This is a daily or weekly record of the Trump presidency so hopefully future generations will learn what happens when you elect an narcissistic, thin skinned, racist, xenophobic, misogynistic unqualified buffoon in a position of power where he has access to nuclear codes.
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Thursday, April 19, 2018
April 16th, 2017 continued some more. It's been 524 days since the Nov 8, 2016, election of some rich asshole, no. 45, and 451 days since the Jan 20th inauguration of some rich asshole.
some rich asshole is having quite a day today and it just got worse after a federal judge dealt a blow to Michael Cohen, the former reality show star’s embattled personal lawyer, in a court decision on Monday afternoon. Cohen is probably the least likely choice for an alleged billionaire to retain, but the rich asshole, who claims to surround himself with the best people, chose a man who got a degree from the worst law school in the country.
U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood rejected efforts by the rich asshole and his longtime attorney to block prosecutors from reviewing documents seized from Cohen’s home, hotel, and office in the FBI raids last week. Cohen’s legal team requested a temporary restraining order so that they could review the files and then turn over to prosecutors in a request that the government called unprecedented.
Cohen did get somewhat of a victory, but it pales in comparison to his request being rejected. Judge Wood did say she may appoint someone as an impartial “special master” to mediate any review of the documents that were seized from Cohen and share it with his legal team.
Wood voiced confidence in federal prosecutors and said she wants to get “this moving.”
“I have faith in the Southern District U.S. attorney’s office that their integrity is unimpeachable,” Wood said, according to Bloomberg, and she added that her interest is in “getting this moving” speedily and efficiently. That, too, doesn’t sound good for Cohen.
NEW: Federal judge rejects request from Pres. Trump and his personal lawyer Michael Cohen for temporary restraining order that would have kept federal prosecutors' so-called "taint team" from reading files seized last week. https://abcn.ws/2JRPKpB
Federal prosecutors have argued for a standard review of the seized material by what is referred to as a “taint team” of independent lawyers, which is meant to sift through documents to determine what may be privileged and cannot be given to criminal investigators. Once the taint team is finished, the remaining documents are passed on to the attorneys who are working on the case.
Wood voiced confidence in the U.S. attorney’s office handling the case but she did note that there might be a role for a special master to ensure the “perception of fairness.”
“I have faith in the Southern District U.S. Attorney’s Office,” she said. “Their integrity is unimpeachable.”
Cohen’s attorney’s had objected to the use of a taint team to review the materials. In another blow to Cohen today, his lawyers were forced to reveal in court who his third mystery client is. Gasps were heard in the courtroom as Sean Hannity was revealed to be Cohen’s client.
Cohen knows where the bodies are buried and it’s only a matter of time before he flips on the rich asshole. It’s quite fitting that Cohen, who represents the rich asshole, has a female judge presiding over the case.
After reading excerpts from Comey’s new book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership,” and watching his first interview since being fired, with ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday night, former aides on the Clinton campaign are collectively gnashing their teeth.
“Of course they’re upset,” said Patti Solis Doyle, who served as Clinton’s campaign manager during her 2008 presidential bid. “How could you not be if you worked on that campaign?”
“I think he displayed unreliably poor judgment in the Clinton investigation by bucking [Department of Justice] procedures and having a press conference when there were no charges brought, and I think he has displayed incredibly poor judgment in the timing of this book before the end of the [Robert] Mueller investigation,” she added.
While much of the coverage generated by Comey’s book has centered on his feud with the rich asshole, Clinton allies are focused on his disclosures about the 2016 election.
They are particularly incensed by Comey’s acknowledgment that, when deciding how to handle the investigation into Clinton’s email server, he took into account polls showing she would win the White House.
“Nobody is satisfied with anything he’s been saying,” said one longtime Clinton adviser. “We thought that Comey was always a factor in her loss, but now nobody can deny that perceptions were changed because of it.”
“I’ve made peace with it, but it’s still a punch in the gut,” the adviser said.
Clinton and her allies have argued that Comey helped swing the election to the rich asshole when he announced in late October 2016 that he was reopening the FBI’s email investigation. He made that decision after new emails were uncovered on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, the husband of longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
John Podesta, who served as the campaign’s chairman, said on Twitter that Comey’s letter to lawmakers in 2016 that informed them that the FBI was reopening the investigation was “one of the worst errors of judgment in post-Hoover FBI history,” referring to former Director J. Edgar Hoover.
Over the weekend, Jennifer Palmieri, who served as Clinton’s communications director, told CNN that Comey worked “very clearly outside of the bounds of how the FBI is supposed to operate.”
And on Monday morning, hours after the ABC interview aired, former Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill took to Twitter and ripped Comey for the July 2016 press conference where the FBI chief scolded Clinton for her “extremely careless” use of a private server.
Merrill questioned Comey’s use of the word maybe — 37 times — during the ABC interview. “For a lawyer and law enforcement professional at the highest levels, it’s a curious tactic, but useful when talking to press, allowing him to avoid having to be too definitive about anything,” Merrill wrote in a thread of tweets about Comey.
“So here we are,” Merrill wrote. “With more questions than we started and fewer answers. Just 37 maybes and reopened wounds and every sign that hubris won the day and put the most self-involved, destructive leader the U.S. has ever known into the Oval Office.”
“At the end of the day Hillary Clinton used her own email address. No laws were broken, no one was hurt, our national security wasn’t threatened. It was a dumb mistake and a far dumber scandal, as she herself has said many times,” he wrote.
Yet Comey’s book did bring one damaging disclosure for the Clinton camp: It reveals that advisers to Clinton were wrong when they insisted in the summer of 2015 that the FBI had not opened a criminal investigation into Clinton’s email server, as was reported by The New York Times.
Clinton aides forced the Times to make corrections to their story, but the original report “was much closer to the mark,” Comey wrote.
“By the time of the news story, we had a full criminal investigation open, focused on the secretary’s conduct,” Comey wrote.
Palmieri told the Times she was unaware of the criminal investigation when she and other aides wrote a lengthy statement denying the Times story.
Clinton allies have focused on other lines in the book where Comey accounts for his handling of the email probe — and in particular, his acknowledgment that politics played a role in his decision to announce that the investigation was being reopened.
“It is entirely possible that, because I was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president, my concern about making her an illegitimate president by concealing the restarted investigation bore greater weight than it would have if the election appeared closer or if some rich asshole were ahead in all polls,” Comey wrote.
During his interview on ABC, Comey also said he “should’ve worked harder to find a way to convey” at the July press conference that Clinton’s use of a personal email server is “more than just the ordinary mistake, but it’s not criminal behavior.”
“One has to wonder if the strong rhetoric he uses about President the rich asshole is fueled in part by a sense that he may have been responsible for helping elect him,” one longtime Clinton adviser surmised.
Still, some Clinton allies don’t blame her loss on Comey.
Tracy Sefl, who served as a surrogate for Clinton’s 2016 bid, said that while she can “recognize and rue the role of Comey’s actions” in the outcome, it wasn’t the only factor that made the rich asshole president.
“I have long believed most voters had made their decisions before then,” Sefl said. “The ultimate Electoral College loss cannot be attributed to swaths of voters in, say, Wisconsin, who’d been riveted to that saga’s every cable news and Twitter twist and turn.”
Solis Doyle acknowledged that no one will ever know if Comey’s decision to reopen the inquiry into Clinton’s emails was the decisive factor in her defeat.
“But if it convinced one person to stay home, it had an effect on the election,” she said.
Added the longtime Clinton adviser: “Sometimes the history of the world turns on the choices of one person.”
President some rich asshole and his longtime attorney Michael Cohen both lost a court challenge related to the FBI’s seizure of Cohen’s documents they both claim are protected by attorney-client privilege.
Cohen had asked a federal judge for a temporary restraining order to stop federal prosecutors in Manhattan from viewing the information seized by the FBI until an independent third party, called a “special master,” be allowed to sort out what is protected by attorney-client privilege.
Similarly, the rich asshole’s own legal representation in this case, Joanna Hendon, filed a letter on Sunday night asking the judge to give Cohen’s team first-access to the material.
U.S. District Court Judge Kimba Wood denied the requests and ruled that prosecutors will get first access to the information, followed by Cohen’s defense team ten days later. Wood noted that she has not yet decided whether she will appoint a special master in the case at all.
“It’s not that you’re not good people,” Wood told Cohen’s attorneys on Monday afternoon, near the end of the two-hour proceeding. “It’s that you’ve miscited the law.”
Wood told both sides to review the documents quickly and to prepare “proposals for how we can move fast” on the case going forward.
The materials seized by FBI agents from Cohen’s home, office, safety deposit box, and hotel room includes “documents relating to communications with the president of the United States covered by the attorney-client privilege,” Cohen’s lawyer, Todd Harrison, said in Monday’s letter to Wood.
Prosecutors have said that they went to extreme lengths to avoid violating Cohen’s (and the president’s) attorney-client privilege: they plan to have a “taint team” of uninvolved prosecutors sort the materials before turning the information over to investigators.
“I have faith in the Southern District U.S. Attorney’s office that their integrity is unimpeachable,” Judge Wood said. “I think that a taint team is a viable option.”
Prosecutors reportedly sought information about Cohen’s role in facilitating hush-money payments to the rich asshole’s alleged mistress, porn star Stormy Daniels, and his potential role in facilitating a payout to ex-Playmate Karen McDougal in the run-up to the 2016 election. Both women claim they had affairs with the rich asshole and have sued to be released from their NDAs. The raids were “the result of a months-long investigation into Cohen” and his “own business dealings,” prosecutors said in a Friday filing.
Daniels arrived in court on Monday wearing a lavender skirt-suit and black heels as she flew by a chorus of camera shutters. Her media-savvy attorney, Michael Avenatti, told The Washington Post last week that he and his clientwould be at the hearing to make sure that “the integrity of the documents, whatever was seized, is maintained.”
Daniels sat silently in the right-hand corner of the room while reporters passed their business cards to Avenatti.
Over the past week, the legal battle between politicians, porn stars and Playboy models has become increasingly complicated—and mired in legalese.
“If the government can obtain a search warrant for particular items but then seize and review everything in an attorney’s office, the protections of the Fourth Amendment are meaningless,” Harrison, Cohen’s lawyer, wrote in Monday’s letter. “We respectfully submit that the circumstances do not get more special than the unique circumstances presented by this case.”
“The balance of the equities should be with the American citizen whose stuff was taken,” Harrison said in court.
“There’s no question that you're going to get a set of material,” Judge Wood told Harrison, “but you’re not going to take away what the government has.”
