Cohen Willing To Tell Mueller About Trump’s “Conspiracy To Collude” With Russia
Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, Aug 22 2018
If there was any doubt whether Michael Cohen had flipped, despite statements that he was not cooperating with the government as part of his guilty plea and refusing to name the “candidate” who instructed him to violate campaign finance law, that was promptly dissolved in the following hours when Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis said that his client has “knowledge” about computer hacking and collusion, and is willing to speak with Special Counsel Robert Mueller about a “conspiracy to collude” with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. Cohen, who pleaded guilty on Tuesday to helping Pres Trump pay hush money to two women, wants to tell Mueller that Trump knew of an infamous 2016 meeting at Trump Tower and the Russian hacking of Democratic institutions before they took place, Davis told MSNBC, deciding that any “attorney client” privilege in this case is strictly optional. Davis told MSNBC on Tuesday:
Mr Cohen has knowledge on certain subjects that should be of interest to the special counsel and is more than happy to tell the special counsel all that he knows. Not just about the obvious possibility of a conspiracy to collude and corrupt the Pindo democracy system in the 2016 election, which the Trump Tower meeting was all about, but also knowledge about the computer crime of hacking and whether or not Mr Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on.
More troubling for Trump, Davis said on Wednesday then said that “there is no dispute that Trump committed a crime” as he repeated that “Cohen has knowledge of a Russian conspiracy,” even if it was still unclear if Cohen or Davis have any evidence or proof to substantiate their allegations. According to the NY Post, last month a source told the publication that Cohen was present when Trump was informed by his son Donald Trump Jr that Russians offered “dirt” on then-candidate Hillary Clinton. Trump claimed he “didn’t know anything about the meeting” because “nobody told me” about it. Mueller’s probe into whether the Trump campaign was involved in Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections continues. But Mueller handed off the Cohen case to federal prosecutors in New York, which means that his guilty plea intensifies a second and entirely separate investigation that could threaten the president. Trump tried to shrug off the Manafort conviction, telling reporters Tuesday that it had nothing to do with Russian collusion, so we continue the witch-hunt. Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, said the Cohen plea deal wasn’t related to Trump. He said in a statement:
There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the president in the government’s charges against Mr Cohen. It is clear that, as the prosecutor noted, Mr Cohen’s actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time.
While Cohen didn’t name Trump in court, referring instead to a “candidate” who directed him to make the illegal payments, Davis was more direct, saying in a statement later Tuesday of Cohen:
He stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election.
If Trump knew about the payments and that they were illegal, he could be charged with violating election law for accepting illegal payments and not disclosing them, said Paul S Ryan, a campaign finance lawyer with Common Cause. Current DoJ guidelines state that a sitting president cannot be indicted, and that any wrongdoing should be referred to Congress for impeachment proceedings. Those guidelines aren’t binding. Nearly at the same time as Cohen pled guilty, in a Virginia courtroom Trump’s former campaign finance chair, Tim Manafort was found guilty on five counts of tax fraud, one count of failing to file a financial document with the government, and two counts of bank fraud. The jury couldn’t reach a decision on the other 10 counts. He was accused of lying to tax authorities about his income and offshore tax accounts, failing to file reports about those accounts, and defrauding banks to get loans. Trump said Tuesday of the Manafort verdict:
It’s a witch hunt and it’s a disgrace. This has nothing what they started out looking for, Russians involved in our campaign, there were none.
Trump declined to answer questions on Cohen. The media is now speculating whether Trump will pardon Manafort, who is reportedly evaluating all options. Meanwhile, speaking on CNN on Wednesday, Davis said that Michael Cohen wouldn’t accept a pardon if one was offered by Trump, and instead Davis urged people to support Cohen using a GoFundMe fund with a $500k goal. Playing the “remorseful criminal” card, Davis also told MSNBC that it was Trump’s meeting with Pres Putin in Helsinki that marked “a significant turning point” for Cohen and encouraged him to come forward out of concern about the future. “That shook up Mr Cohen,” who may be a tax-evading criminal but is first and foremost a patriot.
Audience Boos, Laughs As Cohen Lawyer’s GoFundMe Campaign Tops $100k
Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, Aug 22 2018
Lanny Davis’ Retirement Fund “Michael Cohen Truth Fund” GoFundMe has topped $100k in its first 19 hours. During an interview on Megyn Kelly Today, the lawyer begged viewers to give money to Cohen so that he can “continue to tell the truth.” Davis said:
Could I take one opportunity to remind everyone that Michael Cohen has suffered a tragic and difficult experience with his family. He’s without resources, and we’ve set up a website called michaelcohentruth.com, that we’re hoping that he will get some help from the American people so he can continue to tell the truth.
