Bit of a departure from Petri’s usual stuff (which I always really like, but this is a step up in some respects). Worth a read. Just pasting the first few paragraphs.
Like many viewers (including my colleague Christine Emba), I was struck by Stormy Daniels’s remarks on “60 Minutes” that she wound up engaging in a sexual encounter with Donald Trump because “I had it coming for making a bad decision for going to someone’s room alone.” I think the best way of showing how screwed up this is is to rewrite her account a la “Cat Person.”
“Shark Person”
Stormy met Donald on a weekend night in the middle of July 2006. He was there to play golf, and she was riding around the golf course in a golf cart as part of a promotion. They wound up riding from one place to another in a golf cart together. She could tell that he thought she was cute.
“I want to come talk to you later,” he told her.
Stormy enjoyed talking to interesting people. Her job that weekend was to appear in the gift room, and it would have been boring otherwise, and though she did not think Donald was cute, she thought it might be interesting to talk to him. He was tall, on the heavy side, with no beard, and he leaned forward slightly as though he were walking into a high wind. He was older, wearing a golf hat so she did not have to consider what his hair was doing, which she liked. The hat was red, with an insignia on it, like the coat of arms of an imaginary country, and underneath it his face was ruddy and flushed from a day of squinting into the sun.
He asked for her number and, surprising herself, she gave it to him. They agreed to have dinner that evening.
[…]
I am absolutely terrible at predictions (see: 2016 me.) But I am pretty damn confident that by 2020 Michael Cohen and his own lawyer David Schwartz will no longer have law licenses.
Trump is exposed as a walking national security risk
The Stormy Daniels affair is a scandal not merely because it is a sex scandal. It is a blackmail, national security, campaign finance, and ethics scandal. The appearance of using the Trump Organization to pay Daniels for her silence is a scandal. The possibility of using campaign funds to pay her is a scandal. Mostly, it’s a national security risk that is the biggest scandal of all. Does China know about other sexual partners that Trump has paid for their silences? Does Russia? Do the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman? If so, how are they using that leverage?
The cluster of scandals around Daniels is pretty much indefensible, and if it does not remove Donald Trump from the presidency, it is because his defenders have sacrificed their souls on the altar of winning.
People are painting this as no worse than President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. But Clinton was impeached for his affair, and he did not try to pay Lewinsky for her silence. He certainly did not use campaign funds or a family business of his that he promised to divest from and relinquish control over while running for president and while in the Oval Office.
Judge S. James Otero of the US District Court for the Central District of California denied the motion for an expedited trial and discovery process, saying Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, was “premature” in making the motion because Trump and Essential Consultants LLC, the company established by Cohen to pay Daniels the $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged affair between her and Trump, have not yet filed a petition to compel arbitration, which they have stated they’re going to do.
Yes, it was just procedural thing. Some Trump lawyer (maybe Cohen) will have to ask for the case to go to arbitration then, Avenatti can ask for discovery. Avenatti has been trolling Trump’s lawyers trying to get them to take legal action. Normally, I’d say Trump’s lawyers are to smart to take the bait. But I think far more likely is they are too stupid to actually know how to proceed.
I imagine her lawyer just let them know that if they try anything he will ask for Trump to be deposed and that has got to be the last thing Trump wants.
While talking to the press today, Trump denied that he knew Cohen paid off Daniels - which is important because if the payment wasn’t made at Trump’s behest, it’s probably an illegal campaign contribution.
He didn’t know that his lawyer paid off a porn star accusing him of having sex with her. He doesn’t know where his lawyer got the money to bribe her. He runs the country.
He just blew away the NDA. Which means any lawsuit is done in open court. Which means disposition.
And, as Daniel’s lawyer has posited, trump has thrown Cohen under the bus. Not only does Cohen face being disbarred, he might now draw interest from Mueller (where’d the $130k come from?), so the question is, how loyal is Cohen going to remain? Flip Cohen and good ol trumpster dumpster is in a world of fucking hurt.
Can he assure Cohen that he’ll pardon him if it comes to that eventually? He can’t prevent him from being disbarred though. Can he assure him of a nice job in Russia after he gets disbarred?
Cohen would just assume not be a lawyer and be a stooge for the trump organization. He’s actually a terrible, terrible lawyer. All bluster and threats, but in reality nothing of substance.
Yep, Cohen being Trump’s lawyer is actually secondary to his gig working for the Trump Organization (where he’s more than a stooge and more of a business partner - as I noted before, Cohen is rich in his own right, with money he got from before working for Trump.)
In fact, I suspect the only reason Cohen is Trump’s lawyer is so Trump can claim his business discussions with Cohen is covered by attorney-client privilege.
