Time for a bit of juicy gossip. Recent reports claim Trump is scared sh_tless that his personal fixer, the guy who knows where the bodies are buried, is about to spill his guts to Robert Mueller's crack team of prosecutorial sleuths.
The news today is that Michael Cohen's lawyers will be taking their leave on Friday. When lawyers 'fire' a client it usually results from one or more of just a few causes: the client won't accept the lawyers' advice, the client has stopped paying, or the lawyers have learned incriminating facts about their client that would prevent them from representing that client at trial (a lawyer can be in serious trouble if she/he knowingly allows the client to lie in court). Chances are this is one of those "Door Three" situations.
Apparently federal prosecutors (not Mueller's) from the Southern District of New York, have told Cohen's lawyers that they're just finishing up the indictments. Cohen has said he expects to be in the case-hardened chrome bracelets in the next few days.
From CNBC:
President Donald Trump's longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen is expected to lose his current legal defense team and is likely to begin cooperating with federal prosecutors who are investigating him, according to new reports Wednesday.
ABC News, which first broke the news in an article citing unidentified sources, said Cohen's current attorneys, Stephen Ryan and Todd Harrison, are not expected to represent him going forward in the pending criminal probe in New York City.
The Wall Street Journal said Ryan's and Harrison's expected departure would come after completing an ongoing review of files seized from Cohen in an April 9 FBI raid.
The Journal article said Cohen is searching for a new criminal defense lawyer and has not yet decided whether to cooperate. ABC News said it is likely that Cohen will cooperate.
A source close to Cohen who spoke with NBC News confirmed the expected split from Ryan and Harrison and his plan to hire a new lawyer. NBC reported that it is unclear whether the move signals a change in legal strategy or future cooperation by Cohen.
It is not unusual for a target of a criminal investigation to switch lawyers when they are on the verge of cooperating with prosecutors.Let's hope that Cohen doesn't get the "full Jack Ruby" before he sings. Stranger things...
12 comments:
I don't know, Mound. The Feds seized a massive trove of documents, tapes and hard drives from Cohen's offices. With that much evidence, even a Cooley grad like him has to realize that lying isn't a good strategy for staying out of jail.
Door 2's looking good to me - Cohen's likely tapped out. Having his white-shoe lawyers comb through 3.5 million documents for privilege on a tight deadline will quickly eat up even a large retainer. And with Uber, Lyft, and so on, those NY cab medallions aren't worth what they once were.
Cap
Holding your breath still?
"The Mueller Indictments Still Don’t Add Up to Collusion
A year of investigations has led to several guilty pleas, but none of them go to the core of the special counsel’s mandate."
https://www.thenation.com/article/mueller-indictments-still-dont-add-collusion/
and the subsequent article on the same site:
Trump’s Genius Is His Entertaining Idiocy
The president’s ability to distract obscures his administration’s assault on democratic institutions.
I must say that at this point it's pretty clear that since none of the institutions of governance in the good ole USA function as purposed it's highly unlikely that anyone close to Trump will be found guilty of anything let alone perp walked out of their offices or homes into a court.
We have to begin coming to terms with the fact that what the USA has been it is no more. It is now a fascist state and a serious and imminent threat to the world but most especially to Canada. I expect that there will be no more Canada sometime before the turn of the next century.
NPOV, in 1994, Ken Starr's original mandate was to investigate the death of Vince Foster and Slick Willy's involvement in a real estate deal in Arkansas. He got nowhere with that, so he moved on to investigate Bill's extra-marital liaisons, which eventually led him to Monica's blue dress and Clinton's impeachment on perjury and obstruction charges in 1998. The investigation lasted four years and led to House impeachment on charges that had nothing to do with the core of Starr's mandate. So, to the Nation's article I say, "so what?"
Cap
Cap makes an excellent point. How long did the investigation take that led to Nixon's departure from the White House? And that was about events that occurred entirely within D.C.
Mueller's investigation is vastly more extensive and ranges out to the US west coast and in the other direction to Germany, Cyprus and Russia.
Aaron Matte's dismissive conclusion is based on what has come out in public so far. Do you imagine if that is all Mueller had come up with he'd be continuing this investigation? If you do, you don't know much about Mueller.