On Friday, Judge Wood asked Cohen’s attorneys how they could argue that “thousands” of seized documents could be privileged while they refused to provide a list of Cohen’s clients to the court.
Those clients, it has now been revealed, include the rich asshole, Republican fundraiser Elliot Broidy, and Fox News host Sean Hannity, who had asked not to be named. Cohen’s team claimed in the Monday filing that Hannity’s identity was protected under attorney-client privilege, but the U.S. Attorney’s office disagreed, alleging that Cohen’s team was simply employing a delaying tactic.
“Cohen has more attorneys than he has clients,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas McKay quipped.
Cohen attorney Steve Ryan argued that the third client—Hannity—is a “publicly prominent individual,” who did not want his name released.
“I’m simply trying to protect the privacy of that individual,” he added.
After much discussion, Wood ruled that the name must be publicly disclosed immediately.
“The client’s name is Sean Hannity,” replied Todd Harrison, Cohen’s attorney. The room erupted in laughter.
Separately, Hannity said he never “retained” Cohen as representation in any legal matters involving third parties but has “sought legal advice from Michael” about “real estate” in the past.
McKay emphasized on Monday that “there’s nothing improper about the way the search warrants were executed in this case.”
Officials took up to 10 “physical boxes” of documents, McKay said, noting that the “real volume” is made up of the seized electronic files.
“Cohen’s signature line in his email box used to say special counsel to the the rich asshole Organization,” said McKay. “Now it says personal attorney to the president.”
For his part, Cohen has given few public statements about the ordeal, with the exception of this comment last week: “I just want my stuff back.”
“Candidly, this man’s life has been turned upside down in the last week,” Cohen’s attorney said on Monday, adding a Trumpian flourish: “I believe the Russia case with respect to my client is a complete dry hole.”
Michael Cohen’s attorneys, and therefore Michael Cohen, had a pretty bad day in court. But their lack of a win in Judge Kimba Wood‘s chambers on Monday afternoon doesn’t begin to compare to the humiliation suffered by President some rich asshole‘s personal attorney and, by extension, some rich asshole himself.
Here are their (combined) top ten fails.
1. What’s in a name if you work for Fox News?
First there was the issue of Michael Cohen’s super top secret client. After a series of specious and non-legal arguments, followed by a series of ignominious defeats on each argument, Cohen’s attorneys were forced to publicly reveal the name of their client’s client. It was none other than that paragon of non-Boy Meets World Seans: Sean Hannity. (Note: at this point, almost everyone in the court room laughed.) For a full rundown of how this own goal occurred, see Law&Crime‘s coverage here.
2. Does your client even have time for this?
the rich asshole’s lawyer Joanna Hendon can easily be explained. The way she states, re-states, belabors her point and eventually squanders all argumentative capital is stunningly Trumpian. The president must have seen his own press conferences glistening in his latest attorney’s eyes. Through the course of all this unnecessary verbiage, Hendon finally managed to clarify her client’s request. She said,
We are seeking a Temporary Restraining Order and a Preliminary Injunction prohibiting the government from reviewing the documents until: my client, President the rich asshole, and Mr. Cohen have copies of the documents in their possession; until Mr. Cohen provides President the rich asshole with a list of relevant information and privileged documents; and until President the rich asshole can personally review them.
To which Woods replied, “How long could your client devote to this task?” When pressed on this, Hendon hemmed and hawed on continuous playback mode. On at least three separate occasions, Judge Wood asked whether or not President the rich asshole could plausibly sit down with his attorneys and preview every the rich asshole-related document in the way they had requested–and if so, how long that might take. Hendon was entirely non-committal and couldn’t offer any specificity.
To be sure, Hendon’s answers were very careful and precise–typical lawyer speak. But Judge Wood seemed to be pushing for anything that would have been helpful in making a decision. Instead, Hendon basically said that as long as the court does everything exactly the way we want to do it, some rich asshole will behave and respond in the time and manner the court requests.
When that didn’t work, Hendon waxed philosophical about the attorney-client privilege and a potential miscarriage of justice. Judge Wood was patient. She reiterated the time question. Again, Hendon refused to commit, leading to some protracted sighing in the court room. Ultimately, Hendon’s mixture of pro forma replies and defendants’ rights rhetoric was unhelpful to her client’s cause and Wood was unmoved.
3. They basically (totally) lost.
Judge Wood clearly attempted to issue a ruling that would satisfy everyone and no one all at once, but Team Cohen and Team the rich asshole were obviously left the least satisfied by today’s decision.
Let’s be clear: Lawyers for the rich asshole and Cohen argued that the government should take no further part in the initial sorting through the FBI-obtained Cohen documents. Judge Wood completely dismissed this. She noted, “The government must be the entity to log all the documents into the system. The court can’t carve out an exception specific to the president on the issue of attorney-client privilege.”
While no substantive review is being yet allowed, Team Cohen will have to work with–and rely upon–the prosecution as the number of documents and potential privilege issues are worked through. Effectively, this means government agents do get their hands on the documents “first”–but will have to provide them to Cohen’s attorneys on a rolling basis and essentially work in tandem with Cohen’s team to determine the final form of privilege review–which is shaping up to be some combination of “taint team” and special master.
4. Only the best people.
After the prosecution argued that Cohen and the rich asshole would likely assert over-broad privilege claims if given first crack at the documents, Cohen attorney Todd Harrison responded by saying, “We’re not bad people.” Judge Wood replied:
It’s not that you’re not good people, it’s that you’ve mis-cited the law on occasion.
Ouch.
5. An extremely silly citation.
Cohen’s attorneys quickly abandoned the strategy of citing legal precedent. It was a hard slog because the only case brought up Monday by Cohen, et, al. was effortlessly used against them by the prosecution. (Again, see Law&Crime‘s earlier Hannity piece for more on this.) Instead, Cohen’s team went heavy on the public policy arguments–a good idea. Until Cohen lawyer Harrison went off on a tangent about how the “stakes are too high” in this situation for the court to rule in the government’s favor. He said, citing a “poll” no one in the world aside from Harrison appears to be aware of:
Fifty percent of the country thinks it’s a great idea. Fifty percent of the country thinks it’s unfair.
This prompted another pithy response from Wood. She said, “I think you’re overstating your problem.”
6. Death by 1,000 corrections.
At one point, while proposing a potential “prioritization” method to determine the privilege (or lack thereof) of the various documents, Cohen attorney Steve Ryan noted that this particular set of circumstances has never happened in the history of the United States. His voice rising, he angrily denounced the prosecution’s position, saying, “The documents are going to be reviewed by the government–whether taint team or trial team.” Woods interjected to correct Ryan. She said, “A trial team would never do the [privilege] determination.”
7. Death by 1,001 corrections.
Cohen attorney Todd Harrison said:
America is looking to the court to act as a separate and co-equal branch. There is a fight here between the executive and the legislative branch.
To which the prosecution’s Thomas McKay replied:
This isn’t a fight between branches of government.
8. Death by 1,003 corrections.
On at least two occasions, Cohen’s attorneys brought up the public policy argument that political discourse related to the the rich asshole and Cohen cases had simply become too “toxic” for the government to be relied upon for the initial privilege determination. A bit of a non sequitur but such is the way American lawyers are trained.
On each occasion, prosecutors gently reminded Judge Wood that while whining about “toxic partisan politics,” Cohen’s team immediately went to the press to slam the government and “argue for the appointment of a special master.”
9. Underlying arguments denied.
Lawyers for the rich asshole and Cohen repeatedly stopped just short of making their actual argument: that the government simply cannot be trusted to review the Cohen documents before the rich asshole and/or Cohen. Judge Wood ultimately declared, “I have faith in the honor and the integrity of the Southern District of New York’s attorney’s office. A taint team is a viable option. Due to the perception of fairness–not actual fairness, but the perception of fairness–a special master might have a role here.”
10. Some unanswered emphasis.
After a bit of back-and-forth between the prosecution and Cohen’s attorneys, an exasperated McKay said, “Michael Cohen might have a legal degree, but this investigation has to do with his personal and financial relationships.”
You know that mystery client that former the rich asshole attorney Michael Cohen fought tooth and nail to keep secret? Well, that person’s identity has just been revealed.
Cohen says that he had only one client between 2007 and 2017 and that from 2017 to 2018 he had ten clients, only three of whom were legal clients — some rich asshole, Elliot Brody (a GOP fundraiser for whom Cohen paid off a Playboy playmate ), and a third mystery client Cohen refused to name (despite a judge’s order that he do so).
Cohen says that he refused to name the client because he “directed Cohen not to reveal the identity publicly.” Comey’s lawyer handed the judge the name of the third client in a sealed envelope, but the judge ordered Cohen to disclose the name.
“I understand he doesn’t want his name out there, but that isn’t the law,” Judge Wood said. We’ll just let Yahoo News correspondent Hunter Walker tell you who it is:
There were audible gasps and one shout of “holy shit” when Hannity’s name was revealed on the courtroom. I ran outside. I’ve emailed Hannity and he has yet to respond.
Yed, “Hannity” means “Sean Hannity” — as in the guy who has been advocating for Cohen and the the rich asshole attorney’s other client on his show every single fucking day. He’s also been sending out tweets like this one:
It looks pretty bad that someone from a “news” network claiming to be the most trusted spends so much time defending his personal lawyer who is under criminal investigation for actions he took to protect another client.
“We have been friends a long time. I have sought legal advice from Michael,” Hannity told Rebecca Ballhaus of the Wall Street Journal. He has not disclosed this information to his loyal audience on Fox News, however.
This whole “Cohen” thing keeps getting more and more interesting. Could we next see Hannity under investigation?
Noting that President some rich asshole seemed “very upset” last week when responding to news that Cohen had been raided by the FBI, Cooper asked White House spokesperson Hogan Gidley if the president views the raid as “more of a threat” than special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
“Look, I haven’t spoken to him directly about the raid,” Gidley responded, noting that the rich asshole is concerned about “the direction that the Mueller investigation has turned” before referring Cooper to Cohen for further questions.
The host went on to note that when White House press secretary Sarah Sanders was asked if Cohen is still representing the president, she “wasn’t really clear.”
“She answered it today, actually, on Air Force One,” Gidley said. “She said what we all know which is absolutely, the president still has a relationship with him. I don’t know the exact relationship.”
“The president has many attorneys,” the spokesman said.
After Cooper pressed him, Gidley responded simply, “I can’t tell you.”
As Vanity Fair‘s Tina Nguyen reported, “anger and stupefaction were the primary emotions on the far right Monday as the media raced to keep apace with a cascade of twists and turns in the Stormy-gate circus.”
