Tag: stormy daniels

Once upon a time, Donald Trump could rely on attorney Michael Cohen to do his dirty work, like demanding The Onion take down an article with Trump’s byline and a headline that read, “When You’re Feeling Low, Just Remember I’ll Be Dead in About 15 Or 20 Years”; or paying a porn star $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged affair. “If somebody does something Mr. Trump doesn’t like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr. Trump’s benefit,” Cohen told ABC News in 2011. “If you do something wrong, I’m going to come at you, grab you by the neck, and I’m not going to let you go until I’m finished.” We’re guessing Trump liked this arrangement, because he employed Cohen for more than a decade. Fast-forward a few years, though, and the ex-president is no longer so pleased with his former “fixer”—which presumably has something to do with Cohen telling a grand jury everything he knows about the hush money deals that led to Trump being charged with nearly three dozen felonies last week.

Per Reuters:

Former US President Donald Trump is suing his former lawyer Michael Cohen for more than $500 million, according to a filing in federal court in Florida on Wednesday. The lawsuit comes after Cohen, once Trump’s loyal “fixer,” testified before a Manhattan grand jury that later indicted Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, marking the first time in US history that a former president has been charged with a crime. Trump, who is seeking the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, pleaded not guilty in that case on April 4. Cohen is poised to be a star witness in any eventual trial in the case, which centers around a hush money payment he made before the 2016 election to a porn star who says she slept with Trump.

The lawsuit accuses Cohen of violating his attorney-client relationship with Trump by revealing his “confidences” and “spreading falsehoods” in books, podcasts, and media appearances. It says Cohen wrongfully called Trump “racist” in his 2020 book, Disloyal, and fabricated conversations with Trump.

“The timing of Disloyal’s release, just prior to the November 3, 2020, Presidential Election, suggests that Defendant intended to improperly disclose Plaintiff’s confidences when it would be most lucrative to do so—and while Disloyal would be sure to have the most damaging reputational effect,” the lawsuit reportedly reads. If you’re doing the math, Cohen’s book came out about 2.5 years ago, and while we’re not legal experts, it appears that this suit has a lot less to do with the things Cohen said about Trump in Disloyal than what he told a Manhattan grand jury last month.

Cohen’s testimony was presumably of significant interest to the grand jury given his central role in the hush money case. Cohen was the one who paid Stormy Daniels in October 2016, and was subsequently reimbursed while Trump was in office, with the leader of the free world, per The New York Times, “signing monthly checks.” Asked while testifying before Congress why his reimbursement was spread out over several months instead of being taken care of in one lump sum, given that Trump could clearly afford it, Cohen said it was “in order to hide what the payment was” and make it “look like a retainer.” Asked during the congressional testimony if Trump knew about the deal, Cohen answered, “Oh, he knew about everything, yes.”

Cohen did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

Something something Trump is my lord and savior, something something throw the Clintons in jail

Just another day in WTF-ville (Population: most of the Republican Party)

Elsewhere!

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Missouri House Republicans vote to defund libraries (Heartland Signal)

NPR quits Twitter, says the platform is “undermining” its credibility (NBC News)

Stormy Daniels’s lawyer submits complaint against Trump lawyer to NY panel (Washington Post)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s continued absence is impacting judicial nominees (San Fransisco Chronicle)

J.D. Vance’s “Big Tech” Plan Conveniently Makes More Money for J.D. Vance: Report (Rolling Stone)

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Donald Trump, who surrendered to the Manhattan district attorney’s office earlier today, has been arraigned on charges related to the hush money payment he made to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election. He was charged with a whopping 34 felony counts of falsifying business records—in the same New York courtroom where the Trump Organization was found guilty of tax fraud last year—and entered a plea of not guilty. 

As The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman noted, “Trump looked very unhappy as he walked into the courtroom,” which is unsurprising given he was there to be arraigned on criminal charges after a lifetime of escaping any and all responsibility for his actions.

If convicted of all 34 felonies, the former president could go to prison for up to 136 years. 

To his apparent surprise, Trump was indicted last week, making him the first president in US history to be charged with a crime after leaving office. He departed Florida for New York around noon on Monday, and spent the night at his triplex in Trump Tower, the interior design of which might be described as “If Louis XIV threw up all over the place. The walls, the floors, the couches, everywhere.” (In related news, Trump’s lies about said triplex were cited by New York attorney general Letitia James in her $250 million fraud suit against the ex-president, his company, and his three eldest children.) Rolling Stone reported on Monday that Trump was “offered a chance to surrender quietly and be arraigned over Zoom” but instead “opted for a midday, high-profile booking at the Manhattan courthouse…. ‘He wanted a perp walk, he wanted daylight hours,’” a law enforcement official told the outlet. Said a person close to Trump’s legal team: “It’s kind of a Jesus Christ thing. He is saying ‘I’m absorbing all this pain from all around from everywhere so you don’t have to’.”

According to multiple sources who spoke to CNN, the former president has hired a new attorney to serve as his lead counsel. That lawyer is Todd Blanche, who previously represented Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who was found guilty of eight felonies in one trial and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct justice in another. (He was later pardoned by Trump.)

As the outlet noted, Susan Necheles and Joe Tacopina will remain on Trump’s legal team, though Blanche’s hiring “has been seen by some inside Trump’s orbit as a sidelining of Tacopina, who up until this point has been one of the most forward-facing attorney’s dealing with Trump’s defense.” Last month, the internet uncovered footage of Tacopina saying in a 2018 TV interview, before he represented Trump, that the Daniels hush money payment was against the law; that it was potentially a “campaign finance issue”; and that the story that Michael Cohen acted in his own capacity when he paid Daniels $130,000 was BS. “That doesn’t make sense, that a lawyer took out a home equity loan with his own money, paid somebody that he didn’t even know on behalf of a client who, by the way, had the wherewithal and the money to afford $130,000,” Tacopina said, adding: “It’s an illegal agreement.”