Posts by Russell Brown
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Trump has handed Avenatti a big ol’ present by going on Fox News and specifically associating himself with the Stormy case. The dumbest thing he could do would be to confirm that Cohen was acting for him on the matter of paying off the porn star. And he did it.
Oh the other hand, Avenatti didn’t have a great day in court:
Stormy Daniels‘ attorney Michael Avenatti filed a motion to intervene in the government’s case against Michael Cohen today. But that request didn’t go as well as Avenatti had hoped or expected.
It was supposed to be so easy.
The requesting, granting and receiving of intervenor status is typically a pro forma affair if there’s any tangible connection to the case at hand. Avenatti basically said as much when pleading his case. But it actually wasn’t enough in the Southern District of New York on Thursday.
To be clear: Judge Kimba Wood initially granted Avenatti’s request, but later she reversed that prior ruling. So, what made her change her mind?
It seemed like nobody else wanted Avenatti and Daniels involved.
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Hard News: The remarkable rise of…, in reply to Hilary Stace,
There is a fascinating series on the 1970s on Prime TV at the moment. It’s actually only about the US in the 1970s and a bit later.
I wish I'd watched a bit more of this – it seems very instructive.
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Hard News: The remarkable rise of…, in reply to nzlemming,
Russell, what’s your take on Dershowitz’s role as a talking head. On the one hand, he’s advising Trump privately, and then he’s going around telling news shows what he’s told Trump and saying “Cohen will flip on the President”.
Beyond "Dershowitz has been a weirdo for years", no idea.
But Trump's former lawyer Jay Goldberg did much the same – it was like he put down the phone after Trump called him for advice and called reporters to say on the record that he'd warned Trump that Cohen would flip. I could only read it as sending a signal that there was no attorney-client privilege going on here.
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In a filing Wednesday afternoon, attorneys for President Donald Trump told the federal judge overseeing the investigation of his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, that Trump would, as necessary, personally review documents to ensure that privileged information is not revealed accidentally to the FBI or prosecutors.
“…Our client will make himself available, as needed, to aid in our privilege review on his behalf,” wrote attorneys Joanna Hendon, Christopher Dysard and Reed Keefe in their filing.
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BREAKING: As Avenatti predicted, Cohen is pleading the 5th in the Stormy Daniels case.
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The Dems’ memo on Ronny Jackson, the White House doctor Trump wants to head the Veterans’ Administration, is spectacular.
The guy who went on TV to make those unlikely-sounding claims about the President's robust health would appear to have a lot of issues.
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The New York Times has published a column explaining how Mueller et al can get currently classified material into the public sphere if there is a purge.
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Hard News: The remarkable rise of…, in reply to BenWilson,
I’m fully expecting pictures of Trump naked, TBH. The guy is stupid enough for that.
Avenattii and Stormy have both broadly hinted as to the existence of dick pics. Ew.
But Avenatti has sucessfully made the case about the whole way the Trump organisation has worked for decades – that’s the accounting they’re going for. Trump and those around him are basically career criminals, and the seizure of Cohen’s records is enormously significant.
It’s also well within the scope of a Trump-Russia investigation. Cohen has dirty Russian links up the wazoo.
His stance changes constantly. Sometimes within a day. Sometimes within an interview. Sometimes within a sentence.
He doesn’t have a philosophy, stance or vision as such. It almost all comes from whoever has his ear at the time. For quite a while it was Bannon’s nativist economic nationalism, more recently it’s Hannity and John Bolton.
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Hard News: The remarkable rise of…, in reply to Dennis Frank,
Best to read Trump’s stance in that light: genuinely anti-establishment, wanting to make America great again via regeneration of the economy and nationalism.
I do not believe that is the "best" way to characterise Trump's stance. To put it mildly.
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Hard News: The remarkable rise of…, in reply to Dennis Frank,
All very entertaining but just shadow-boxing really. Innuendo about hypothetical wrongdoing dressed up by top lawyers competing like knights jousting on primetime. No actual evidence, so media stories have to be composed of conjecture instead.
You mean, no actual evidence apart from women's sworn statements, the original NDA – and whatever the FBI and the US Attorney in New York have obtained from months of surveillance of Cohen and the recent seizure of all his files?