“So it has gone from Russia collusion, to a St. Petersburg troll farm, to Stormy Daniels,to Michael Cohen, and now, Sean Hannity?” a post written by Jim Hoft, the founder of the far-right Gateway Pundit blog, read. “Where does it stop and what the hell does this have to do with the Russia collusion?”
When Nguyen reached out to Pizzagate pundit Mike Cernovich, the former white supremacy personality sarcastically responded “Oh my god, Sean Hannity didn’t declare or disclose that he was a client.”
“Nobody who likes Sean Hannity is going to care about that,” Cernovich told the writer.
Columinist Kurt Schlicter, who writes for the conservative Townhall blog, told Vanity Fair that although there may be “stuff that might be embarrassing” about the lawyer’s clients from the files the FBI seized from Cohen during last week’s raid, he doesn’t think there’s anything that’s likely to be “incriminating.”
“If these guys are this crime family why do you think they’d keep something incriminating around?” the Townhall columnist mused. “That’s just silly.”
Sean Hannity was revealed on Monday to be the mystery third client of Michael Cohen, some rich asshole’s longtime “fixer” and personal attorney. But Hannity did not disclose this important detail as he repeatedly criticized last week’s FBI raid on Cohen’s offices.
Hannity’s publicist told Fox News on Monday that Cohen and Hannity have been friends for a long time, that Cohen “did some legal work along the way” for Hannity, and that Hannity had “never denied that he was his lawyer.”
On Fox, Shep Smith addresses Hannity: "We just spoke with his publicist here at Fox News who says that he says they've been friends for a long time, he never denied that he he was his lawyer, that he did some legal work along the way, and that's the extent of that."
But until a federal judge forced Cohen to reveal that Hannity was his client on Monday, Hannity did not disclose this information, even as he denounced the “fishing expedition” and “war on the president.”
On his radio show on Monday, Hannity claimed alternately that he never paid legal fees to Cohen and that he “might have handed him ten bucks” for legal advice, to protect attorney-client privilege, but insisted repeatedly that Cohen never represented him in any matter involving a “third party.”
On his Fox News show last week, Hannity linked the FBI raid on Cohen’s office, home, and hotel room to the need for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
“Professor Dershowitz, you have said that the raid on Michael Cohen’s hotel room, his home and his office was a violation of his constitutional rights,” Hannity began during an interview segment with Alan Dershowitz and Joe DiGenova last Wednesday. “Do you agree with Joe that it’s the attorney general’s job to now step in and fire Rod Rosenstein?”
After discussing whether the raid was a violation of Cohen and the rich asshole’s civil rights, Hannity and Dershowitz made light of what they believed to be an insufficient link between the purpose of the raid and the focus of the Russia investigation.
Then Hannity turned back to DiGenova, who was once in the running to be a replacement attorney on the rich asshole’s legal team himself, and asked DiGenova to “weigh on the taint aspect of this and more importantly, the person that has attorney-client privilege that that would be the president’s right to invoke, not Michael Cohen’s.”
Hannity then played a video clip of Newt Gingrich comparing the raid to raids conducted by the Gestapo in Nazi Germany, teasing the clip with, “Wait until you hear who Newt is actually comparing them to.”
On his radio show last Monday, when news of the Cohen raid broke. Hannity attacked the Mueller probe as a “fishing expedition” and downplayed the $130,000 payment Cohen made to Stormy Daniels.
“I do remember Michael saying it publicly and saying to me at the time that in fact he never told the president about this, that it was something that he had pretty wide discretion on his own to handle matters without bringing it to his attention,” Hannity said. “And it might seem unusual to most people but if you’re a billionaire I guess it’s not.”
After another guest compared Mueller’s focus to “mission creep,” Hannity said he agreed with “the idea of mission creep but more importantly this opens up an area where it seems that there’s no limit at all into the fishing expedition that Mueller is now engaged in and if he has access to everything that his personal attorney has I can only imagine where that’s going to lead.”
One week later, Cohen would disclose in court that Hannity was the mystery “third client.”
Even before the raid, Hannity defended Cohen and acted chummy with him without mentioning any sort of legal advice he received from the the rich asshole attorney.
In 2017, Cohen himself appeared on Hannity’s show, to talk about liberals and celebrities, where Cohen said things like this:
But the level of disrespect towards the president, it knows no boundaries. And their attacks upon the president and the entire administration is so bad for this country, it’s not just bad for us nationally but internationally as well. It makes us look weak and it makes us look disorganized and chaotic, and it’s wrong.
Hannity later dismissed the idea that he used incendiary language on his show about President Obama, and Cohen agreed that Hannity would be kicked off his show if he had, and possibly be deported. Hannity replied, “I would hire you as my lawyer. You’d keep me in.” Cohen said, “I would try,” before returning to his defense of the rich asshole.
The segment concluded with another exchange about celebrities criticizing the president:
COHEN: Who cares what these celebrities, what these movie stars or comedians have to say? Again, it’s freedom of speech, let them say whatever they want. The big problem is that the media, again, and I’m talking about this liberal mainstream media, they are applauding the disrespect and that they just keep playing it over and over. So what do you think is going to happen? The next celebrity wants to become relevant. So what does he do? He jumps onto the bandwagon of stupidity.
HANNITY: They ratchet it up. They ratchet it up higher and higher.
COHEN: It’s just a bandwagon of stupidity.
That was the most recent thing Cohen said on Hannity’s show.
Back in January of last year, Hannity and Rudy Giuliani were talking about President Obama and the “fake news” attacks by the mainstream media that conservatives face. Their point was that famous conservatives had fame and money and could fight back, but Hannity didn’t want to forget the little guy. His example: Michael Cohen.
GIULIANI:But there are a lot of people that you hurt with this fake news that don’t. And if he doesn’t fight back.
HANNITY: People like Michael Cohen.
GIULIANI: Yes. People who — Michael Cohen…
HANNITY: His family.
GIULIANI: There’s not more than one Michael Cohen in the world?
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Yes, I know!
(CROSSTALK)
GIULIANI: … the guy’s in America. He hasn’t been to Prague.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: You want to know something funny? So I wrote Michael, Michael, were you in Prague? He goes, No. Remember the videos I sent you of my son?
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: He was trying out for one of the professional baseball teams.
GIULIANI: This was so easy…
HANNITY: To verify.
GIULIANI: … to verify. It was such damaging information that you had an obligation to try to verify it before — no matter who it is, whether was Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or some rich asshole.
HANNITY: But I tweeted — I tweeted Ben Smith that night! I said, Ben, I called Michael Cohen. Took two seconds. Or I texted him, whatever I did. I got a confirmation. I’ve never been in Prague.
Neither Hannity nor Fox News has explained why it was acceptable for Hannity to cover Cohen without disclosing their purported attorney-client relationship.
President some rich asshole's longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen (Screen capture)
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Fresh off her decision to compel the attorney representing the president’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen to reveal Fox News host Sean Hannity as his mysterious third client, U.S. District Court Judge Kimba Wood on Monday afternoon rejected a motion by the lawyer that attempted to block the FBI from reviewing the files they seized from Cohen last week.
The New York Times on Monday reported that although Wood blocked Cohen’s attempt to halt prosecutors from seeing the files they took from him when he was raided, she did appear prepared to grant him a “special master,” or court-appointed outside attorney, to oversee the FBI investigation into him.
A Republican House lawmaker says the memos former FBI Director James Comey wrote last year documenting his interactions with President the rich asshole may ultimately help the president's defense against charges that his campaign colluded with Russia.
"The one member of Congress that I know who has seen them — without sharing the contents — has told me that they would be Exhibit A in some rich asshole’s defense to any charges against collusion with the Russians," Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) told Fox News on Monday.
His remarks come after House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes(R-Calif.) asked the Department of Justice on Friday to provide copies of the memos in unredacted form.
In a letter addressed to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the three Republican House chairmen argued that they have a legal basis to review them as part of their congressional power to conduct oversight.
Last year, Comey revealed during an appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee that he had authorized a friend of his, a law professor at Columbia University, to leak the contents of at least one memo to the press in an effort to "prompt the appointment of a special counsel."
While it is unclear how much Comey shared with his friend, Daniel Richman, the lawmakers appear interested in viewing more than one memo.
Ratcliffe, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, argued that if Richman and reporters can view such content, House lawmakers should be able to as well.
"Up to this point, the Department of Justice has said that law professors and reporters can see those, but members of Congress including the Chairmen of the [House] Intelligence Committee and Judiciary Committee with security clearances have not been able to see them," Ratcliffe told Fox.
"So I think that is an outrageously untenable position. We’ve demand that we see them and I think that we will get to see them," he continued.
During his congressional testimony, Comey said he wrote the memos because he felt the president inappropriately asked him to pledge his loyalty to him while he was spearheading the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
He also said the rich asshole asked him to drop his investigation into former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was fired after reports revealed that he had lied to investigators about his contacts with a Russian diplomat.
Comey has also maintained that he did not disclose classified information in the contents he gave to Richman, describing the records he shared as personal recollections of his interactions with the president. Some critics, however, have disputed this claim.
Comey has recently began stepping back into the spotlight since his firing last May, ahead of his new book set to be released on Tuesday.
According to excerpts of the book released last week, Comey takes personal shots at the president, commenting on the rich asshole's physical appearance and the strength of his moral fiber — remarks that have been met with criticism by those who say he is politicizing the FBI and unfairly attacking the president.
the rich asshole has, in response, also repeatedly taken to Twitter to blast the ousted FBI chief as an “untruthful slimeball” and “leaker,” celebrating that he was the one to fire Comey from the FBI.
“It truly is an extraordinary day and it was an extraordinary moment in that courthouse when it was blurted out that Sean Hannity was the third client,” NBC News’ Tom Winter told MSNBC host Katy Tur, not that Cohen representing the Fox News personality in 2017 and possibly 2018 as well.
CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz recounted the audience’s reaction when Cohen’s attorney Stephen Ryan “stood up in the courtroom and basically said ‘Sean Hannity.'”
“As you can imagine, there was really shock in the courtroom,” the CNN correspondent said. “Several people ran out, including myself, to report the news.”
Watch the reporters discuss the courtroom atmosphere at the time of the Hannity-Cohen revelation below.
The news broke during Shephard Smith’s program. Smith is more critical of President the rich asshole than perhaps any other Fox News personality, and as a result recently come under attack from Hannity, who is a stanch the rich asshole loyalist.
