There will be a hearing today in Manhattan to discuss what will be done with the materials the government seized from Michael Cohen last week. It will probably be the most significant event in a U.S. District Court since James McCord sent his letter to Judge John Sirica on March 19, 1973. After that letter, it was only a matter of time before the ugly truths behind the Watergate break-in became known to investigators and the public.
President Trump knows the government probably now has possession of enough incriminating material to end his presidency and land him in prison for the remainder of his days, so the only remaining option is to fight to prevent the government from reading what they have. Judge Kimba Wood will decide if that is the correct way to deal with this mess. I don’t think she will rule with the president.
What’s being debated is who gets to review the material seized from Cohen’s home, office and hotel room one week ago. After learning that the government planned to have a taint team start reviewing the material it had seized from Cohen last Friday, Cohen’s legal team filed a motion for a temporary restraining order on Thursday night. In short, they want to have the determination of what is or isn’t privileged made not by government officials but by themselves — or, at least, by a third party called a special master…
…Trump’s team wants Cohen’s team to review the seized material — and then to get a copy of the material related to the president. In court on Friday, Trump’s attorneys seemed content to have a third-party review the material to determine what might or might not be privileged. In a letter filed with the court on Sunday night, though, Trump’s position was that the only acceptable way of evaluating what was or wasn’t privileged was to turn the material over to Cohen’s team to make that assessment.
The president has characterized the warrants that were issued to seize Cohen’s record as a violation of attorney-client privilege, but the government has had Cohen under surveillance for some time and has already been reading his emails, and they clearly had compelling reasons to believe that Cohen might destroy evidence rather than produce it in response to an ordinary subpoena. They also seem to have evidence of crimes Cohen may have committed in relation to his ownership of New York City taxicab medallions. When an attorney and client are engaged in a criminal conspiracy, the attorney-client privilege doesn’t hold, so the types of things that the taint team would be looking to withhold from investigators are records of routine business Cohen did with Trump or other clients. So far, Cohen has produced evidence of serving only three clients, one of which is still unknown. The other two are the president and Elliot Broidy (a finance chairman for the RNC who used Cohen to cover up an affair with a Playboy playmate that resulted in her pregnancy and a subsequent abortion). So, the routine business wasn’t all that routine.
The hearing is set for 2pm, and it should be a circus with porn star Stormy Daniels in attendance. If the president can’t pry these documents out of the hands of prosecutors, his whole world will collapse.
So Trump wants to “review” Cohen’s documents, including privileged communication with Cohen’s other clients?
That judge should kick ’em out of court so hard that they’re still rising as they pass the courthouse steps.
. . . the name “Judge Kimba Wood” rings a bell with a sweet, positive tone. But whatever it was, it leaves me hopeful your recommendation will be granted to the point that they’re still bouncing when they hit the street.
Wikipedia has a useful roundup of her life and works which should remind you of why her name jogs your memory.
She was one of the judge’s nominated to be Clinton’s AG (unsuccessfully, see “Nannygate”).
We were all so young and naive then. Now we know what a scandal truly is.
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Yes, we have found that email security is the most important issue facing presidential candidates…….if they are democrats…..and female.
If you are a republican, and male?
¯_(ツ)_/¯
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his whole world will collapse.
I sure hope you are right but I am getting a bit cynical
I can’t even muster the energy to be cynical about this. Until someone shows me a credible list of the 18 GOP Senators who will vote to convict, this is all hyperbole and speculation. Ain’t no end in sight for this administration.
I disagree, Tien Le. I think that the progressively harder, faster anti-Trump drip-drip-drip of the centrist media will continue to accelerate until the Republicans realize that they will become a minority party if Trump isn’t removed. It will happen either before or soon after this November.
Before? I am not too sanguine about that, because it’s not really a sure thing that the Dems will pick up big numbers. But they will most certainly make progress in many states that are necessary for Republicans to hold, and the only thing that is causing this progress is the constant mainstream media drip. That drip will obviously continue to accelerate unless Trump pulls off some kind of coup, which is highly unlikely given the power of the forces allied against him. Another two years of the same awful publicity will undoubtedly produce a landslide against the Republican Party; they will understand this and be forced to take prophylactic action in pure self defense and self-interest.
Watch.
AG
P.S. Or, of course…Trump will self-destruct somehow, or maybe vacate in his own self-interest.
