Posts by Russell Brown
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It looks like AT&T's AI needs an intervention, frankly.
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AT&T's responses to angry customers on Twitter have been priceless.
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HOLD THE DAMN PHONE.
Avenatti has released a "Preliminary Report on Findings" that appears to show that the account from which Cohen paid Stormy Daniels' hush money was "replenished" by a Russian oligarch who is close to Putin.
And that that AT&T secretly paid money into the same slush fund after Trump threatened to block its merger with Time Warner (the threats stopped after the payments).
And that the CEO of Novartis appeared to buy a dinner meeting with President Trump with similar payments.
There's no indication how Avenatti might have secured this information, and it's officially unproven, but AT&T and Novartis have already admitted making the payments and The Daily Beast has backed up the Russian payments angle.
Josh Marshall sums it up:
I said above that we didn’t have confirmation of the claims in Avenatti’s document. But over the last three or four hours Columbus Nova (the Vekselberg company), AT&T and Novartis have each confirmed the payments as described. So there’s no question that they happened. And these are only some of the pay-offs. They’ve also confirmed the dollar amounts. So while we still don’t know where or how Avenatti got this information he must have had access to one of Cohen’s ledgers, a bank statement or perhaps an investigative document. The details are simply too specific.
The US corporate payments appear to be just garden variety corruption. In theory, maybe Cohen had an actual consulting firm filing all the requisite forms to do above board lobbying and we didn’t know about it. But I really, really doubt that. These payoffs won’t stand legal scrutiny. But the big revelation is Vekselberg’s money. Remember, we heard recently that he was the one who Mueller’s investigators stopped and questioned when he transited through a US airport. This is money, more or less directly from a top Russian oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin, putting money directly into a shell company controlled by Donald Trump’s bag man and fixer. The collusion is real and high level. We’re finding the money trail.
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Oh bloody dear:
Giuliani tries to clarify comments on Trump’s reimbursement of payment to porn star Stormy Daniels
President Trump’s new lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani sought Friday to clean up a series of comments made during a whirlwind media tour meant to bolster the president’s standing regarding a payment to a porn star but that instead created new problems for his client.
In a statement issued hours after Trump told reporters Giuliani was still getting up to speed on the facts, the former New York mayor said that a $130,000 payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels by longtime Trump lawyer Michael Cohen would have happened regardless of whether Trump was on the presidential ballot the following month.
“The payment was made to resolve a personal and false allegation in order to protect the President’s family,” Giuliani said in the statement. “It would have been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not.”
On Wednesday, Giuliani revealed that the president had reimbursed Cohen for the settlement Cohen paid in October 2016 to keep Daniels from disclosing details of a sexual encounter she alleged she had with Trump a decade earlier.
Giuliani has said that the details of the reimbursement showed that Trump paid back Cohen because it was a personal, not a campaign expense. But campaign finance law experts said Giuliani’s remarks did not rule out violations of campaign finance laws, and some of his statements may have actually provided new evidence for investigators.
Appearing Thursday on the Fox News Channel, for instance, Giuliani asked viewers to imagine if Daniels had aired her allegations “on Oct. 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton.”
“Cohen didn’t even ask,” Giuliani told viewers. “Cohen made it go away. He did his job.”
In his statement, Giuliani also sought to make clear that he speaking in television interviews about his understanding of events in which Trump had been involved and not about what the president knew at the time. The distinction is important because if Giuliani publicly described a private conversation with the president, he might have inadvertently waived attorney-client privilege on that conversation, potentially opening the door for prosecutors to probe further into what was said.
One close Trump adviser said Giuliani had “waived the privilege big time” with his appearance on “Fox & Friends” and description of his conversations with his client, the president.
This adviser, who requested anonymnity to speak more candidly, said Giuliani’s misstatement came because he relied on Trump’s description of what happened, without independently researching the nature of the payments.