While Shep is a friend with political views I do not share, and great at breaking news, he is clueless about what we do every day. Hannity breaks news daily-Warrant on a Trump assoc, the unmasking scandal, leaking intel, Fisa abuse, HRC lawbreaking, dossier and more REAL NEWS! 9p https://twitter.com/thehill/status/974670902368571393 …
Since Hannity is arguably Fox News’ best-known staffer, the story is an awkward one for the rich asshole’s favorite cable network to handle. That awkwardness was apparent in Fox News’ initial report about Monday’s big reveal.
“One of Cohen’s attorneys was asked by the judge to specifically name the other name because they said it wouldn’t fall under attorney-client privilege to withhold that name, and he stood up, and named him as Sean Hannity,” reporter Laura Ingle told Smith.
She then immediately changed the topic.
“So moving on the rest of what is happening today…”
Watch for yourself:
A short minutes later, Smith circled back to the topic.
“Of course, for sure the elephant in the room is that Sean Hannity is said to have been a third client of Michael Cohen,” Smith said. “There’s a statement at the Hollywood Reporter that says, you know, ‘we’ve been friends a long time, he did some legal work for me.’ Hannity’s producers are working to contact him, since it’s now part of the story, we’ll report on it when we know the rest of it. A lot of people here know his number.”
Hannity addressed the news a short time later on his radio show, suggesting that whatever legal work Cohen did for him didn’t amount to much.
“I’ve known Michael a long, long time,” Hannity said. “Let me be very clear to the media: Michael never represented me in any matter. I never retained him in any sense. I never received an invoice from Michael. I never paid legal fees to Michael. I’ve had occasional conversations with him on which I wanted his legal perspective. I assume those had attorney-client privilege. Not one issue ever involved a matter between me and any third party.”
Michael Cohen has never represented me in any matter. I never retained him, received an invoice, or paid legal fees. I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective.
Regardless of what work Cohen did for him, the fact remains that Hannity did not disclose his relationship with Cohen when he covered the FBI’s raid of Cohen’s office.
Here's what Hannity said about FBI raid of Cohen a week ago: "Mueller has ostensibly tonight declared war against the president. Clearly his objective is to remove him from office... Mueller's team is corrupt, starting with him, and it has been from the beginning." pic.twitter.com/1jGZrzmihq
As Newsweek details, Hannity defended Cohen on his radio show after the raid, and recently said a conversation the two had corroborates Cohen’s implausible story about how he made a $130,000 hush payment to Story Daniels, a woman who says she had an affair with the rich asshole, without the rich asshole being looped in.
“I do remember Michael saying it publicly and saying to me at the time that in fact he never told the president about this, that it was something that he had pretty wide discretion on his own to handle matters without bringing it to his attention,” Hannity said a week ago. “And it might seem unusual to most people but if you’re a billionaire I guess it’s not.”
Sean Hannity 6 days ago on the Cohen raid without disclosing Cohen is his lawyer: "A threat to the constitutional foundation of this country"http://mm4a.org/ZLU
While Cohen’s work for the rich asshole and RNC deputy chair Elliot Broidy involved negotiating hush payments to women they allegedly had affairs with, Hannity’s remark about how Cohen’s work for him never “involved a matter between me and any third party” is meant to suggest that the rich asshole’s longtime “fixer” didn’t anything of that sort for him.
Hannity was accused of sexual harassment last year by a right-wing blogger who was a guest on his show. He characterized the allegations as “100 percent false.”
CNN’s Jake Tapper on Monday reacted to the stunning news that some rich asshole’s personal attorney Michael Cohen is also a lawyer for Fox News host Sean Hannity, quipping, “go home 2018—you’re drunk.”
Tapper was reporting on news Monday out of a Manhattan federal courthouse, where Cohen was forced to admit his third client is avid the rich asshole supporter Sean Hannity.
“Words that surely have never before been said by any news anchor in any circumstance: the president’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen—who is under criminal investigation—is appearing in court right now alongside Stormy Daniels, and there is already a bombshell revelation,” Tapper began.
“What should have been a very simple hearing with the judge making a simple decision has turned into one bombshell after the other,” CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz explained. “And just a short time ago the judge forcing Michael Cohen’s attorney to reveal who this mystery third person … after countless arguments by two attorneys representing Michael Cohen and also a media attorney there arguing for us in the press.”
Prokupecz said Cohen’s lawyer eventually disclosed that Sean Hannity is his mysterious third client and “as can you imagine, there was really shock in the courtroom.”
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said Monday that Fox News should fire Sean Hannity following the revelation that he is a client of President the rich asshole’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen.
Hannity has frequently covered stories about Cohen — including the FBI raids on the New York lawyer's home, hotel room and office last week — without revealing his own connection.
“I think he is so into this like a pig in the mud he can’t get out of it. And I think he deserves to be fired. His word can never again be trusted,” Connolly said on CNN.
Connolly said Hannity’s involvement with Cohen represents a conflict of interest, calling it “a big stain on Hannity and Fox News.”
He also hit Hannity for spreading conspiracy theories about former President Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and slain Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich.
Cohen’s attorney revealed earlier Monday that Hannity is the previously unnamed third client for whom Cohen has done legal work. The revelation came during a hearing connected to the FBI raids.
At least one other Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Jackie Speier (Calif.), called for Hannity to be suspended over the news.
#Hannity needs to be put on leave immediately. How can a network claim to be “fair and balanced” when their top anchor has a relationship with Cohen — Trump’s enforcer and main conduit for info and shady deals? #Cohens3rdClient
Cohen's attorney revealed Hannity's identity as they sought to argue they should be able to review materials seized in the raid before federal prosecutors, so that they can determine what documents are protected by attorney–client privilege.
“I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective,” Hannity tweeted, adding that those conversations “dealt almost exclusively about real estate."
Hannity is a staunch ally of the rich asshole’s and frequently defends the president on his Fox News show. He was fiercely critical of last week’s raids.
Nobody wants to risk their reputation by working for the rich asshole.
If anyone needed a stellar defense team right now, it’s the rich asshole. But his legal search continues in vain as elite, white-collar attorneys in Washington, D.C., and around the country continue to turn down White House offers to lead the rich asshole’s defense.
“People close to the rich asshole contacted New York attorney Steven Molo, a former prosecutor who specializes in white collar defense and courtroom litigation,” CNN reports.
And like so many others, Molo turned the rich asshole down.
According to multiple reports, there have now been one dozen well-known attorneys who reportedly rejected White House offers since the rich asshole’s defense attorney, John Dowd, abruptly quit last month.
Additionally, Fox News favorites Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing were reportedly hired by the rich asshole to be his defense attorneys, only to quickly bow out due to alleged conflicts of interest.
DiGenova has since returned to Fox News, where he has compared special counsel Robert Mueller’s legal team to a bunch of “terrorists.”
What’s behind the rich asshole’s failed legal search? Attorneys simply don’t want to work for, and risk ruining their reputations for, clients who disrespect them publicly, refuse to take their legal advice, and have a habit of not paying their bills.
“It is difficult for one to maintain one’s appearance of being an ethical lawyer while trying to represent some rich asshole,” Fordham University law professor Jed Shugerman recently told the Huffington Post. “Any lawyer who has observed those episodes is going to see that joining this team at this stage runs a risk to their professional lives.”
The stiff-arming the rich asshole’s been getting is remarkable — a job representing the president of the United States has long been considered one of the most prestigious jobs in Washington, D.C., legal circles and beyond.
But no more.
The reason the rich asshole needs pressing legal advice is simple: The walls are closing in as Mueller, and now federal investigators in New York City, rapidly escalate investigations into the rich asshole and his associates.
For now, the only attorney the rich asshole has on Russia probe is Jay Sekulow, a constitutional lawyer best known for handing freedom-of-religion cases. In other words, he’s not known a criminal defense attorney.
Meanwhile, the rich asshole’s legal bills are mounting and he’s running out of options.
President the rich asshole on Monday conceded he made mistakes in assembling his Cabinet, which has already seen three departures.
the rich asshole made the rare admission while praising Labor Secretary Alex Acosta and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin during a tax event in Miami.
"Not all of my choices were good, but they were great ones,” the president said.
The president did not single out any Cabinet officials for criticism.
Many of the rich asshole’s Cabinet picks have faced accusations of ethical misconduct or clashed with the president for personal and political reasons.
The president this year fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson after months of disagreements and also gave the axe to Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, who faced criticism over taxpayer-funded travel and fought with other officials over health-care issues.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson are also facing scrutiny for spending taxpayer dollars on office improvements, amid other actions.
Last year, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price was forced to resign after it was revealed he frequently used a private jet to travel on government business.
the rich asshole’s first pick to lead the Department of Labor, Andrew Puzder, withdrew his nomination after it was revealed he employed a housekeeper who was living illegally in the U.S.
The president has faced persistent criticism from people who say he failed to properly vet his choices to fill key administration posts.
Fox News host Sean Hannity didn't want anyone to know he is a client of Michael Cohen, the rich asshole's shady lawyer who's under criminal investigation, but the dirty little secret is out now.
The FBI raid on the rich asshole’s “fixer” and personal attorney, Michael Cohen, has blown up on one of the rich asshole’s biggest boosters, Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Cohen tried to shield the identity of one of his three clients in court Monday morning, claiming the client had asked Cohen not to disclose his identity and that such a disclosure was “likely to be embarrassing or detrimental to the client.”
But on Monday afternoon, Judge Kimba Wood ordered Cohen to disclose that client’s name. MSNBC anchor Katy Tur broke the news while conducting a panel that included former U.S. attorney Harry Litman, who reacted with stunned laughter.
Now that Hannity’s secret is out, his reaction to the Cohen raid makes a lot more sense. Hannity tried to downplay the raid as a “fishing expedition,” and Cohen has been a guest of Hannity’s for years without either of them disclosing the relationship.
Hannity is one of three clients Cohen represented from 2017 to 2018, and while Cohen did not reveal what legal services he performed for Hannity, we know what he did for the other two.
Cohen has already admitted to paying $130,000 in hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels, who has since gone public with details of her affair with the rich asshole.
Cohen’s other client was Elliott Broidy, an RNC finance chair for whom Cohen also arranged a sizable hush money payment. Broidy agreed to pay $1.6 million in exchange for the silence of former Playboy model Shera Bechard, whom Broidy impregnated while having an affair.
Cohen’s own attorney has called him a “fixer” whose job is to handle a “ton of matters” like these.
Hannity is downplaying his relationship with Cohen.
“Michael never represented me in any matter,” he said Monday after the news broke. “I never retained him, I never paid legal fees to Michael … but I have occasionally had brief legal discussions with him where I wanted his input and perspective.”
But at least according to Cohen and his legal team, the relationship was significant enough that Hannity wanted it to remain a secret. Like the rich asshole’s and Broidy’s affairs, though, that secret was destined not to be kept.
