Michael Cohen Ready To Spill, And HELLO Don Jr. And Eric!
Dis gon be gooooooood.
Michael Cohen, THIS IS YOUR LIFE! All wrapped up in one 22-page filing in a federal court in Manhattan. And if we've all sobered up from yesterday's GOP GOTHEFUCKTOJAILGHAZIGATE, it's time to get all up in this criminal information like a turkey in Trump's mom's puss.
Glove up kids, we're goin' in!
Scammin' Uncle Sam
How do you fail to report $4 million of income to the IRS over five years? Ya gotta hustle!
Sometimes you make off-the-books loans and forget to declare the interest income.
Between 2012 and the end of 2016, MICHAEL COHEN, the defendant, earned more than $2. 4 million in income from a series of personal loans made by COHEN to a taxi operator to whom COHEN leased certain of his Chicago taxi medallions ("Taxi Operator-1"), none of which he disclosed to the IRS.
Sometimes you lease out your taxicab medallions and get paid $1.3 million by personal check. What the accountant doesn't know won't hurt him, amirite?
This income took two forms. First, COHEN did not report the substantial majority of a bonus payment of at least $870,000, which was made by Taxi Operator-2 in or about 2012 to induce COHEN to allow Taxi Operator-2 to operate certain of COHEN'S medallions. Second, between 2012 and 2016, COHEN concealed substantial additional taxable income he received from Taxi Operator-2's operation of certain of COHEN'S taxi medallions.
And sometimes you see a chance to make a quick buck, or thirty thousand, and you take it.
Approximately $30,000 in profit made, in 2015, for brokering the sale of a Birkin Bag, a highly coveted French handbag that retails for between $11,900 to $300,000, depending on the type of leather or animal skin used.
LOLWHUT? (And also, whyyyyyy? Those bags are so ugly!)
Scammin' The Bank Man
You know how sometimes you just really, really need to buy that $8.5 million summer home, so you tell the bank a whole pile of lies to get the financing? Only then you wind up violating federal law, so if the feds want to flip you for something, they have plenty if ammunition?
No?
Okay, look. Lots and lots of people tell lies on mortgage applications. Alan Dershowitz isn't totally crazy when he says that we all break the law in big and small ways every day. But we don't all run for president. Or scheme to pay off a porn star in violation of campaign finance law. Or do business with a bunch of skeevy Russians who seem very interested in parking their cash in dubious real estate ventures that never come to fruition. But if we did, we'd assume the risk that shit would come out once the spotlight was on us!
You pays your money, you takes your chances.
Scammin' The Vote
And now for the sexxxxy dirts portion of our programming! First of all, DAVID PECKER, CALL YOUR LAWYER!
At all times relevant to this Information, Corporation-1 was a media company that owns, among other things, a popular tabloid magazine ("Magazine-1"). In or about August 2015, the Chairman and Chief Executive of Corporation-1 ("Chairman-1"), in coordination with MICHAEL COHEN, the defendant, and one or more members of the campaign, offered to help deal with negative stories about Individual-l's relationships with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided. Chairman-1 agreed to keep COHEN apprised of any such negative stories.
A scheme to spend corporate cash to assist a presidential candidate? Cool, cool. Michael Cohen is ready to spill every detail of the campaign's deal with the National Enquirer and its parent company AMI to throw money at women who had sex with Trump to shut them up, which means AMI's CEO David Pecker is smack in the middle of a massive scheme to violate campaign finance laws. Sucks to be you, dude!
UNLESS ... campaign finance laws are all a rigged liberal witch hunt by 17 angry Hillary Democrats!
That train is never late!
Also, too, KEITH DAVIDSON, CALL YOUR LAWYER!
MICHAEL COHEN, the defendant, did not immediately execute the agreement, nor did he pay Woman-2. On the evening of October 25, 2016, with no deal with Woman-2 finalized, Attorney-1 told Editor-1 that Woman-2 was close to completing a deal with another outlet to make her story public. Editor-1, in turn, texted MICHAEL COHEN, the defendant, that "[w] e have to coordinate something on the matter [Attorney-1 is] calling you about or it could look awfully bad for everyone." Chairman-1 and Editor-1 then called COHEN through an encrypted telephone application. COHEN agreed to make the payment, and then called Attorney-1 to finalize the deal.
