FBI Raids Office of Trump Lawyer Michael Cohen

[Buffalo_Gal]

Reading this thread is incredible. I honestly would like to know what President Trump did to some of you that you want to see a sitting president gone in a soft coup. Schumer said it best when he said, "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you" ... and people cheer this behavior by our "intelligence community" on!? I've never understood the vitriol toward Trump by people who are not members of the unelected-political swap.

[Coach Tuesday]

9 minutes ago, Buffalo_Gal said:

Reading this thread is incredible. I honestly would like to know what President Trump did to some of you that you want to see a sitting president gone in a soft coup. Schumer said it best when he said, "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you" ... and people cheer this behavior by our "intelligence community" on!? I've never understood the vitriol toward Trump by people who are not members of the unelected-political swap.

 

Oh yeah?  The institution of the Presidency is where you draw the line?  And I'm sure you harbored no such thoughts about his predecessor.

 

You're part of the "swamp."

[meazza]

1 minute ago, Coach Tuesday said:

 

Oh yeah?  The institution of the Presidency is where you draw the line?  And I'm sure you harbored no such thoughts about his predecessor.

 

You're part of the "swamp."

 

Man you’re an angry dude.

[Coach Tuesday]

5 minutes ago, meazza said:

 

Man you’re an angry dude.

 

You're right I'm angry.  I'm tired of it.  I'm a registered independent, I've voted for both parties in Presidential elections over the past two decades.  What Trump has done to our institutions is disgraceful - and the only thing worse is the hordes of zombies, trolls, and unabashed racists who cheer him on because "he ain't afraid to tell it like it is."  

[meazza]

1 minute ago, Coach Tuesday said:

 

You're right I'm angry.  I'm tired of it.  I'm a registered independent, I've voted for both parties in Presidential elections over the past two decades.  What Trump has done to our institutions is disgraceful - and the only thing worse is the hordes of zombies, trolls, and unabashed racists who cheer him on because "he ain't afraid to tell it like it is."  

 

Take a pill and a take a nap. Who you vote for will never make a difference. 

[GG]

9 minutes ago, Coach Tuesday said:

 

You're right I'm angry.  I'm tired of it.  I'm a registered independent, I've voted for both parties in Presidential elections over the past two decades.  What Trump has done to our institutions is disgraceful - and the only thing worse is the hordes of zombies, trolls, and unabashed racists who cheer him on because "he ain't afraid to tell it like it is."  

 

Then you should be able to recount how Trump has disgraced the institutions.

[Coach Tuesday]

2 minutes ago, GG said:

 

Then you should be able to recount how Trump has disgraced the institutions.

 

You need it recounted?

 

Lying on a daily basis?  Requesting loyalty from high-ranking law enforcement officials?  How much time you got?

[GG]

Just now, Coach Tuesday said:

 

You need it recounted?

 

Lying on a daily basis?  Requesting loyalty from high-ranking law enforcement officials?  How much time you got?

 

These are all well documented Trump personality disorders. 

 

How have they reverberated to disgrace the institutions, especially in the context of the federal government's stated role?

[Buffalo_Gal]

33 minutes ago, Coach Tuesday said:

 

Oh yeah?  The institution of the Presidency is where you draw the line?  And I'm sure you harbored no such thoughts about his predecessor.

 

You're part of the "swamp."

Actually, I didn't. 

Anyone who thinks the people going after Trump are doing it "for the good of the country" needs to do a little (ok a lot) of research into just what is going on. This is a last-ditch effort to distract and isolate. With it, they have allowed the attorney-client privilege to be used (abused) in an egregious manner.  After all, if the swamp creatures can do this to one of the sitting president's attorneys, what safeguards do any of us have that this will not happen to us?

Edited April 10, 2018 by Buffalo_Gal

[B-Man]

11 minutes ago, GG said:

 

Then you should be able to recount how Trump has disgraced the institutions.

 

 

"He just did !.......................Okay?...................everyone knows it " - Til Tuesday

 

 

[Tiberius]

24 minutes ago, meazza said:

 

Take a pill and a take a nap. Who you vote for will never make a difference. 

People should not care about their government when a Republican is in office. 

[leh-nerd skin-erd]

1 hour ago, Coach Tuesday said:

 

You're right I'm angry.  I'm tired of it.  I'm a registered independent, I've voted for both parties in Presidential elections over the past two decades.  What Trump has done to our institutions is disgraceful - and the only thing worse is the hordes of zombies, trolls, and unabashed racists who cheer him on because "he ain't afraid to tell it like it is."  

what is it, as an  "independent", that has you more enraged at the lies and deceptions of this prez vs any of the previous leaders?  Or the lies of members/prior members of the Senate /House ( McCain, Reid, etc)? Or prior candidates, Clinton etc. 