Department of Defense (DOD) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officials confirmed Monday that California will not take part in President the rich asshole’s move to send up to 4,000 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border,as the requirements are now written.
Acting CBP Deputy Commissioner Ronald Vitiello told reporters that California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) has determined the tasks the federal officials have asked the state's National Guard to perform at the southern border are "unsupportable."
"We’ve got a signal from the governor that he’s not participating,” Vitiello told reporters at a media briefing, but added that "there will be other missions that we’re planning for the future state of this operation and so we’ll continue to see if those fit better."
DHS press secretary Tyler Houlton wrote on Twitter after the briefing that Brown "has stated publicly that he shares our interest in securing our southern border. DHS and our federal partners are committed to working with the Governor to mobilize the California National Guard to assist DHS’ frontline personnel in our vital missions"
Robert Salesses, the DOD deputy assistant secretary for homeland defense integration, said California declined a specific request to commit 237 guardsmen to two sectors near the Mexican border, San Diego and El Centro.
"There’s a set of initial responsibilities there. The California National Guard has indicated that they will not perform those missions as we know them to be right now," Salesses said.
The tasks were operational support responsibilities, including motor transport, maintenance, radio communication, heavy equipment operations, some planning and administrative tasks, and surveillance camera operations.
Salesses added that “we are in a continuing dialogue, discussion” with the state.
The Associated Press reported earlier that California had rejected the federal government's initial plans for sending guardsmen to the border, as the work was thought to be too closely tied to immigration enforcement.
Brown, last week, wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen that his state’s Guard would accept federal funding to add about 400 guardsmen. But he specified that the extra troops “will not be enforcing federal immigration laws."
There are now 900 National Guard troops deployed in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona as part of the rich asshole’s plan for the military to shore up the southern border until his administration builds a border wall.
The Pentagon earlier this month authorized up to 4,000 National Guard troops to be sent to the border as part of the plan.
Vitiello also said that the CBP and the Pentagon are looking for additional tasks, possibly meant for the next phase of the Guard’s role at the border, “to see if a state like California, that doesn’t want to participate in this level one, that maybe they’ll be in the subsequent one.
And a DHS official told The Hill that in the coming days, the department plans to submit another set of requirements.
Officials have stressed that border security will remain a civilian law enforcement responsibility and that the National Guard will serve in support capacity, not directly involved in an enforcement role.
“Isaid last Friday and this weekend that Michael Cohen was radioactive and that anybody that was associated with him in the last 20 to 30 years should be very, very concerned,” Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti said. “What we witnessed earlier in the hearing with the disclosure relating to Sean Hannity proved my point exactly.”
The attorney went on to warn that “anyone that had any contact with this man in the last 20 years should be very concerned about what secrets of theirs are within” the documents seized by the FBI when they raided Cohen a week ago.
The rich asshole administration appears to be walking back U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley's announcement that the U.S. Treasury plans to issue additional sanctions on Russia following the suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria last week.
On Sunday morning, Haley stated that sanctions against Moscow will "be coming down" on Monday. But roughly 24 hours later, the administration signaled they have not decided on a definite course of action.
“We are considering additional sanctions on Russia and a decision will be made in the near future,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Haley said in an appearance Sunday on CBS News's "Face the Nation" that the sanctions are intended to punish Russia for its support for the Assad government after last week's apparent chemical attack. Bodies of Syrian civilians were found foaming at the mouth, with some death count estimates ranging between 40 and 50 people.
Haley said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin would issue additional financial penalties against any companies conducting deals that supplied Syrian President Bashar Assad with equipment and sources for chemical weapons use in an effort to hit Russia for its involvement.
"So I think everyone is going to be feeling it at this point. I think everyone knows that we sent a strong message, and our hope is that they listen to us," Haley told CBS.
In response to the chemical attack, the U.S., United Kingdom and France on Friday night launched a flurry of missiles aimed at three targets in Syria.
Both the Syrian and Russian governments denied involvement in the chemical attack. The Kremlin additionally threatened that "chaos in international relations" would ensue if Western countries continued to strike Syria, according to reports.
The U.N. Security Council on Saturday voted against the Kremlin's draft resolution that sought to condemn “the aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic by the U.S. and its allies in violation of international law and the U.N. Charter.”
While the rich asshole has previously signed off on some sanctions aimed at Moscow, the president has largely been reluctant to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The Late Show has acquired a sneak peek of tonight’s Hannity,” the clip’s teaser reads before launching into the fake intro segment regarding the day’s news.
“This is a Fox News alert,” Hannity said in the clip. “President the rich asshole’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen is my attorney and I defended him right here on this program.”
“Can anybody say conflict of interest?” he host asks in the mashup before saying that “Fox News has largely ignored” their unethical lack of disclosure.
The ultra conservative One America News Network (OANN), which frequently runs pro-the rich asshole propaganda, claimed in a video report this week that it had found no evidence of an alleged chemical attack on the Syrian town of Douma — the latest in a series of claims by right-wing media and far-right individuals who claim the attack was faked.
The April 7 attack left at least 70 people dead and around 500 others exposed to deadly nerve agents. The Syrian Army is suspected to be behind the attack, which targeted rebel forces who had recently agreed to hand over the territory to the government. Syria, along with key allies Iran and Russia, all initially denied the attack took place, calling it “bogus.” Russian officials took things one step further on Friday, blaming the attack on the U.K.
U.S., U.K., and French authorities all ignored those claims, launching a coordinated strike on targets associated with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons capabilities on Friday evening.
“We went to Douma today — we got exclusive access — and we were brought into… the town where the alleged chemical attack happened,” OANN correspondent Pearson Sharp stated Monday afternoon, later clarifying that the outlet had been escorted to a town “close to” where the attack took place, a block and a half away, but not the site of the alleged attack itself.
“We were brought in with a government escort and shown the areas where the chemical attack allegedly happened and we got to speak with residents in the area. We were even able to visit the hospital where [volunteer-run rescue group] the White Helmets showed the video of the people being hosed down,” Sharp said. “Not one of the people that I spoke to in that neighborhood said they had seen or heard anything about a chemical attack on that day… The residents being interviewed are plants — Russian operatives, or they’re staged interviews, things like that.”
Sharp also claimed that the attack had been staged by Jaysh al-Islam, a rebel group, in order to alleviate some of the pressure imposed by government forces.
“[The residents] told me…the rebels were desperate and they needed a ploy to help get the Syrian Army off their backs, so they can escape,” he said. “The residents told me — and again, I’m using that phrase a lot, because I want it to be clear that this is not an opinion, this is not propaganda, as some have accused. This is simply facts that we found on the ground when we were in the town. Things that we saw first-hand.”
OANN and Sharp’s reporting falls short in many respects, but perhaps most glaring is its apparent inability to provide concrete evidence to support any of its wild claims.
Despite stating that his report is “not propaganda,” for instance, much of what Sharp relays is based on information passed to him during a visit arranged by Syrian government forces, which have traditionally relied on mass disinformation campaigns in the wake of deadly attacks to twist the narrative in their favor. Sharp also clearly states that he was unable to visit the site of the actual attack himself.
At no point does OANN try to mask the pro-Assad language peppering the report. At one point, Sharp even goes so far as to say that “the [residents say they] were incredibly grateful that President Assad had liberated the town; they were completely in support of President Assad.”
The Pentagon itself has warned against trusting pro-regime forces in recent months. Both Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other top Pentagon officials stated on Friday and over the weekend that Syria and Russia — a key ally of Assad — had begun spreading misinformation about the attack in the hours immediately after it reportedly took place, with Russian trolls swarming social media platforms like Twitter to circulate pro-Assad propaganda.
“We can all see that a Russia disinformation campaign is in full force this morning, but [its] desperate attempts at deflection cannot change the facts,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Saturday, at a U.N. Security Council meeting.
Additionally, inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) who were sent to investigate the site of the suspected chemical attack told reporters on Monday that they had been blocked from accessing the area by Syrian and Russian forces. Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov initially claimed that the inspectors were blocked because authorities were waiting for authorization from the U.N. Department of Safety and Security. U.N. officials pushed back, saying no such approval was necessary.
The OANN report is only the latest instance of conservative media and right-wing figures in the United States pushing a conspiracy theory popular among far-right groups, who believe Russian and pro-Assad claims that the attack never happened, and that so-called “Deep State” actors faked the incident to force President the rich asshole to retaliate.
On April 8, one day after the attack, conservative conspiracy theorist and InfoWars host Alex Jones posted a video claiming the attack had actually been a “false flag event” carried out by “globalists [who] openly want to keep” troops in Syria. He claimed the incident had been staged after the rich asshole expressed a desire earlier in April to immediately withdraw U.S. forces from the region, comments he later walked back after military officials stated they needed more time to complete their mission, according to The New York Times.
“This is a big, big deal,” Jones said. “The motive is for the ISIS-Al Qaeda affiliated rebels there to want to stage a chemical attack against a civilian population as a pretext to then keep the United States and other powers in the area.”
Jones has also excoriated the rich asshole over the coordinated U.S., French, and U.K. strikes, launching into a vulgar tirade on his show Friday night in which he criticized the president for failing his staunchest supporters and falling victim to the so-called “False Flag” operation.
“He was doing good, and that’s what makes it so bad,” Jones said toward the end of the segment, openly weeping.
As Haaretz noted last week, Far-right figures such as white supremacist Richard Spencer, British far-right politician Nick Griffin, and former KKK grand wizard David Duke, have all pushed pro-Assad talking points in the wake of the April 7 chemical attack as well, claiming that it was a false flag incident conducted by the Deep State, and in the latter case, arguing that the Syrian leader should be applauded for protecting Christians and other minorities from Muslim rebels.
In September of last year, U.N. investigators announced they had found evidence that Syrian government forces had used chemical weapons on civilians at least two dozen times over the course of the war, deploying weaponized gases like sarin and chlorine during attacks that left scores of innocent people, including children, dead. The report notes that the use of chemical weapons is a direct violation of international humanitarian law.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based organization monitoring the Syrian Civil War, at least 85 percent of the 511,000 people killed in that conflict were killed by Assad’s forces. The Syrian Network for Human Rights, also based in the U.K., places that number even higher, at around 92.2 percent.
Fox News host Sean Hannity was “thrown under the bus” by Michael Cohen’s lawyers, Stormy Daniels' attorney Michael Avenatti said Monday after Cohen’s counsel revealed that Hannity was a client. Related: Stormy Daniels' Lawyer Michael Avenatti Claims 'A Lot Of Women' Had Nondisclosure Agreements With Cohen
Hannity was named as the mystery third client of Cohen, who is President Donald Trump's personal attorney, during a federal hearing in Manhattan. While Cohen had sought to keep the name private, U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood ordered Cohen's lawyer Todd Harrison to make the disclosure.