He knows how gangs work…
I agree a successful impeachment is quite unlikely. It would be fair to say, though, that if the Russian connection is demonstrated this explicitly, Trump will be out of office in 2021. It would also improve our chances of taking the Senate in 2018, which means repairing the post-Trump judiciary won’t take extreme measures.
. . . of Watergate break-in the night before (still pretty gripping reading:
. . . and so on.)
August 8, 1974: “Nixon delivers his resignation speech in front of a nationally televised audience.” Resigns the next day.
That’s 782 days, or 26 months, from first public knowledge of Nixon admin criminality (though not immediately publicly known/proven to be such) until we were rid of him.
If anything, the current pace of things looks greatly accelerated in comparison, and not dependent on drips and drabs from a Mark Felt/Deep Throat via WoodStein reaching critical mass, but on an evidently broad, thorough, and professional criminal investigation. These current events immediately become widely held public knowledge.
Jus’ sayin’.
At least that’s the positive way of looking at these current events that I hope pans out.
It could be argued that Roger Ailes specifically created FoxNews to make sure the next Nixon got away with it.
Nixon still had a positive approval rating among Republicans when he boarded the helicopter. It may have come out differently had those voters been able to bury themselves in a broadcast TV propaganda network and, as a result, would have punished elected Republicans who didn’t keep supporting Nixon…..much less demanding they outright break congressional order and/or the law to protect him.
The Republican voting base (and the party’s donors as we’re seeing) is even more rabidly fascist than in 1974 as evidenced by the collective shrug over this administrations multiple Watergates since even before it was sworn in.
A lot of that time was taken up with the stonewalling over the tapes. Once that ended, the end game played out very quickly.
The brain-dead and (in all senses of the word) unprecedented maneuvering that Trump and Cohen are trying to pull over on Judge Wood are an attempt to initiate a similar delaying strategy. Under today’s conditions, it cannot succeed…
…unless SCOTUS grants some kind of “emergency” stay. The standard bet is a nickel, but I don’t think they’ll have the big brass ones to do that.
I am cynical about this as well. Crime families usually have a judge or two in their pocket. So,already they are moving to have a referee or such to review the material. And of course it will all be given back to Cohen. An apology to Cohen may be in order. “Sorry bout that Michael, just my stupid help around here.” And the stupid judge or democrat or both will give it up. “Special master”my ass. This will go on forever.
When the ruling goes against him, does Trump start smearing Judge Wood for her failed nomination as Bill Clinton’s Attorney General or her time as a trainee at a Playboy Club in London in the early 1960s?
Yes.
yes and yes. although it’s awesome that she has that history with Playboy. it’s perfect.
I was thinking that we have 3 clients, Trump, the RNC’ s Broidy and Don Jr for work on his affair.
I was wondering how the monies paid in and out of the LLC Cohen created were treated at tax time. Guess we’ll find out.
Turds, meet Fan.
I can’t tell how smart this new lawyer of Trump’s is, but she worries me. She’s not the usual mobster sleazeball or fashion-world nitwit (like Cohen or Hicks); she seems to actually be competent, so I’m a little worried.
That said, this “demand” for the material could just be a futile delaying tactic — or it could be some nonsense that Trump insisted on and she might be about to quit like every other attorney he’s ever had except Cohen (who’s not even functioning as an attorney). Or it could be a hopeless attempt, not to block the documents, but simply to get a grip on what’s to come, conceptually, so as to begin organizing a defense.
She wrote a letter to the judge, with no citations at all. Just a request that would overturn what Attorney client privilege means, and allow every defendant going forward to halt any such search warrant. So not THAT smart.
Washington DC is filled with cut throat lawyers. Real sharks that would gladly defend the worst of dictators. That would not only defend them, but go on record and state that dictators have the right, given by God, to practice genocide against their own people. Yet in that world, Trump can’t find a lawyer. Why? Because he won’t give them money up front, and they know he won’t pay them later.
In that circumstance, what are the odds he will find one of the good ones, rather than a venal, attention seeker?
Not good, I would say.
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I’m going to take a leap of faith here and expect that the fees from this new lawyer will not be paid by the RNC slush fund as part of Mueller investigation so she may just be about to receive a nsf check from Trump. That is, if he bothers to cut a check at all.
