The Onion gets it

.

Rudy still on a roll

And Trump still in on it.  The brilliance is blinding.







Doesn't change the fact that Cohen was taking money from AT&T on the expectation that it would make its way to a favorable deal.



He's new.  He'll get his facts straight.

UPDATE:






..but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

A "big mistake"

That may be the understatement of the year.



And I'll wait to see what Mr. Mueller's team has to say about the legality of it.

"Retiring."

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Times confirms Avenatti's claims

The Times’s review of financial records confirmed much of what was in Mr. Avenatti’s report.

[...]

A shell company that Michael D. Cohen used to pay hush money to a pornographic film actress received payments totaling more than $1 million from an American company linked to a Russian oligarch and several corporations with business before the Trump administration, according to documents and interviews.

[...]

Transactions adding up to at least $4.4 million flowed through Essential Consultants starting shortly before Mr. Trump was elected president and continuing to this January, the records show.

Among the previously unreported transactions were payments last year of about $500,000 from Columbus Nova, an investment firm in New York whose biggest client is a company controlled by Viktor Vekselberg, the Russian oligarch.

[...]

The payments by Columbus Nova occurred between January and August of last year. Andrew Intrater, the company’s American chief executive and Mr. Vekselberg’s cousin, donated $250,000 to Mr. Trump’s inaugruation, campaign finance records show. He and Mr. Vekselberg attended the event together and met with Mr. Cohen there, according to a person briefed on the matter. Columbus Nova retained him as a consultant soon afterward.

[...]

A lawyer for Columbus Nova, in a statement on Tuesday, described the money as a consulting fee that had nothing to do with Mr. Vekselberg.

Other transactions described in the financial records include hundreds of thousands of dollars he received from Fortune 500 firms with business before the Trump administration, as well as smaller amounts he paid for luxury expenses like a Mercedes-Benz and private club dues.

  NYT

Jesus, he couldn't even set up separate accounts? Sounds an awful lot like a slush fund for pretty much everything they didn't want public.

The financial records indicate that at least some of the money that passed through the company was from sources and in amounts that were inconsistent with its stated purpose.

[...]

Most of the transactions involved two banks: First Republic Bank and City National Bank.

[...]

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating Mr. Cohen for possible bank fraud and election-law violations, among other matters, according to people briefed on the investigation.

P.S. The Daily Beast also confirmed.

UPDATE 5/11:







Doesn't change the fact that Cohen was taking money from AT&T on the expectation that it would make its way to a favorable deal.



He's new.  He'll get his facts straight.

UPDATE:



UPDATE 5/12:

Ford Motor Co. was smart enough to turn down Cohen's "offer" of "consulting work".

The plot thickens

Boy does it.  As ever.

Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for porn star Stormy Daniels, said Tuesday that President Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen, within three months after the 2016 presidential election, received about $500,000 from a Russian oligarch who since has been interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller's team.

Avenatti also suggested in a Twitter post that "these monies may have reimbursed the" $130,000 payment that Cohen made to Daniels right before that election.

The money, Avenatti claimed, came from billionaire Russian businessman Viktor Vekselberg, who has ties to Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

  CNBC

That would provide an explanation for why Trump suddenly admits to paying back Cohen for the hush money. On the other hand, it could possibly just be more Russian mob money laundering business, I'd guess.

Avenatti cited the results of his own investigation but did not offer any sources for his claims.

Those claims include allegations that drug giant Novartis in late 2017 and early 2018 made four separate payments totaling nearly $400,000 to Cohen's company, shortly before Trump had a dinner meeting with the incoming CEO of Novartis.

Novartis had no immediate comment on that claim.

A report prepared by Avenatti's law firm also said that Cohen's company, Essential Consultants, "received $200,000 in four separate payments of $50,000 in late 2017 and early 2018 from AT&T."

In a prepared statement, AT&T told CNBC that Cohen's firm "was one of several firms we engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration.

What in hell? That's a lot of money for "understanding the new administration." I smell fish.

Avenatti's report also claimed that "Essential also received a $150,000 payment in November 2017 from Korea Aerospace Industries LTD."

Neither CNBC nor NBC News has verified the accuracy of his allegations.

I don't think he's pulling stuff out of his ass. But how did Michael Cohen and his company Essential (that made hush payments and deals with Trump's paramours) become the go-to guy for "dealing" with the Trump administration?

I'm going to have to guess this shit is why Avenatti has been saying since Giuliani opened his trap that Trump will resign before his first term is over.

You want to know the hilarious part? Trump and the White House are still denying he had that affair with Daniels.

Anyway, you can see why Trump desperately needs a war with Iran.

Read the Avenatti report here.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:


No shit.

The Daily Beast is confirming.

“How the fuck did Avenatti find out?” the source asked The Daily Beast.