“I think Sean Hannity got thrown under the bus by Michael Cohen’s counsel today, who was clearly more concerned about protecting the president than protecting Sean Hannity,” Avenatti said during a press conference. “But we’re going to let them sort that out.”
Avenatti referred back to his claim on Friday and over the weekend that Cohen is “radioactive” and that anybody associated with him “should be very, very concerned.”
“What we witnessed earlier in the hearing with the disclosure relating to Sean Hannity proved my point exactly. He is radioactive,” Avenatti reiterated. “Anyone that had any contact with this man in 20 years should be very concerned about what secrets of theirs are within these documents.
On Saturday, Avenatti on MSNBC’s AM Joy said the documents that FBI agents seized spanned 30 years.
“They describe the documents as thousands, if not millions, of pages of documents subject to the attorney-client privilege, including audio recordings,” said Avenatti, concluding, “this is going to get very, very bad for Michael Cohen.”
After the news broke, Hannity claimed that Cohen “never represented me in any matter” and that he “occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions.” Cohen’s counsel brought up Hannity’s name following an FBI raid of Cohen’s office and home for documents including those relating to payments to adult film star Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who both claim they had affairs with Trump.
Cohen also reportedly negotiated a $1.6 million payment to a former Playboy model who claimed she had an affair with top Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy that led to her being impregnated.
Michael Cohen, the rich asshole’s personal attorney and “fixer,” has also represented conservative talk show host Sean Hannity this year.
A federal judge on Friday ordered Cohen to disclose his client list by 10 a.m. on Monday. Cohen put the scope of his legal practice at issue when he filed a temporary restraining order to prevent the government from reviewing materials seized from his home and office, citing attorney client privilege.
At 10 a.m. Cohen’s attorney filed a letter refusing to name any clients who weren’t already public. The letter did not cite any relevant legal precedent. The names of clients are not typically subject to attorney-client privilege.
This year, Cohen said he had three clients. The first is some rich asshole. The second is Elliot Broidy, a rich asshole fundraiser who retained Cohen to negotiate a hush money agreement with a Playboy Playmate. The arrangement with Broidy was reported publicly by the Wall Street Journal on Friday. The final client, Cohen’s lawyer said, ordered him not to reveal his name publicly. Cohen’s letter argued that exposing the name of the third client could be embarrassing.
Court reconvened at 2 p.m. and Cohen’s attorney renewed his request to keep the identity of the third client secret. He said the client was famous and offered to hand the name to the judge in a sealed envelope.
The judge did not buy it — and ordered Cohen’s lawyer to publicly disclose the third client anyway. Cohen’s lawyer confirmed it was Sean Hannity.
Hannity’s radio show was scheduled to start at 3 p.m. ET on Monday. Hannity did not appear for the first 10 minutes of the program. Instead, his producers played music and aired clips of Sunday night’s James Comey interview on ABC without commentary.
Hannity then briefly came on and said that Fox News was talking about him. He said his show would continue to play the Comey interview while he decided whether he’d address the news.
Fox News personality Sean Hannity speaking at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference. Photo by Gage Skidmore.
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In an interview with CNN host Wolf Blitzer, Gerald Connolly, a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, had zero remorse for Sean Hannity.
“Sean Hannity has been among the lowest of the low, wrestling in the mud of Birther conspiracy, Seth Rich conspiracies about the young man who was murdered here in Washington, that maybe that was a different kind of murder,” Connolly said. “All kinds of conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton, and distributing false and fake news left and right. Now what we learn is he’s defending the president’s lawyer on television, he has a conflict of interest and ethical conflict of interest.”
It was revealed on Monday that Michael Cohen represents Fox News personality Sean Hannity. In defense, Hannity tweeted that he was never an official client of Cohen.
Michael Cohen has never represented me in any matter. I never retained him, received an invoice, or paid legal fees. I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective.
Despite his response, Connolly says that Fox has no choice but to fire Hannity immediately.
“I think they ought to fire Sean Hannity. I think he is so into this, like a pig in the mud, he can’t get out of it and I think he deserves to be fired,” he said. “His word could never again be trusted given the fact that he consciously did not reveal this relationship.”
A federal judge on Monday rejected efforts by President some rich asshole and his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to block prosecutors from reviewing documents seized from Cohen in FBI raids last week.
U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood said she may appoint someone as an impartial “special master” to mediate any review of the documents, according to The New York Times. Cohen’s attorneys and those of the government can submit proposals for a special master by Tuesday.
Wood ordered prosecutors to provide copies of the seized material to Cohen’s legal team and expressed her desire in “getting this moving,” according to Bloomberg. She said she trusted independent federal attorneys to sift through the material and determine what is admissible in court.
The FBI raided Cohen’s office, home and hotel room last week and seized a bevy of materials, including documents related to a hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels. the rich asshole’s allies are also worried that the FBI may have obtained a “gold mine” of recordings Cohen made with associates close to the president.
Lawyers representing the rich asshole and Cohen had attempted to block prosecutors from sifting through any seized files, arguing that they are protected by attorney-client privilege. They had proposed allowing Cohen or an independent attorney to review them first.
“Those searches have been executed, and the evidence is locked down,” Joanna Hendon, a lawyer for the rich asshole, said in court last week, according to The Times. “I’m not trying to delay. I’m just trying to ensure that it’s done scrupulously.”
Federal prosecutors have argued for a standard review of the seized material by a so-called “taint team” of independent lawyers, which is meant to filter out any documents that may be privileged. Once the team is finished, the remaining documents are passed on to attorneys working on the case.
The Hill notes such a move is established procedure meant to “protect the attorney-client privilege and to ensure that the investigation is not compromised,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Manual.
It’s unclear just yet what details may lie within the documents, but as The Times notes, they could provide insight into the rich asshole’s decade-long relationship with Cohen. The attorney has been a trusted adviser and fixer who has helped the rich asshole navigate a litany of issues both before and after the campaign.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that Cohen was known for his “proclivity to make tapes” of private conversations and store them digitally. It’s unclear if such tapes were seized, and if any involved the president himself.
This article has been updated with comments from the judge.
the rich asshole loves to 'joke' about firing people, but those jokes have a way of becoming true.
At an event called the “Tax Cuts for Florida Small Businesses Roundtable” in Hialeah, Florida, the rich asshole name-checked his newly appointed national security adviser, John Bolton — and quickly regretted it.
“By the way, John Bolton is here,” the rich asshole said, “and we just had a big, successful hit. John?”
When the rich asshole tried to continue, he was interrupted by applause that culminated in several attendees standing.
“I’m a little jealous,” the rich asshole said. “Are you giving him all the credit? You know that means the end of his job.”
the rich asshole has made a habit of threatening to fire high-ranking officials in the guise of humor, but has also made good on a number of those “joking” threats. the rich asshole joked about firing then-Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who was later ousted under a cloud of scandal.
the rich asshole also threatened to fire then-chief of staff Reince Priebus, as well as then-senior strategist Steve Bannon, all of whom were later fired. And the rich asshole openly threatened to fire then-FBI Director James Comey weeks before he actually carried out the threat.
In fact, the rich asshole has established a record-setting pace of White House turnover, so there’s no reason any the rich asshole official should treat even a “joking” threat lightly. And the rich asshole is infamous for his thin skin.
Bolton’s upstaging of the rich asshole may have seemed like a joking matter in the moment, but it doesn’t seem to take much to get fired in this administration.
President the rich asshole’s lawyers said on Monday that investigators “took everything” during the raid of the rich asshole’s personal attorney Michael Cohen’s residence and office, ABC News reported.
In a court filing on Monday, the president’s lawyers said that the raids last week to gather evidence about Cohen’s business dealings were “completely unprecedented.”
The investigators seized more than a dozen electronic devices and other items such as documents and data that the rich asshole’s lawyers say were unrelated to the probable cause that the search warrants for Cohen were based on, according to ABC News.
the rich asshole requested on Sunday that his and Cohen’s lawyers be allowed to choose which items seized during the raids are protected by attorney–client privilege before criminal prosecutors can review them.
Prosecutors say that request should be rejected, noting that there is an established two-step process to determine what material is covered by attorney–client privilege. Materials related to the furtherance of criminal activity are not protected by the privilege.
Sean Hannity was livid the day that the FBI raided the office and hotel room of Michael Cohen, President some rich asshole’s longtime personal lawyer. He said it showed that special counsel Robert Mueller was “out to get the president,” and he blasted the media for giving the raid so much coverage.
“The media, while they are obsessing over Michael Cohen ― yeah, there are really important stories to bring to you,” Hannity said on his Fox News show.
But what he never revealed is why he doesn’t want the media to pay attention to the story: because he is one of Cohen’s clients.
Cohen has done legal work for just three clients since leaving his position last year as counsel for the rich asshole’s private company. It was previously reported that the first two clients were the president and GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy.
Broidy had an affair with a former Playboy model. She became pregnant during their relationship, and Cohen helped arrange payments to her to keep her quiet.
On Monday, Cohen’s lawyer revealed that Hannity was Cohen’s third, secret client, although it’s unclear what the nature of the work was.
Cohen is under federal criminal investigation for possible bank fraud, wire fraud and campaign finance violations in connection with his business dealings. The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan is handling the case. Mueller, who is investigating Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election, referred the matter to the U.S. attorney’s office but has not been involved since.
Hannity said on his radio show Monday that he has known Cohen “a long, long time” and tried to play down his involvement in his life.
“Let me be very clear to the media: Michael never represented me in any matter. I never retained him in the traditional sense. ... I never received an invoice from Michael. I never paid legal fees to Michael,” Hannity said. “But I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions. I wanted his input and perspective. I assumed those conversations were attorney-client confidential.”
“Not one of any issues I ever dealt with Michael Cohen on ever, ever involved a matter between me and a third party,” he added.
He also tweeted that his discussions with Cohen were primarily about real estate.
In response to some wild speculation, let me make clear that I did not ask Michael Cohen to bring this proceeding on my behalf, I have no personal interest in this proceeding, and, in fact, asked that my de minimis discussions with Michael Cohen,
Hannity appears to be specifically trying to put to rest any speculation that he was in a situation similar to Broidy. Federal investigators are also reportedly interested in records Cohen has regarding a payment he made to porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had an affair with the rich asshole and received money from Cohen to stay silent in the run-up to the election.
On Monday, Fox News hosts found themselves in the strange position of reporting breaking news on their own colleague.