 

is it a stylistic concern? Have you aged into it? Or is it just the last 2 years or so that have you frothy? 

Edited April 10, 2018 by leh-nerd skin-erd

[Warren Zevon]

 

[HappyDays]

57 minutes ago, Buffalo_Gal said:

Reading this thread is incredible. I honestly would like to know what President Trump did to some of you that you want to see a sitting president gone in a soft coup.

 

A coup huh? They're investigating Cohen for bank fraud. Mueller found evidence of that and he gave the tip to the SDNY. The SDNY then followed normal procedures for obtaining a search warrant for an attorney and then executed it. We don't even know yet if attorney-client privilege was violated. I've seen speculation that the SDNY could be the "dirty team" tasked with separating out any privileged records that would have been obtained in the search. No one knows anything yet. Cohen will have the chance to publicly release the warrant if he wants to, although most legal commentators I've read say his lawyers would probably advise him not to do that.

 

Here's the relevant government statute on securing and executing a search warrant on an attorney's residence:

 

https://www.justice.gov/usam/usam-9-13000-obtaining-evidence#9-13.420

 

The guidelines are very stringent. If you've seen evidence or reports that these guidelines weren't followed for some reason, post them. Otherwise we have a notoriously difficult to obtain warrant that was sure to receive a ton of scrutiny, which was reviewdd and authorized by several members of the federal justice system, including a Republican DA and Republican Director of the FBI who were both appointed by Trump himself. There's simply no reason to think this is anything but a normal criminal investigation. It might not have anything to do with Trump at all. Mueller is running his own investigation and found evidence against Cohen. He isn't supposed to just ignore that, he handed it off to the proper parties and let them handle it. Where was the coup in all this?

[Gary M]

34 minutes ago, Coach Tuesday said:

 

You need it recounted?

 

Lying on a daily basis?  Requesting loyalty from high-ranking law enforcement officials?  How much time you got?

 

If this was true, they wouldn't need a fake dossier from Hillary and Russia to start an investigation into the fake russian collusion story to impeach him.

[TakeYouToTasker]

11 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

I would love to hear you explain in your own words what you think this means.

 

 

 

Well...

 

Roe v Wade has made abortions legal, so it's not that...

 

Paying for someone else's abortion is legal, so it's not that...

 

Paying someone not to talk about having an abortion is legal, so it's not that...

 

So, the FBI having possession of documents related to three perfectly legal things, which only have value in the political arena, and using them as leverage over the sitting President...  I think I've found the thing that's legally problematic in what you've presented!

[Buffalo_Gal]

Just now, HappyDays said:

 

A coup huh? They're investigating Cohen for bank fraud. Mueller found evidence of that and he gave the tip to the SDNY. The SDNY then followed normal procedures for obtaining a search warrant for an attorney and then executed it. We don't even know yet if attorney-client privilege was violated. I've seen speculation that the SDNY could be the "dirty team" tasked with separating out any privileged records that would have been obtained in the search. No one knows anything yet. Cohen will have the chance to publicly release the warrant if he wants to, although most legal commentators I've read say his lawyers would probably advise him not to do that.

 

Here's the relevant government statute on securing and executing a search warrant on an attorney's residence:

 

https://www.justice.gov/usam/usam-9-13000-obtaining-evidence#9-13.420

 

The guidelines are very stringent. If you've seen evidence or reports that these guidelines weren't followed for some reason, post them. Otherwise we have a notoriously difficult to obtain warrant that was sure to receive a ton of scrutiny, which was reviewdd and authorized by several members of the federal justice system, including a Republican DA and Republican Director of the FBI who were both appointed by Trump himself. There's simply no reason to think this is anything but a normal criminal investigation. It might not have anything to do with Trump at all. Mueller is running his own investigation and found evidence against Cohen. He isn't supposed to just ignore that, he handed it off to the proper parties and let them handle it. Where was the coup in all this?

4

No one knows much at this point (48 hour rule).  Was it correctly obtained? At this point, no one knows.  (I would hope like heck it was.) 

If that 150K is what they are looking at then I have to ask if they raided the Clinton attorney's offices based on the $13,000,000 donations from the same guy to them? 

Distract and isolate. As I understand it  (I am not an attorney and do not play one on the internet) anything "interesting" found on Trump in his attorney's offices would be difficult to introduce into court so what purpose is the raid? Other than headlines, I mean?