I ran a new scenario in my mind last night -
I know Trump is a carpet bagger and I think he has just done what no one thought possible: right under the noses of Russia and China, he infiltrated a communist country using capitalist ideas.
It doesn't matter to Trump what the years of dictatorship have done to the North Korean people - "everyone has done something bad" and he now plans to pillage the country for all it's worth.
Kim Jong-Un is open to it; as long as he doesn't lose power, what does it matter? He'll probably have his own suite at the top of the first Trump Tower.
The USA is no longer led by moral values; it's greed, money and as much as you can get. Trump is clever if you forego any belief in a higher good.
Watch out Canada; I think Trump fights the West because we still claim to value human rights. Our rights can fly out the window when gold toilets are on offer.
I guess I don't. Do you personally? You place him on a pedestal, and I see no reason to agree. To me, he's neocon central off on a witch hunt beyond his terms of reference. The FBI and CIA have been neocon adventurers for decades. Trump annoys them intensely. What business does he have screwing up the PNAC plan for world dominance?
Vox today says Mueller's approval rating is 30%. If true, a lot more than Trump supporters view him negatively.
He should get on with the Russian so-called interference aspects of his probe. I see no reason to trust US interests any more than the Russians, they're just better at reacting in horror when their sacred US, home of democracy and all that's good, bright and honourable in this world has been "attacked" by the dastardly Russian "menace". Of course, screwing up any other country's election in a far more nasty and overt way is a US prerogative, not available to any other mere country. They're exceptional.
Apparently we should cheer Mueller veering off on a tangent, because the ends justify the means, an ethically shallow position from time immemorial.
Well, count me out on that score, thanks very much.
BM
Sorry Cap,
Whitewater started in 1994 when Janet Reno appointed Republican Robert Fiske to investigate the Whitewater Land Deals, Fiske was replaced by Starr by the Republican Senate for not being anti-Clinton enough, and Starr's investigation, which was never legally mandated to go off book, ended in 1998 with a whimper at a cost of $102 million dollars, just part of the over $280 million dollars spent investigating the Clintons over 40 years with only one consensual blowjob found.
Whitewater wound up with the convictions of 15 Alabama figures for 40 counts of unrelated frauds and bribery.
The Meuller probe has cost $17 million so far, has lasted by June 18, one year and one month, is mandated by the Justice Department to be a broad based, wide ranging, "any and all", Criminal and Counterintelligence* investigation and prosecution of Russian interference in the 2016 US Elections.
So far, 20 people have been indicted on 104 charges, with 3 of the charged taking guilty pleas and testifying, one reached a deal to drop charges in exchane for testimony, and one convicted, sentenced and cooperating,
So far.
* keep in mind, there is that CounterIntelligence Investigation, inditements and FISA Court Trials that you will only hear about after aquittal or conviction, the 3 State AG investigations and indictments on "lesser" criminal charges, and of course, the expasnsion into Russian money laundering into the Republican Campaigns through the NRA and Fundimentalist Churches.
BTW, Mound,
Mueller has said nothing about the investigations.
Unlike previous Republican Special Councils and their Clinton Investigations, he's letting the indictments, trials, pleas and convictions speak for themselves.
Anytime you hear anything other than that, it's Current Treason Tribble Трамп's Minions and Flying Monkey's leaking like a sieve.
There's nothing Mueller can say publicly, other than what's said in court, Jay. Mueller is a Special Counsel appointed through the authority of the Attorney General. Since the AG has recused himself from the Russia investigation, Mueller answers to the Deputy AG. His mandate is to produce a confidential report on his investigation of possible interference by the Russian government in the 2016 presidential election.
Ken Starr, OTOH, was an Independent Counsel appointed under the Independent Counsel Reauthorization Act. He had virtually unlimited powers, answered to no-one and acted like it.
Cap
Going after a President and his cronies in the USA is always a political process with that uses criminal charges.
Even some Rethuglicans had principles in Nixon's day. Ancient history.
Clinton was impeached but never convicted and survived to become a popular ex-Pres.
The anti Trump forces won't even get that far.
Trump viewed Kim's video and his heart was all a twitter. That is the gist of this first meeting. Who understands whom here? Nothing has changed in North Korea at all, and the South whom Trump wants to pay for Kim's trip, doesn't give a rat's xxxx about the plight of people of North Korea. Kim is a lot smarter than Trump understands. Anyong.
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