FOX NEWS
Shep Smith had to report that his own colleague, Sean Hannity, was a Michael Cohen client.
Hannity never addressed his conflict of interest in his initial coverage of the Cohen raid. On his radio show on April 9, Hannity said the incident showed “that there’s no limit at all into the fishing expedition that Mueller is now engaged in and if he has access to everything that his personal attorney has.”
Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday downplayed the revelation that he's been listed as a client of President the rich asshole’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, following the FBI raids on Cohen last week.
“Michael Cohen has never represented me in any matter,” Hannity tweeted. “I never retained him, received an invoice, or paid legal fees.”
Michael Cohen has never represented me in any matter. I never retained him, received an invoice, or paid legal fees. I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective.
He added that his conversations with Cohen were "almost exclusively about real estate," and that he has "no personal interest" in Cohen's court appearance.
In response to some wild speculation, let me make clear that I did not ask Michael Cohen to bring this proceeding on my behalf, I have no personal interest in this proceeding, and, in fact, asked that my de minimis discussions with Michael Cohen,
Cohen was in court on Monday in connection with the documents seized during the FBI raids last week on his office, home and hotel room.
During the proceedings, the judge ordered Cohen to reveal the identity of his previously unnamed third client, who turned out to be Hannity.
Cohen was in court asking for an order to let his team or a court-appointed attorney review the material seized in last week's raids before federal investigators can review them, in order to determine whether the documents are violations of attorney–client privilege.
Cohen is reportedly under investigation over allegations of bank fraud and violations of campaign finance law.
Hannity is a fierce ally of the rich asshole's, and frequently defends him on his Fox News show. The two reportedly dined together at Mar-a-Lago late last month.
The raids on Cohen, which were conducted under the authority of the local U.S. attorney's office, came in part from a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller in his probe into Russia's election interference and any possible coordination with the rich asshole campaign.
Fears have risen among Democrats that, following the raids, the rich asshole might try to fire Mueller or the Justice Department official to whom he reports, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Fox News personalities such as Hannity and Lou Dobbs have been among the most vocal of the rich asshole allies criticizing Mueller's investigation.
In an editorial for TIME, Retired Admiral James Stavridis wrote that the rich asshole’s comment was, at very least, “an odd description in front of individuals who have spent their lives defending the country against actual attacks.”
“As someone who spent over seven years as one of those Combatant Commanders — one of a small group of 4-star officers charged with the responsibility to send young men and women into combat — I often find myself wondering what it must be like to serve as a senior admiral or general in today’s world,” the retired Navy admiral wrote. “Our senior military swear an oath upon every promotion: not to the office of the President, but to the Constitution. How are they executing their oath of office today?”
Though past presidents have presented unique challenges for their military leaders, Stavridis noted that “it is hard to remember a time where the level of unease has been so high.”
“I hear this frequently from many senior admirals and generals still working today, and I feel their sense of extreme discomfort,” he continued. “That is not a good place for the republic.”
Stavridis, who noted that he isn’t registered as either a Democrat or Republican and worked under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, went on to identify three specific difficulties military leaders face under the rich asshole: dealing with the president’s “discipline problem” as evidenced by his payoff to Stormy Daniels and frequent lies; the “erratic nature” of his policies; and finally, resisting being swept up by frenzied media responding to news out of the West Wing.
“I hope our admirals and generals can keep their heads down and ensure the military does not become embroiled in domestic politics, and that [Defense Secretary Jim] Mattis can continue to run interference with wisdom and caution between the Pentagon and the White House,” Stavridis concluded. “If he cannot, I fear a creeping politicization of our active-duty military, and therefore a diminishment of our national security. Above all, the White House must take care to avoid pulling the military into the heart of an increasingly political fray.”
The EPA administrator's unprecedented corruption reaches new levels of shame.
The madness of EPA chief Scott Pruitt’s runaway spending has now reached a new, law-breaking level.
Pruitt’s demand that his office be fitted with a $43,000 “secure phone booth,” even though the EPA headquarters already had two such booths, violated federal spending laws, as detailed in a new government report.
“According to the Government Accountability Office, the EPA did not comply with the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act by spending more than $5,000 on the phone booth without notifying Congress,” ABC News reports. “By failing to provide such advance notice, EPA violated section 710 of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act.”
Pruitt previously told a congressional committee that he needed to secure booth so he could call the White House.
The independent, nonpolitical GAO also found that the EPA violated the Antideficiency Act by spending more than the amount approved by Congress for office renovations.
Indeed, the EPA violations aren’t just about “Get Smart”-type phone booths. Pruitt has also spent lavishly on furniture for his office, and an elaborate, around-the-clock security detail for himself.
He currently has a 20-person security detail, which is more than three times the amount of protection Obama’s EPA chief received.
Pruitt requested tens of thousands of dollars for a bulletproof desk for the security guard outside his office and a bulletproof sport utility vehicle. He’s also spent a staggering amount of money on travel.
“Two weeks of travel for him and his aides cost taxpayers more than $120,000 last June,” the New York Times reports, “and in December he took aides on a five-day, $40,000 trip to Morocco.”
Pruitt has repeatedly billed taxpayers for his constant flights home Oklahoma on the weekends. He also regularly demanded that his flights be booked on Delta airlines — even when the federal government didn’t have a government carrier contract with Delta — because Pruitt wanted to bank as many frequent flyer miles as possible.
Despite his consistently corrupt behavior, Pruitt continues to enjoy the support of the rich asshole, who recently called his EPA chief “very courageous.”
Earlier this month, the rich asshole boasted about sending National Guard troops to protect the southern border. the rich asshole proposed to send nearly 400 troops to the border.
We are sealing up our Southern Border. The people of our great country want Safety and Security. The Dems have been a disaster on this very important issue!
U.S. officials announced Monday, that California is now refusing to send their troops as a resource because the work is too closely aligned with immigration enforcement according to the Associated Press.
Troops would have been a useful resource to perform work such as operating remotely-controlled surveillance cameras, documenting suspicious activity, repairing vehicles, and a host of administrative tasks.
Despite his initial eagerness, California Gov. Jerry Brown pulled back on his support, and said he would not send California troops to work alongside immigration enforcement. Brown, instead wants to focus on criminal gangs and drug and firearms smugglers. The other border state governors in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, are all on board with the rich asshole’s plan.
Lt. Col. Thomas Keegan, a California National Guard spokesman, said the state has not received a formal response from the administration about their position. Spokesman for the governor, Evan Westrup, did not respond to questions about California’s rejection to assist with guard duties.
According to the Associated Press, the state position angered federal officials because it puts a halt in their plans. California was also unclear about what tasks they would or would not do.
BY AVERY ANAPOL AND BRETT SAMUELS - 04/16/18 03:05 PM EDT
Michael Cohen’s previously unnamed third client is Fox News's Sean Hannity, a lawyer representing Cohen told a federal judge on Monday.
Cohen, President the rich asshole's personal lawyer, appeared in court Monday in connection with FBI raids last week of his office, home and hotel room. His lawyer argued that Cohen’s legal team or a court-appointed attorney should be able to review the materials seized in the raids to determine whether certain documents are protected by attorney–client privilege.
In weighing the merits of the case, Judge Kimba Wood ordered Cohen to provide information about his clients. He had already disclosed his work for the rich asshole and GOP donor Elliott Broidy.
At that point, Cohen’s lawyers revealed Hannity to be the mystery third client.
“I understand he doesn’t want his name out there, but that isn’t the law,” Wood said, according to Bloomberg.
Robert Balin, an attorney representing the press’ interests in the case, argued that there is “intense public interest” in the identities of Cohen’s clients, according to Bloomberg.
Hannity downplayed his interactions with Cohen, asserting that he’d never formally represented him in legal proceedings.
“I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective,” Hannity tweeted, adding that those conversations “dealt almost exclusively about real estate.”
In response to some wild speculation, let me make clear that I did not ask Michael Cohen to bring this proceeding on my behalf, I have no personal interest in this proceeding, and, in fact, asked that my de minimis discussions with Michael Cohen,
Hannity frequently defends the rich asshole on his Fox News show, and he reportedly dined with the president at Mar-a-Lago recently. the rich asshole is known to call Hannity after his show and has often praised him for his ratings.
Hannity's connection to the case is the latest twist in a proceeding that has pitted the rich asshole against his own Justice Department.
Federal agents reportedly seized financial records, communications between the rich asshole and Cohen and materials related to Cohen’s payment of two women who have alleged they had affairs with the president more than a decade ago.
Cohen has disclosed his work for the rich asshole, including that he paid $130,000 to adult-film star Stormy Daniels, who claims the payment was to keep her quiet about an affair she had with the rich asshole in 2006.
It was also reported last week that Cohen helped negotiate a $1.6 million payment to a former Playboy model who claimed Broidy impregnated her after a consensual affair. Broidy stepped down last week as deputy finance chair of the Republican National Committee.
Cohen is reportedly under investigation for bank fraud and violations of campaign finance law.
the rich asshole’s lawyers wrote the judge in the case on Sunday asking her to allow them to review materials seized in the raids to flag documents that fall under attorney-client privilege.
The lawyers argued that the Justice Department and its taint team of federal agents and prosecutors in the case could not evaluate the documents fairly.
The search warrants for the raids were obtained in part on a referral by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and has been the subject of frequent attacks from the president.
the rich asshole has criticized his own Justice Department on multiple occasions, focusing on Mueller and Attorney General Jeff Sessions in particular.
It’s been a rough start to the week for Sean Hannity.
On Monday afternoon, the Fox News pundit was outed as the mystery third client of Michael Cohen, President some rich asshole’s personal attorney and longtime fixer currently under investigation for a range of possible crimes.
Hannity then had to try and figure out how to address the bombshell revelation while he was meant to be doing his radio show — which played 10 minutes of music and James Comey’s ABC interview before Hannity finally showed up and said he was working to decide whether to address the news.
Around two hours later, Hannity decided to pull the “we’re just friends” routine. He told a Wall Street Journal reporter that he and Cohen “have been friends for a long time. I have sought legal advice for Michael.” He then took to Twitter to claim that he had “no personal interest” in Cohen’s proceeding and that his discussions with the lawyer had mostly involved “real estate.”
In response to some wild speculation, let me make clear that I did not ask Michael Cohen to bring this proceeding on my behalf, I have no personal interest in this proceeding, and, in fact, asked that my de minimis discussions with Michael Cohen,
But a letter to the court, Cohen’s lawyers painted a very different version of events. “The other legal client indicated that they did not authorize their name to be publicly filed in connection with this matter,” the document reads. “[They] directed Mr. Cohen to appeal any order to disclose their name.”