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And an unnamed legal expert on TPM:
Trump is a major real estate developer in NY who has openly bragged about his ability to cut through red tape and get politicians in his pocket. We now have serious SDNY public corruption prosecutors and FBI agents in possession of a massive amount of electronic data from his bagman. They likely already have all of his financial records as well. And Rudy has now given them the roadmap for how Trump may have laundered bribes through Cohen as purported legal fees or retainer payments. Every invoice Cohen has ever issued to Trump is suspect. Every corrupt payment Cohen has ever made or facilitated to building inspectors, councilmen, pornstars, or whomever can potentially be tied back to Trump. In addition, I suspect Trump and his kids had a false sense of comfort that their communications with Cohen would be privileged. I am convinced this is why Trump and his family are freaking out about the Cohen raid and the possibility he could flip. The SDNY is sitting on the mother lode of evidence and Rudy has given them the connection between purported legal fees and payments by Cohen to third parties.
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And fresh from NBC:
Federal investigators have wiretapped the phone lines of Michael Cohen, the longtime personal lawyer for President Donald Trump who is under investigation for a payment he made to an adult film star who alleged she had an affair with Trump, according to two people with knowledge of the legal proceedings involving Cohen.
It is not clear how long the wiretap has been authorized, but NBC News has learned it was in place in the weeks leading up to the raids on Cohen's offices, hotel room, and home in early April, according to one person with direct knowledge.
At least one phone call between a phone line associated with Cohen and the White House was intercepted, the person said.
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From the Above the Law legal website:
The problem is that NOTHING Giuliani said actually inoculates Trump or Cohen from any possible campaign finance violation. Giuliani can say that “it’s not campaign money,” but that’s Rudy being worried about the entirely wrong thing. If Cohen made the payment, then that could be viewed as a campaign contribution. Paying somebody back for campaign contributions doesn’t… unmake the violation. Did Michael Cohen give Trump a personal loan? Was he paid back with interest? Just because Trump can donate as much of his own money to his campaign doesn’t mean Michael Cohen can.
Giuliani also said that Trump paid Cohen back over time, which could be a whole other ball of trouble for Trump. Was he, for instance, still paying Cohen off — sorry, “back,” — after it became clear that the F.B.I. was looking into Cohen? Was Trump… structuring the payments to avoid reporting requirements? Giuliani was not speaking with the discretion necessary of a defense lawyer who is going to risk going on television.
And for good measure, Giuliani ALSO said that Trump fired James Comey because Comey would not publicly say that Trump was not a target of the F.B.I. investigation. … Which sounds MORE like obstruction of justice than ever before.
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Hard News: Friday Music: The Shopping News, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Chchch punters may want to get on down to the Chchch Art Gallery tomorrow night
Interesting lineup! They're groovy fuckers at that gallery.
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Hard News: A handful of deeply precious…, in reply to Ray Gilbert,
There seems to be less requirements for MC products. Although a quick search does show the industry seems to be trying to come to grips with this there is still a long way to go before anything as sophisticated as current GLP and cGMP standards are reached or a standard is adopted by all suppliers.
Oh hell yeah. California seems particularly loose. One reason Helen Kelly's application was knocked back was because the manufacturer couldn't provide a product assay.
But even GMP products don't pass muster in NZ – or, rather, they face a case-by-case ministry approval process. MoH officials have become considerably more flexible in what they're willing to sign off though. It's not out of the question that raw flower products could be approved – it's just difficult.
I’m not saying this should be a road block for the introduction of cannabis based medications, especially as the interactions between multiple constituents on raw cannabis is not fully understood, but if a legitimate green fairy cooks up a bad batch then lack of an rigid industry wide standard could set things back significantly.
I think there has been a big improvement in product quality with, ironically, general legalisation where it's happened. Products are tested for mould and pesticide and there is an infrastructure for testing cannabinoid levels – although it does seem results can vary widely. And the likes of Rhizo Sciences, the company Hikurangi Enterprises has a supply deal with, are now offering turnkey lab and processing solutions. So it's getting more standardised.
I might have to click my heels and summon Shane Le Brun for some more informed comment though ...