[Koko78]

1 hour ago, Coach Tuesday said:

 

You're right I'm angry.  I'm tired of it.  I'm a registered independent, I've voted for both parties in Presidential elections over the past two decades.  What Trump has done to our institutions is disgraceful - and the only thing worse is the hordes of zombies, trolls, and unabashed racists who cheer him on because "he ain't afraid to tell it like it is."  

 

I love the idiots who come here claiming to be "independents", yet every post they make spouts DNC talking points.

8 minutes ago, Buffalo_Gal said:

Distract and isolate. As I understand it  (I am not an attorney and do not play one on the internet) anything "interesting" found on Trump in his attorney's offices would be difficult to introduce into court so what purpose is the raid? Other than headlines, I mean?

 

Ah crap, you've just summoned @Deranged Rhino...

[Rob's House]

4 hours ago, njbuff said:

 

Tucker Carlson did a one minute bit at the end of his show about pandas if you bothered to look it up.  So it must be bad because Carlson doesn’t tow the Dem company line.

 

Thanks anyways.

The media's attempt to connect Trump to something he has nothing to do with is a far greater demonstration of journalistic integrity.

 

When the bombshell drops about Trump's mechanic selling drugs or his barber getting busted for tax evasion, you can trust Fox News will do an expose on the Mexican Staring Frog of Southern Sri Lanka to cover it up.

[Tiberius]

16 minutes ago, Koko78 said:

 

I love the idiots who come here claiming to be "independents", yet every post they make spouts DNC talking points.

 

Ah crap, you've just summoned @Deranged Rhino...

We need the Fox News Conspiracy Bot DR!! 

[DC Tom]

4 hours ago, njbuff said:

 

Tucker Carlson did a one minute bit at the end of his show about pandas if you bothered to look it up.  So it must be bad because Carlson doesn’t tow the Dem company line.

 

Thanks anyways.

 

 

TOE the line.  Toe.  Not tow.

Goddammit.

[Tiberius]

8 minutes ago, Rob's House said:

The media's attempt to connect Trump to something he has nothing to do with is a far greater demonstration of journalistic integrity.

 

When the bombshell drops about Trump's mechanic selling drugs or his barber getting busted for tax evasion, you can trust Fox News will do an expose on the Mexican Staring Frog of Southern Sri Lanka to cover it up.

You gonna visit him in jail? 

[njbuff]

13 minutes ago, DC Tom said:

 

 

TOE the line.  Toe.  Not tow.

Goddammit.

 

Toh 

 

16 minutes ago, Tiberius said:

You gonna visit him in jail? 

 

LMAO

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

Dear Mr President. 

 

Stop whining and blaming everyone else and Do Your Job.  (honestly and legally) 

 

Concerned Citizen 

 

Media media media .....   His Twitter account does just as good as the biased media on getting crap out there. 

    

 

[TakeYouToTasker]

Just now, ShadyBillsFan said:

Dear Mr President. 

 

Stop whining and blaming everyone else and Do Your Job.  (honestly and legally) 

 

Concerned Citizen 

The raid is tied to suspected criminality unrelated to the Trump/Russia probe.

 

Do you find to be at all problematic that the FBI has performed an end run around attorney-client privilege, a necessary hallmark of our entire system of jurisprudence, in order to gain access to information about a person investigating/prosecuting wide spread malfeasance and corruption in that agency?

[TH3]

5 minutes ago, ShadyBillsFan said:

Dear Mr President. 

 

Stop whining and blaming everyone else and Do Your Job.  (honestly and legally) 

 

Concerned Citizen 

 

Media media media .....   His Twitter account does just as good as the biased media on getting crap out there. 

    

 

The primary problem with the 45 is he has ideas...but he has no concept, idea, grasp as to how to actually do his job...

Just now, TakeYouToTasker said:

The raid is tied to suspected criminality unrelated to the Trump/Russia probe.

 

Do you find to be at all problematic that the FBI has performed an end run around attorney-client privilege, a necessary hallmark of our entire system of jurisprudence, in order to gain access to information about a person investigating/prosecuting wide spread malfeasance and corruption in that agency?

Didn't 45 say Cohen wasn't his lawyer? Which is it?

[HappyDays]

27 minutes ago, Buffalo_Gal said:

If that 150K is what they are looking at then I have to ask if they raided the Clinton attorney's offices based on the $13,000,000 donations from the same guy to them? 

