2015. In December 2015 Flynn flies to Moscow and dines with Putin (it’s where the famous picture with Flynn, Putin and Jill Stein comes from):
Today feels like a turning point, but who knows with this guy.
some notes after reading both Cohen documents:
- The footnote in the NY document states that he did not fully cooperate with the NYAG office":
At the time that Cohen met twice with this Office, through his attorneys, he had expressed that he
was considering – but not committing to – full cooperation. Cohen subsequently determined not to fully
cooperate.
Cohen’s provision of information to the Office of the New York Attorney General (“NY AG”)
warrants little to no consideration as a mitigating factor. This Office’s understanding is that the information
Cohen provided was useful only to the extent that he corroborated information already known to the NY
AG. More importantly, Cohen provided information to the NY AG not as a cooperating witness who was
exposing himself to potential criminal or civil liability but instead as a witness who could have been
compelled to provide that testimony. Fulfilling that basic legal responsibility voluntarily does not warrant
a reduced sentence – particularly when one waits until he is charged with federal crimes before doing so.
- From the Special Counsel’s Office:
in or around November 2015, Cohen received the contact information for, and spoke
with, a Russian national who claimed to be a “trusted person” in the Russian Federation who could
offer the campaign “political synergy” and “synergy on a government level.” The defendant
recalled that this person repeatedly proposed a meeting between Individual 1 and the President of
Russia. The person told Cohen that such a meeting could have a “phenomenal” impact “not only
in political but in a business dimension as well,” referring to the Moscow Project, because there is
“no bigger warranty in any project than consent of [the President of Russia].” Cohen, however,
did not follow up on this invitation.3……The defendant explained that he did not pursue the proposed meeting, which did not take
place, in part because he was working on the Moscow Project with a different individual who
Cohen understood to have his own connections to the Russian government.
Interestingly enough, there is nothing further regarding work with that other individual (as yet).
Lol, Manafort lied about communicating with Trump
Man the evisceration of Cohen in this thing is fun to read.
Second, Cohen undertook similar acts of deception in his private life. He concealed
significant amounts of income from the IRS, and lied about his financial status in his dealings with
banks. These offenses warrant significant punishment. For at least half a decade, Cohen willfully
evaded paying taxes. Cohen, who himself studied tax in law school and displayed an awareness
of complicated tax laws in real estate transactions, took purposeful steps to avoid paying taxes on
millions of dollars in income over a five-year period. He made private loans at double-digit interest
rates and did not report the millions of dollars in income it generated. The fact that these loans
were cash generators was not lost on Cohen: At one point, he offered to sell the loans to other
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investors. Cohen also failed to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting income and
legal work, and underreported payments he received from his ownership of taxi medallions.
Cohen’s sentencing memorandum attempts to downplay the seriousness of this conduct,
labeling it “unsophisticated” because this case does not involve unreported cash transactions,
offshore accounts, phony deductions, or obstructive conduct. (Def. Mem. at 14.) But the nature
of Cohen’s criminal conduct is apparent from the manner in which he dealt with his own
accountant: Cohen provided incomplete information to his accountant, lied about the existence or
value of certain assets and income sources, and rebuffed questions that would have revealed
income he deliberately concealed. Moreover, Cohen’s crimes were not ones of necessity. To the
contrary, he relied on his unreported income to maintain his opulent lifestyle and purchase luxury
items. Indeed, in some years, the amount of money that Cohen spent on expenses – including
credit card bills, fine art purchases, and payments for private school – exceeded the gross amount
of income listed on Cohen’s tax returns.
The best people.
While Cohen has
submitted letters describing his good nature, the evidence collected and witnesses interviewed in
this investigation paint a decidedly different picture – a picture of someone who was threatening
and abusive when he wanted to get his way. For instance, in 2015, Cohen threatened a journalist
for investigating a negative story about Individual-1, telling him:
I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I
will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your
[employer] and everybody else that you possibly know. . . . So I’m warning you,
tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be
fucking disgusting. You understand me?14
On another call – which Cohen secretly recorded – with bankers from Bank-2 with whom Cohen
was seeking to renegotiate his medallion debt on terms more favorable to him, Cohen threatened:
I’m gonna teach [the bank and its government conservator] a lesson they’ve never
seen before in their life. Because I’m gonna hit everybody up with a lawsuit that’s
gonna spin everyone’s head. And I’m looking forward to that, by the way. And I’m
not saying it as a threat. It’s a fact.
Cohen himself said in an interview in 2011 that, “If you do something wrong, I’m going to come
at you, grab you by the neck and I’m not going to let you go until I’m finished.”15
These are just
a few of the many examples of Cohen’s abuse of both his standing as an attorney and his
relationship to a powerful individual – examples of the type of conduct that is repugnant from
anyone, let alone an attorney of the bar. They stand in marked contrast to the letters of support for14 The full recording is available at: Embedded Player : NPR.
15 See ABC News, Meet Michael Cohen (Apr. 16, 2011), available at:
Donald Trump's Political 'Pit Bull': Meet Michael Cohen - ABC News.
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Cohen.
So if trump had lost would Cohen have continued this behavior without repercussion?
Another thing Democrats are going to need to do - fix the IRS.