As the clip shows, the audience was not impressed by his plea for cash, booing and laughing and even raising a smile from Megyn Kelly as she said:
I don’t know if they’re ready to donate, Lanny.
Of course, Davis had the last slimey word:
I would say the reaction of your audience may be they are not as interested in getting the truth out about Donald Trump as many other people in the country.
With all the ‘slam-dunk’ evidence that he is proclaiming to have, some might wonder why Michael Cohen’s lawyer, long-time Clinton friend and Bill Clinton’s special counsel, Lanny Davis is launching a GoFundMe page so he can get paid? Davis announced the GoFundMe campaign in an interview on MSNBC Morning Joe this morning. He said:
In order to get Michael to be able to help, we need help on this fund, MichaelCohenTruthFund.com, we ask everybody to help Michael Cohen tell the truth about Donald Trump.
The so-called “Michael Cohen Truth Fund” GoFundMe page states that it wants to help Cohen with his “commitment to tell the truth,” and has raised more than $15k in its first hour.
On Jul 2 2018, Michael Cohen declared his independence from Donald Trump and his commitment to tell the truth. On Aug 21, Michael Cohen made the decision to take legal responsibility and to continue his commitment to tell the truth. Michael decided to put his family and his country first. Now Michael needs your financial help, to pay his legal fees. The Michael Cohen Truth Fund is a transparent trust account, with all donations going to help Michael Cohen and his family as he goes forward on his journey to tell the truth about Donald Trump.
With a $500k goal, we are sure Mr Davis, who created the page, will be handsomely rewarded for his truth-seeking efforts.
Lanny Davis Destroys CNN’s “Bombshell” Report On Trump Tower ‘Collusion’ Meeting
Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, Aug 23 2018
In an odd disturbance in the ‘resistance’ farce, Michael Cohen’s lawyer, longtime Clinton friend and Bill Clinton’s special counsel, Lanny Davis crushed CNN’s hopes and dreams of a smoking gun over Trump’s awareness of the Trump Tower meetings and blew up the Russia collusion narrative by confirming that the Steele dossier was entirely false with regard Cohen’s alleged trip to Prague. As Chuck Ross details, a CNN report in July that Michael Cohen has information that Pres Trump was aware of the infamous Trump Tower meeting before it occurred got “mixed up” and was inaccurate, Cohen attorney Lanny Davis said Wednesday night. CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked Davis:
So Michael Cohen does not have information that President Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians beforehand or even after?
Davis, a longtime Clinton insider who started representing Cohen earlier this summer, replied:
No, he does not.
Davis’s bombshell statement severely undercuts a Jul 27 CNN report that Cohen was willing to tell Mueller that he was in a meeting when Donald Trump Jr told his father about an offer to meet with a group of Russians who wanted to provide dirt on former Sec State Hillary Clinton. According to CNN’s anonymous sources, Trump approved the meeting, which took place on Jun 9 2016. Demagogs seized on the CNN report as evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government. The report also opened up the possibility that Trump and Trump Jr. publicly lied about the Trump Tower meeting. Trump has said publicly that he did not know about the meeting until a year after it occurred. Trump Jr told the Senate Judiciary Committee in Sep 2017 that his father did not know about the meeting. Davis said that the initial report was “mixed up” and that Cohen’s legal team was unable to correct it because of an ongoing criminal investigation into the longtime Trump fixer. Cohen pleaded guilty on Tuesday in federal court in New York to tax evasion, bank fraud and making excessive campaign finance donations by arranging hush payments to two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump. Davis told Cooper:
I think the reporting of the story got mixed up in the course of a criminal investigation. We were not the source of the story. And the question of a criminal investigation, the advice we were given, those of us dealing with the media is that we could not do anything other than stay silent.
Davis was asked about the Trump Tower report because of a statement issued on Tuesday by Sens Richard Burr and Mark Warner, the leaders of the SSCI. The senators said in the statement that Cohen told the committee in Oct 2017 that he was not aware of the Trump Tower meeting until it was reported in Jul 2017. Burr and Warner said Cohen’s legal team confirmed that the testimony was accurate. Davis dealt another major blow to the allegations of Trump campaign collusion when he said in an interview with Bloomberg News that the Steele dossier’s allegations about Cohen are false. Davis said:
Thirteen references to Mr Cohen are false in the dossier, and he has never been to Prague in his life.
The dossier, which was funded by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, alleged that Cohen visited Prague in Aug 2016 as part of a “clandestine” operation to collude with Kremlin insiders to influence the 2016 election. Dossier author Christopher Steele claimed that Cohen arranged payments to hackers to carry out the scheme. Davis reiterated in an interview on MSNBC later Wednesday:
Never, ever, ever in Prague.
Niqnaq 
One Comment
Now he knows it all? What a classic cohencidence.