 

Because that isn't how laws work. If there is evidence that Trump used that money for campaign funds, that will be investigated. If there was evidence Hillary used money from the Clinton foundation for campaign funds, that would also be investigated. As an example the Trump Foundation was fined by the IRS a few years ago for making an illegal donation to a Florida AG'S campaign fund:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09/01/trump-pays-irs-a-penalty-for-his-foundation-violating-rules-with-gift-to-florida-attorney-general/

There was no criminal charges because they were able to claim that "a series of mistakes" led to the donation. In other words their defense was that it was accidental. This is pretty transparently not true, but criminal investigators have a lot of burdens to overcome and they couldn't in that case. There isn't much news about this investigation into the Ukrainian donation so I don't know if anything will come it. It's completely separate from the raid on Cohen's residence. But the mere fact they are investigating it doesn't preclude that all previous donations to every presidential candidate's foundations must also be under investigation.

56 minutes ago, Buffalo_Gal said:

As I understand it  (I am not an attorney and do not play one on the internet) anything "interesting" found on Trump in his attorney's offices would be difficult to introduce into court so what purpose is the raid? Other than headlines, I mean?

 

The fact that you're asking this question tells me you still don't understand what happened. The FBI raid on Cohen might have nothing to do with Trump. They're investigating Cohen for possible crimes that he committed. Completely separate from anything Mueller is investigating. Unless Trump was committing crimes with Cohen in which case he is also screwed.

[boyst]

2 hours ago, Coach Tuesday said:

 

Oh yeah?  The institution of the Presidency is where you draw the line?  And I'm sure you harbored no such thoughts about his predecessor.

 

You're part of the "swamp."

Come in. Drop a stupid statement and then don't return.

 

It doesn't do you much justice. You're a smart guy, Coach, different opinions are welcome. But, if you're coming to PPP to engage the old curmudgeons with #feelings and nonsense you won't get far.

 

Trump has done far less, if anything, to degrade this country than Mueller, the IC and all of those behind this coup.  At the end of the day there is one thing that has been tremendously unexpected: Trump still stands.

[HappyDays]

7 minutes ago, TakeYouToTasker said:

Do you find to be at all problematic that the FBI has performed an end run around attorney-client privilege

 

How can you possibly know this?

[Tiberius]

It's my understanding that they have two teams of agents that have a firewall between them. One set of agents goes through the information and separates documents that can have evidence and the others are client protected. So only the documents that are part of the case would get used. 

[Buffalo_Gal]

16 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

Because that isn't how laws work. If there is evidence that Trump used that money for campaign funds, that will be investigated. If there was evidence Hillary used money from the Clinton foundation for campaign funds, that would also be investigated. As an example the Trump Foundation was fined by the IRS a few years ago for making an illegal donation to a Florida AG'S campaign fund:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09/01/trump-pays-irs-a-penalty-for-his-foundation-violating-rules-with-gift-to-florida-attorney-general/

There was no criminal charges because they were able to claim that "a series of mistakes" led to the donation. In other words their defense was that it was accidental. This is pretty transparently not true, but criminal investigators have a lot of burdens to overcome and they couldn't in that case. There isn't much news about this investigation into the Ukrainian donation so I don't know if anything will come it. It's completely separate from the raid on Cohen's residence. But the mere fact they are investigating it doesn't preclude that all previous donations to every presidential candidate's foundations must also be under investigation.

 

The fact that you're asking this question tells me you still don't understand what happened. The FBI raid on Cohen might have nothing to do with Trump. They're investigating Cohen for possible crimes that he committed. Completely separate from anything Mueller is investigating. Unless Trump was committing crimes with Cohen in which case he is also screwed.

Soooo he spent at least $66M of his own money (I could only find concrete primary numbers) on his campaign, and yet it is supposed to be believable that his campaign used $130K not of his own money to pay off a hooker?

 

Edited to add: "know what happened"  - nope, I do not "know" what happened. At this point very few people do. Was it a raid for money laundering? Was it a raid to isolate the President? Was it a raid for headlines?  What process was played out to conduct the raid?

At this point, there are many more questions than answers. But few people know the whys, the procedures, and the repercussions.

Edited April 10, 2018 by Buffalo_Gal

[TakeYouToTasker]

9 minutes ago, baskin said:

Didn't 45 say Cohen wasn't his lawyer? Which is it?

No, Cohen's lawyer said that Cohen wasn't acting in the capacity of lawyer to Donald Trump as relates to the Stormy Daniels NDA, and was instead acting as a consulting representative of Essential Consultants LLC, which is the body which made the payments to Ms. Daniels.