  The Daily Beast

Trump is screaming the same thing tonight.

Vekselberg himself has holdings all over the world—including a 26.2% stake in Rusal, the aluminum producing giant owned by Oleg Deripaska, the Ukrainian oligarch now infamous for bankrolling former Trump campaign boss Paul Manafort. Both Deripaska and Vekselberg were sanctioned by the U.S. government in early April. But later that month, the U.S. Treasury Department, in effect, slow-rolled the sanctions, giving companies and individuals until late October to get out of business with Rusal, which is appealing Washington’s ruling. “Given the impact on our partners and allies, we are... extending the maintenance and wind-down period while we consider RUSAL’s petition,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.

And according to The New York Times, Vekselberg was recently questioned by federal agents working with Special Counsel Robert Mueller. CNN reported that those queries involved the oligarch’s payments to Cohen.

[...]

Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani dismissed the news as Avenatti having foresaw the president’s Tuesday withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal—part of “one of the best days of the Trump presidency”—and simply trying to “stink it up as much as possible.”

Yeah, Rudy, we all know who stinks.

There are reportedly concerns in the president’s inner circle that Cohen could begin cooperating with investigators. The greater the legal jeopardy he faces, the greater pressure he will face to cooperate. And he wouldn’t be the only one; former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and Trump campaign official Rick Gates are already cooperating with Mueller’s investigators.

Meanwhile, Avenatti is making a sport of riding Cohen in the press.

He's loving every minute of it.

“The constant media/PR pressure has forced Trump, Cohen, et al. to make a series of huge errors and to make damaging admissions helpful to our case,” Avenatti said. “This was not by accident. And we’re not changing.”

  The Atlantic

UPDATE:

UPDATE:  Times confirms.

About those AT&T bonus checks

They'll be covered by higher costs for AT&T service.  You knew there was a catch.



Merry Christmas from AT&T.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

h/t Jean

UPDATE:

Also...

Project X

The NSA's partnership with AT&T is physically housed in an unusual building in New York.

THEY CALLED IT Project X. It was an unusually audacious, highly sensitive assignment: to build a massive skyscraper, capable of withstanding an atomic blast, in the middle of New York City. It would have no windows, 29 floors with three basement levels, and enough food to last 1,500 people two weeks in the event of a catastrophe.

  The Intercept

And then what? Do they start whittling down the population; perhaps using the culls as food?

But the building’s primary purpose would not be to protect humans from toxic radiation amid nuclear war. Rather, the fortified skyscraper would safeguard powerful computers, cables, and switchboards.

Screw the people.

[P]lans describe the structure as “a skyscraper to be inhabited by machines” and say that it was “designed to house long lines telephone equipment and to protect it and its operating personnel in the event of atomic attack.”

[...]

It would house one of the most important telecommunications hubs in the United States [...] operated by the New York Telephone Company, a subsidiary of AT&T.

[...]

[Completed in 1974,] it can be found in the heart of lower Manhattan at 33 Thomas Street, a vast gray tower of concrete and granite [known as the “Long Lines Building”].

[...]

Unlike the many neighboring residential and office buildings, it is impossible to get a glimpse inside 33 Thomas Street. True to the designers’ original plans, there are no windows and the building is not illuminated. At night it becomes a giant shadow, blending into the darkness, its large square vents emitting a distinct, dull hum.

[...]

An investigation by The Intercept indicates that the skyscraper is more than a mere nerve center for long-distance phone calls. It also appears to be one of the most important National Security Agency surveillance sites on U.S. soil [codenamed TITANPOINTE] — a covert monitoring hub that is used to tap into phone calls, faxes, and internet data.

[...]

The NSA’s documents do not state that it can “connect directly to” or “otherwise control” AT&T’s networks, but they do make clear that the agency has placed its own equipment inside TITANPOINTE to tap into phone calls and internet data. It may be the case that the secure room where the equipment is installed is overseen by AT&T’s own engineers or technicians who have a security clearance. One NSA document dated from March 2013 suggests such a relationship, noting that the “corporate sites” the agency collects data from “are often controlled by the partner, who filters the communications before sending to NSA.”

[...]

Historically, AT&T has always maintained close ties with the government. A good example of this came in June 1976, when a congressional subcommittee served AT&T with a subpoena demanding that it hand over information about its alleged role in unlawful FBI wiretapping of phone calls. President Gerald Ford personally intervened to block the subpoena, stating that AT&T “was and is an agent of the United States acting under contract with the Executive Branch.” Ford said the company was in a “unique position” with respect to telephone and other communication lines in the U.S., and therefore it had been “necessary for the Executive Branch to rely on its services to assist in acquiring certain information necessary to the national defense and foreign policy.”

Watch Project X, a short film by Henrik Moltke and Laura Poitras.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.