If I were her I’d demand a wire transfer of a large retainer into a special account I’d set up just for that before proceeding.
Then as soon as the funds hit that account I’d transfer them elsewhere.
And THEN do legal work for Trump.
Judge Wood is 74, and lived through Watergate. She’ll recognize the historic import here.
(Of this week.)
Booman writes:
Unimaginable pressures must be coming down on Kimba Wood, from all sides of the question.
I’ll bet she punts…somehow sends it upcourt. I am not conversant with exactly where in the U.S. judicial pecking order a U.S. District Court resides in relationship to the Supreme Court, but anybody who got her start to the top of the judicial hustle from an Al D’Amato recommendation/Ronald Reagan nomination is suspect right out front.
The fact that she married the following types means that she is more than comfortable with the whole corporate, centrist, UniParty way of doing business, Rule #1 of which is “If there is someone upstairs to whom you can kick a problematic situation, by all means, do so.”
She’s no longer trying to make her bones in that gang; she’s in her 70s and she’s not going any higher. And…do not expect any sort of morally-based judgement. We are all known by who we sleep with, and “honor” is not a prime prerequisite in the upper echelons of economic power.
If she doesn’t punt, then she’ll just be doing her job for the establishment.
Rewards of some kind will follow.
Bet on it.
AG
P.S. And for all the kneejerk centrists in the audience…yes, I have absolutely lost any sort of trust in the members of said establishment other than trusting that they will do what is best for them.
On plentiful evidence.
Justice?
Some sort of moral turpitude?
“Justice” is whatever wins….just like the indisputable fact that history is written by the winners.
Watch.
She was not recommended by Al D’amato but by Daniel Patrick Moynihan. At that time D’amato and Moynihan had an agreement that when a Democrat was in office D’amato would select 25% of the judges from NYS, and when a Republican was in office Moynihan would select 25%. Lawrence O’Donell explained this in more detail on his show this evening, but this is a judge essentially put on the bench by Moynihan. I think it’s fair to say she’s not conservative or Republican.
And O’Donnell was Moynihan’s legislative aide, so I trust him to have the real scoop on that.
I remember Kimba Wood from the Milken case, as well as her failed AG nomination but didn’t know or recall the extraordinary bipartisan appointment agreement.
If this is true…and I don’t think O’Donnell would be stupid enough to make it up…I still want to see how she handles the high heat.
Watch.
I am.
AG
Well, we know the third client is none other than Sean Hannity.
This has GOT to be the dumbest reality TV show ever. Who would believe such crazy plot twists to be real?
Janury 2018: Hannity, Assange prediction tweetstorm
Touche’
How do you see the endgame?
No idea, I wasn’t the one who came up with it. Follow the oracle who named these names November 2017:
Kilgore_Trout
Oh such joy.! Now Politico is saying the dem advantage in the House is waning and has fallen from 12points at the beginning of the year to 4 now.
politico, and pretty much the whole media, exists to fluff republicans and disparage democrats.
You figure they are lying about this? It may not mean anything unless it stays this way. But there it is for now.
I doubt its false, just spun. A bad result in some poll fits the desired narrative so it gets reported heavily, same way that they all love “Democrats in disarray” headlines.
Yeah, there is no penalty for “bad” polling and it doesn’t take much effort to structure/conduct a poll to get a results that fits a specific narrative.
I have noticed these types of one off polls appear and jump to the top of the headlines right about any time the Republicans are either looking particularly bad and/or the Democratic Party is getting some momentum.
So you figure a lie then. But it is nonetheless true that polls at or around year end were over ten points, as high as 14. So this one is clearly lower. I would be concerned about this if it does not turn around quickly.
One ps. Ask Hillary about polls.
The polls were closer in 2016 than 2012.
Trump hasn’t done anything awful lately.
Not for people, or to people, who aren’t already paying attention.
People like that, like his bombing stuff.
People like that, like the deportations.
His gross personal behavior has already been priced in. It’s fully amortized.
This is why things like Larry Sabato’s fundamentals model of elections exist.
Still following the trend:
It means basically nothing.
Candidate preference polls are the ones to watch. Those wont happen until after the summer, and only sparingly. Everything else is basically noise.
Generally, you should just trust your intuition. Special elections might be an interesting data point but far from proven or reliable.
Enough special elections increase reliability.
Especially if they are in Red districts.