 

Cohen is President Trump's long time attorney, however, as we all know; and this is a grotesque example of an agency whose heads and body are currently under investigation doing an end run around the protections our legal system affords the accused in order to gain leverage over a sitting President.

 

This should be viewed as wildly problematic to anyone interested in the basic concept of justice and a free society.

[Warren Zevon]

3 minutes ago, TakeYouToTasker said:

No, Cohen's lawyer said that Cohen wasn't acting in the capacity of lawyer to Donald Trump as relates to the Stormy Daniels NDA, and was instead acting as a consulting representative of Essential Consultants LLC, which is the body which made the payments to Ms. Daniels.

 

Cohen is President Trump's long time attorney, however, as we all know; and this is a grotesque example of an agency whose heads and body are currently under investigation doing an end run around the protections our legal system affords the accused in order to gain leverage over a sitting President.

 

This should be viewed as wildly problematic to anyone interested in the basic concept of justice and a free society.

 

What would be problematic is Mueller sweeping potential crimes under the rug. 

[TakeYouToTasker]

14 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

How can you possibly know this?

Because that's the outcome.

 

The FBI now has in it's possession all legal documents related to Donald Trump that had been in Michael Cohen's possession.  Documents that they, without this raid, never would have been able to access, because they were protected by attorney-client privilege. 

 

Much like the string of FISA abuses, centered around Carter Page, which were necessary for the agency to illegally surveil the President; the FBI has done it again.

[HappyDays]

8 minutes ago, Buffalo_Gal said:

Soooo he spent at least $66M of his own money (I could only find concrete primary numbers) on his campaign, and yet it is supposed to be believable that his campaign used $130K not of his own money to pay off a hooker?

 

I see that you're very eager to jump to conclusions on this. Sorry but we don't know everything yet. We don't know the exact charges being brought against Cohen, we don't know the reasoning for executing a search warrant over a subpoena, we don't know which - if any - communications between Trump and Cohen will be privileged, etc.

[Warren Zevon]

2 minutes ago, TakeYouToTasker said:

Because that's the outcome.

 

The FBI now has in it's possession all legal documents related to Donald Trump that had been in Michael Cohen's possession.  Documents that they, without this raid, never would have been able to access, because they were protected by attorney-client privilege. 

 

Much like the string of FISA abuses, centered around Carter Page, which were necessary for the agency to illegally surveil the President; the FBI has done it again.

 

Wahhhhhhh

[TakeYouToTasker]

Just now, garybusey said:

What would be problematic is Mueller sweeping potential crimes under the rug. 

 

Again, I ask you, is it problematic that the FBI has performed an end run around attorney-client privilege, a necessary hallmark of our entire system of jurisprudence, in order to gain access to information about a person investigating/prosecuting wide spread malfeasance and corruption in that agency?

 

Is this something the intelligence apparatus of a free country should be doing?

Just now, garybusey said:

 

Wahhhhhhh

 

This answer is why there will be an actual shooting war in this country.

 

You are, quite literally, dismissing people posing legitimate concerns about the intelligence apparatus/legal system of our nation launching end runs around the basic legal protections that the entire notion of a free country rests upon as cry babies.

 

This cannot stand, Gary.  This is not clever.  This is the collapse of our system.  This is where desperation sets in.

[Warren Zevon]

3 minutes ago, TakeYouToTasker said:

 

the FBI has performed an end run around attorney-client privilege, a necessary hallmark of our entire system of jurisprudence, in order to gain access to information about a person investigating/prosecuting wide spread malfeasance and corruption in that agency?

 

 

This did not happen so I will not play your stupid games in this thread. Enjoy talking about this with DR or Buffalo Gal (assuming they're not the same person).

[HappyDays]

4 minutes ago, TakeYouToTasker said:

The FBI now has in it's possession all legal documents related to Donald Trump that had been in Michael Cohen's possession.  Documents that they, without this raid, never would have been able to access, because they were protected by attorney-client privilege. 

 

Are you aware of the concept of admissible evidence? Are you aware that attorney-client communications can be made admissible evidence if they are discussing crimes the attorney is committing? Surprisingly the justice system doesn't leave an easy loophole wherein every attorney can make themselves immune from any and all criminal investigation.

[row_33]

11 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

Are you aware of the concept of admissible evidence? Are you aware that attorney-client communications can be made admissible evidence if they are discussing crimes the attorney is committing? Surprisingly the justice system doesn't leave an easy loophole wherein every attorney can make themselves immune from any and all criminal investigation.

 

has to be a very strong reason to break that confidentiality

 

partisan suckybaby whiny politics isn't a reason