Michael Cohen Prison Oddsmaker For May 23, 2018: Today's Chances Are LOL!
President's personal lawyer Michael Cohen, put on your kicky blazer and gather up your mob pals, because today is another day to smoke cigars in the face of YOU GOING TO JAIL.
Two tiny stories, and we're sure there's nothing to see here, nothing at all, just:
1) His business partner, New York City's "Taxi King," is CONSPIRING to SPY on him for DEEP STATE, if we are guessing how Donald Trump will characterize it, or IS AGREEING to COOPERATE with LAW ENFORCEMENT, if we are saying what is actual fact. Don't confuse Taxi King Evgeny Freidman with the Shtayners, Cohen's other taxi business partners, whom Cohen and his father-in-law loaned between $20 and $46 million in the past few years. (Cohen's father-in-law, Fima Shusterman, loaned the Shtayners between $20 and $40 million just in the past eight months, while Cohen himself loaned the Shtayners $6 million since 2012. Those are different taxi partners, and there's nothing at all weird about Cohen loaning $6 million to the Shustermans while taking out HELOCs for $130k. SHUT UP THERE IS NOT.)
If anybody knows where the taxi medallion bodies are buried, it is surely New York's taxi king, whom prosecutors gave a PRETTY SWEET DEAL -- five years of probation when he was facing 100 years of hard time for felony tax fraud. To which Michael Cohen says, WHO?
"I am one of thousands of medallion owners who entrust management companies to operate my medallions according to the rules of the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission," Cohen tweeted. "Gene Freidman and I are not partners and have never been partners in this business or any other," he continued, adding the hashtag "#MediaWrongAgain."
Felon dude managed his taxis along with other people's taxis, therefore ... PROFIT???? Also, the Cohen aficionado will remember the time he denied partnering in a mobbed-up casino boat company that ripped off lots of people thusly:
In an interview [...], Michael Cohen at first said that he did not have a stake in the casino business, only the yacht, and bore no responsibility for lost wages and unpaid debts. But BuzzFeed News then sent him documents with his signature showing he owned 30% of the company.
“I disagree and, if I did, I never knew it,” he said.
HE RESTS HIS CASE.
2) Michael Cohen may have taken a tiny bit of money, barely even a third of an abortion payoff, $400,000 to $600,000 only and is that even real money, from the government of Ukraine before setting up a meeting with the Ukrainian president and the US president, as if we even have one of those. In what universe is THAT bad? Also, Ukraine then dropped its investigation into Paul Manafort, what's the big deal.
Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, received a secret payment of at least $400,000 (£300,000) to fix talks between the Ukrainian president and President Trump, according to sources in Kiev close to those involved.
The payment was arranged by intermediaries acting for Ukraine's leader, Petro Poroshenko, the sources said, though Cohen was not registered as a representative of Ukraine as required by US law.
The meeting at the White House was last June.
Shortly after the Ukrainian president returned home, his country's anti-corruption agency stopped its investigation into Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort.
In the words of the immortal Don Henley until he too gets #metoo'd,
Somebody's going to emergency, somebody's going to jail.
This has been your Michael Cohen Prison Oddsmaker for May 23, 2018. Place your bets. (There are no bets. Michael Cohen is going to prison, and we won't pay out.)