So on one hand, Hannity is saying that he has no interest in the case, that his relationship with Cohen is casual, and that he doesn’t need to be involved in the ongoing legal proceedings. But then at the same time, Cohen’s lawyers are aggressively trying to keep the relationship between the two quiet — which begs the question why if, as Hannity said, “Michael Cohen never represented me in any matter.”
Hannity described the raid as a “fishing expedition” and a “war on the president.” He even said the raid should be an excuse for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — who is overseeing the Mueller investigation and could, under certain circumstances, fire the special counsel.
“Professor Dershowitz, you have said that the raid on Michael Cohen’s hotel room, his home and his office was a violation of his constitutional rights,” Hannity began during an interview segment with Alan Dershowitz and Joe DiGenova last Wednesday. “Do you agree with Joe that it’s the attorney general’s job to now step in and fire Rod Rosenstein?”
Cohen himself appeared on Hannity’s show in early 2017, where he said that “the levels of disrespect towards the president… makes us look weak and it makes us look disorganized and chaotic.”
the rich asshole’s advisers have been claiming that the $130,000 payment to the adult film actress on the eve of the election really had nothing to do with the election.
WASHINGTON – President some rich asshole’s re-election campaign this year has been paying the Beverly Hills lawyer handling his lawsuit against an adult film actress – complicating his supporters’ claims that the original $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels had nothing do with the 2016 election.
The campaign paid Charles Harder’s firm $25,000 on Jan. 4, and then $68,181.25 on Feb. 22, according to the campaign’s quarterly filing Sunday with the Federal Election Commission.
It is unclear how much of that, if any, is related to the rich asshole’s continued efforts to keep Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, from discussing the affair she said they had in 2006. Neither Harder nor the rich asshole campaign responded to several requests for comment.
One Republican close to the rich asshole said he can understand the logic of treating the original nondisclosure agreement Clifford signed one way and the efforts to enforce it the opposite way.
“I can see as how they could construe it as a re-election issue. And I can see how they would construe the NDA as not an election issue,” he said on the condition of anonymity. “But I’m not so sanguine about the believability of that.”
Paul Ryan, a lawyer for the group Common Cause, which has filed complaints against the rich asshole and his campaign with the FEC and the Department of Justice, said the payments could have been for other work Harder has done for the rich asshole, including an attempt to stop the publication of the book “Fire and Fury,” an unflattering portrait of the first year of the rich asshole’s presidency.
Harder also represented the rich asshole’s wife, Melania, in defamation lawsuits against a British tabloid and a Maryland blogger who published stories alleging that she had once been an escort. Those cases, though, were settled in Melania the rich asshole’s favor in early 2017 – meaning it’s unlikely that Harder was still collecting bills for them a year later, Ryan said.
He said campaigns are prohibited from spending money that benefits a candidate personally, but that expenses that would not exist if the person were not a candidate or officeholder are generally allowable.
Paying a lawyer to block the release of an embarrassing book would likely be permitted under that standard, Ryan said.
As to the situation with Clifford, Ryan said he could also envision a scenario where continuing litigation against her is considered campaign-related even if the original payment to buy her silence is not.
“At the end of the day, we don’t know,” he said. “Who knows what this guy was doing for them?”
DREW ANGERER VIA GETTY IMAGES
Michael Cohen, a longtime personal lawyer and confidante for President some rich asshole, arrives at the United States District Court Southern District of New York on April 16, 2018, in New York City.
Michael Avenatti, Clifford’s lawyer who has accused the rich asshole and his attorney Michael Cohen of violating campaign finance law with the $130,000 “hush agreement” just days before the election, said he did not want to speculate about the rich asshole campaign’s payments to Harder.
“It is too early to jump to conclusions as to the purpose of those payments,” he said. “They may well relate to a legal matter other than Ms. Clifford.”
Ryan said it was puzzling why someone who boasts about his wealth as frequently as the rich asshole does would invite such questions by not simply paying Harder himself. “At the 35,000 foot-level, it’s a question of optics, of perceptions,” he said.
The Republican close to the rich asshole, though, had a simple explanation. “He’s fundamentally cheap,” he said of the rich asshole. “It could be that.”
New York (CNN)some rich asshole's personal attorney Michael Cohen also represents Fox News host Sean Hannity, Cohen's attorneys said Monday afternoon.
Cohen had told the court earlier he had at least 10 clients between 2017 and 2018, including the President, and the former GOP fundraiser Elliot Broidy who acknowledged paying $1.6 million to a Playboy model with whom he had an affair.
Judge Kimba Wood ordered Cohen to attend and provide information about his clients as she weighs an emergency action by Cohen's attorneys to stop prosecutors from reviewing more than a dozen electronic devices and documents seized during a FBI raid of Cohen's office, home and hotel room last week.
Cohen's lawyers had publicly identified the rich asshole and Broidy as clients, but revealed Hannity's name only after the judge ordered them to.
On his radio show Monday, Hannity said, "I never retained him in the traditional sense" and said he believed his conversations about legal questions were confidential.
"I've known Michael a long, long time. Let me be very clear to the media. Michael never represented me in any matter. I never retained him in the traditional sense as retaining a lawyer. I never received an invoice from Michael. I never paid legal fees to Michael," Hannity said.
"But I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective," he added. "And I assume that those conversations were attorney-client confidential."
Hannity added, "not one of any issue I ever dealt with Michael Cohen on ever, ever involved a matter between me and any third party."
Fox News host Shepard Smith acknowledged Hannity's connection to Cohen on the air Monday.
"We just spoke with his publicist here at Fox News who says that he says they have been friends a long time, he never denied that he was his lawyer, that he did some legal work for him along the way, and that's the extent of that," Smith said.
Cohen's lawyers have called the raid "completely unprecedented" and asked the judge to let their lawyers review the documents or put in place a special master to comb through the seized material and separate communications that should be protected by attorney client privilege.
"This is perhaps the most highly publicized search warrant in the history of recent American criminal jurisprudence. It is paramount that the review of Mr. Cohen's data and documents be handled in such a way as to eliminate, as much as possible, even the 'appearance of unfairness,'" the letter said.
Prosecutors with the US attorney's office in Manhattan said they have a "filter team" of lawyers separate from those involved in the investigation in place to review the documents for any communications between Cohen and his clients.
Prosecutor Thomas McKay told the judge during a sidebar session on Friday, "This is a fast-moving investigation. We are devoting a large amount of resources to the whole case but, in particular, to our filter team to get this review done very quickly."
Cohen acknowledged that seven of the 10 clients he had in 2017 to 2018 involved business consulting over legal advice. He also listed in broad terms his legal work in the dozen years before he began working for the rich asshole Organization in 2007.
'SNL' tackles the raid on Michael Cohen01:24
Last week, prosecutors said in a court filing that they have been investigating Cohen for months "for criminal conduct that largely centers on his personal business dealings."
They also said that Cohen appeared to have few clients other than the President and they had not uncovered any emails between the two suggesting the potential risk of violating attorney client privilege was slim.
The search warrant authorizing the raid indicated prosecutors were looking into potential violations of bank fraud, wire fraud, and campaign finance violations, sources told CNN. The warrant also sought information that included payments allegedly made to keep women silent about affairs with the rich asshole more than a decade ago.
It also emerged Cohen facilitated a $1.6 million payment to a former Playboy model who said she became pregnant from a relationship with Broidy, who was the deputy chair of the Republican National Committee until he resigned Friday when the payment became public.
Broidy admitted to the relationship in a statement but did not address whether he impregnated the woman. He said Cohen reached out to him after being contacted by Keith Davidson, an attorney representing the woman, and said he retained the rich asshole's lawyer "after he informed me about his prior relationship with Mr. Davidson."
Davidson also represented former adult film actress Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, a former playmate. Both women claimed to have affairs with the rich asshole, who has denied the allegations.
Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday responded to the revelation that he is a client of some rich asshole’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen.
Conservative pundit complained on his radio program that the media was “going insane” over the story.
Hannity said he had never retained Cohen as a lawyer and only had “brief discussions with him about legal questions.”
“How is it possible that NBC and ABC goes absolutely — and MSNBC and CNN — goes absolutely off the rails over a simple thing like that,” he complained.
Cohen appeared in court Monday as part of a federal investigation into his business and financial dealings. The FBI raided his office last week, reportedly seizing documents related to payments he made to adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, whose stage name is Stormy Daniels,and another woman the rich asshole has been accused of having a sexual relationship with in the past.
Clifford sat in on Cohen’s hearing with her lawyer Michael Avenatti on Monday.
YANA PASKOVA VIA GETTY IMAGES
Adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, whose stage name is Stormy Daniels, arrives at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York for a hearing related to Michael Cohen, President some rich asshole’s longtime personal attorney.
In a court filing Monday morning, Cohen’s lawyers argued that Cohen should not be required to identify his clients. Cohen had at least 10 clients between 2017 and 2018, Reuters reported, and he did “traditional legal tasks” for three of them, including the rich asshole, former Republican National Committee official Elliott Broidy, and a third who asked not to be named.
U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood in Manhattan said Cohen’s lawyers did not meet “the standard for an exception that client identity or even fee arrangements must be revealed,” reported the New York Daily News.
Hannity, a staunch the rich asshole supporter, has bashed the FBI’s raid on Cohen’s office during his Fox News show, though he never mentioned his own legal dealings with the lawyer.
NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Fox News host Sean Hannity was revealed Monday to be one of Michael Cohen’s recent clients.
The host addressed the news on his radio show Monday, saying he had never officially retained Cohen as his attorney.
“Let me be very clear to the media,” Hannity said. “Michael never represented me in any matter. I never retained him in the traditional sense. ... I never received an invoice from Michael. I never paid legal fees to Michael.”
The radio host clarified that he had on occasion consulted with Cohen and asked for the lawyer’s opinion “about legal matters,” during which conversations he assumed there would be attorney-client confidentiality.
“I might have handed him 10 bucks, [to say] I definitely want your attorney-client privilege on this, something like that,” Hannity said.
Hannity continued to downplay his relationship with Cohen on Twitter.
Michael Cohen has never represented me in any matter. I never retained him, received an invoice, or paid legal fees. I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective.
A representative for Fox News declined to comment about whether Hannity should have or was instructed to disclose his relationship with Cohen.
Cohen appeared in court Monday to request Wood grant a temporary restraining order that would limit the prosecutors’ access to documents seized during last week’s FBI raid. Wood denied Cohen’s request, adding that a “taint team” or “special master” to review the documents first could have a role in the investigation.
This story has been updated with more details about the revelation and responses to it.
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