Not that there was every any doubt that Cohen, Pecker and Davidson were all in on the scheme to find women who'd bumped uglies with Trump and buy them off -- we told you all about it right here in this mommyblog. But Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels are going to sue the shit out of their former lawyer, so ... sucks to be you, Keith Davidson!
Because, plea deal or no, Cohen is ready to TALK.
“Right now, Michael Cohen needs help from the American people to tell the truth, and we’ve set up a website.” Micha… https: //t.co/i6Di40l4uE
— TODAY (@TODAY) 1534936501.0
How YOU livin', Don and Eric?
Before we get to Uday and Qusay, we need to extend our deepest apologies to Rudy Giuliani. No one is more surprised than we are that the old goat was absolutely right about Michael Cohen getting repaid for the $130,000 Daniels payout in $35,000 "retainer" installments.
Everybody was nervous about this from the very beginning. I wasn't. I knew how much money Donald Trump put into that campaign, and I said, "$130,000? He could do a couple of checks for $130,000." When I heard of Cohen's retainer for $130,000, he was doing no work for the president. I said, "Well, that's how he's repaying it, with a little profit and a little margin for paying taxes for Michael.
SON OF A BITCH! We just thought the guy was ranting, but it turns out he was dead on! And also fucking insane to admit that on television, but we digress.
In or about January 2017, MICHAEL COHEN, the defendant, in seeking reimbursement for election-related expenses, presented executives of the Company with a copy of a bank statement from the Essential Consultants bank account, which reflected the $130,000 payment COHEN had made to the bank account of Attorney-1 in order to keep Woman-2 silent in advance of the election, plus a $35 wire fee, adding, in handwriting, an additional "$50,000." The $50, 000 represented a claimed payment for "tech services, " which in fact related to work COHEN had solicited from a technology company during and in connection with the campaign. COHEN added these amounts to a sum of $180,035. After receiving this document, executives of the Company "grossed up" for tax purposes COHEN' s requested reimbursement of $180,000 to $360,000, and then added a bonus of $60,000 so that COHEN would be paid $420,000 in total. Executives of the Company also determined that the $420,000 would be paid to COHEN in monthly amounts of $35,000 over the course of twelve months, and that COHEN should send invoices for these payments.
New York being a high-tax jurisdiction, Michael Cohen need to earn approximately $360,000 in pre-tax dollars to net out the $130,000 he paid to Daniels. The $60,000 "bonus" brought him up to $420,000, or $35,000 per month for 12 months. (If they weren't trying to hide it, they could have saved the $130,000 in taxes and Cohen could have just passed the invoice along directly.)
So who exactly paid Cohen back?
On or about February 14, 2017, MICHAEL COHEN, the defendant, sent an executive of the Company ("Executive-1") the first of his monthly invoices, requesting "[p]ursuant to [a] retainer agreement, ... payment for services rendered for the months of January and February, 2017." The invoice listed $35,000 for each of those two months. Executive-1 forwarded the invoice to another executive of the Company ("Executive-2") the same day by email, and it was approved. Executive-1 forwarded that email to another employee at the Company, stating: "Please pay from the Trust. Post to legal expenses. Put 'retainer for the months of January and February 2017' in the description."
WHAT TRUST? Would that be the trust that Donald Trump put all his assets in when he became president? Ayup! And guess who controls that trust???
So, which of you dipshits is Executive-1? Our money is on DJ, but we're open to other possibilities. And since Trump Org CEO Allen Weisselberg knew about the "retainer" agreement -- i.e. the plan to bury an illegal campaign donation in the company's books using sham invoices -- he's looking pretty good for Executive-2.
YOU DUMB BASTARDS!
Okay, that's enough words for now. Shit's hitting the fan hard, and we need to rest up. But before we go, hats off to Stormy Daniels and Michael Avenatti, who brought the receipts! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Cohen Information by wgbhnews on Scribd
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Good question. I asked the same question. I was told it was a corporate decision. Same thing with checks from banks with routing numbers in the flood zone. Guess what else happened? Every single person with an address in the flood zone saw their credit scores dropped 50 points 3 days after the hurricane. For no good reason. They did it because they can do it.