Unintended Consequences

By moat on Fri, 04/13/2018 - 7:04pm |

Cohen's attempt at damage control just added fuel to the fire.

URL:

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/13/michael-cohen-hearing-fbi-raid-522053

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Overall these guys are really shitty at what they do. How come they've had such a free ride for decades?

by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 04/15/2018 - 11:15am

and get $550 an hour for it.

by artappraiser on Sun, 04/15/2018 - 12:06pm

The above is Manhattan standard, nothing special. The better guys/gals get $750 per hr. and up. But here is a more applicable number I just ran across:

Trump's 2020 campaign also shelled out about 22 percent of it's total spending so far this year on legal consulting https://t.co/CRxttc4f1V
— Tarini Parti (@tparti) April 15, 2018

by artappraiser on Sun, 04/15/2018 - 7:17pm

The two days Cohen's team bought was expensive. It allowed the Government to present information that would usually have had to wait until the indictment.
I went to hear the arguments but stayed for the redactions. Point 3 on page 12 is a great example.

by moat on Sun, 04/15/2018 - 12:27pm

Dr. Cleveland's mob boss description can be heard again in Daly's piece in the Daily Beast.
Daly's account of some of the proceedings show legal representation like it ought to be:

The prosecution's submission also called into question Cohen’s contention regarding the number of documents. The judge asked Cohen’s lawyer how he came by that estimate. Harrison had no immediately clear answer.

“How do you know there are thousands if you can’t answer my question?” Wood inquired.

“That is our best understanding,” Harrison said.

Wood was not going to leave it there. The president to whom Cohen has sworn his undying loyalty may deal in unending lies and exaggeration, but Manhattan federal court remains a realm of truth.

“How did you get that understanding?” Wood asked.

“Discussion in the defense team” Harrison said.

“Really,” Wood said. “Who in the defense team?”

“Judge, I’m not prepared to get into discussion of the defense team,” Harrison said. “That’s an approximation. I don’t have the exact number for you. It might be less than a thousand. I don’t know for sure.”

“What I need to know is whether you had a basis as an officer of the court to tell me there are ‘thousands and thousands of privileged documents,’” Wood said.

Play with the big girls and you might get hurt.

by moat on Sun, 04/15/2018 - 2:00pm

She's toying with him as if she were playing with a doll or something - wonder where she learned to do that?

by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 04/15/2018 - 3:18pm

oh I was not paying attention to the ID of the judge until now. Recognized the name immediately from pre-internet news junkie days. From the Wikipedia entry on her, she had these 15 minutes of fame:

In the Nannygate matter of 1993, Wood was Bill Clinton's second unsuccessful choice for United States Attorney General.[7] Like Clinton's previous nominee, Zoë Baird, Wood had hired an illegal immigrant as a nanny, but unlike Baird, she had paid the required taxes on the employee. Wood employed the illegal immigrant at a time when it was legal to do so, before the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 made the hiring of illegal immigrants unlawful.[8] The threat of a repetition of the same controversy nevertheless led to the hasty withdrawal of Wood from consideration.[9][10] Janet Reno was later nominated and confirmed for the post.[9] White House officials said they were angry at Judge Wood because she had not told Clinton and other officials about the nanny, even when she had been directly asked. In her statement, however, Judge Wood said she had not misled the White House.[10]

Should also note something in the enry that I did not know: she was a Reagan appointee to the Southern District, recommended by Al D'Amato, eventually became Chief Judge in 2006, and has been Senior Status since 2009, so that she has choice of cases and how many.

by artappraiser on Sun, 04/15/2018 - 5:32pm

this part too should also be noted about Kimba:

She received a Master of Science from the London School of Economics in 1966. While in London, she spent five days training as a Playboy bunny.

by artappraiser on Sun, 04/15/2018 - 5:42pm

Sweet (previous) and double sweet (this). And sweeter - she sentenced Milken to 10 years in jail) later reduced, plus this chestnut:

On November 19, 2010, Judge Wood received attention in connection with a letter to the court from Bennet M. Epstein, an attorney, who asked for time off from a trial to attend his then-unborn grandson's bris, if the baby proved to be a boy. In response, Judge Wood wrote that Epstein would be permitted to attend the bris, but that "if a daughter is born, there will be a public celebration in court, with readings from poetry celebrating girls and women."[16]

Trump & Cohen got a great venue for this one. Keep up the gamez, doodz - you'll have your asses handed to you toot d'suite.

by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 04/15/2018 - 7:45pm

Ms Daniels will be present at the hearing on Monday.

by moat on Sun, 04/15/2018 - 8:10pm

And the mystery 3rd client is:

(drum roll)

(if you could choose one man to be the 3rd client, who would it be)

(someone completely absurd and yet so utterly perfect)

(no, not Bill Cosby)

(another drum roll)

(the tinkle of 1000 triangles)

SEAN HANNITY!!!!

by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 2:57pm

the sad irony is I thought you were making it up, and then I googled, and I've just got to learn that in the crazy world of Trump we live in: NO ONE WOULD MAKE THIS STUFF UP....which brings to mind the whole faux news shit and I get a headache about fiction/reality.

Let's go back to start of the story where the young woman gives up on working as a Playboy bunny in London and goes on to become an important judge who....

by artappraiser on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 3:08pm

cuts her teeth on Michael Milken...

(becomes known for dressing down negligent advocates in-chamber...)

and then runs into Michael Cohen...

a morality play in 3 axe

by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 3:13pm

p.s. I am wondering crazy shit (there is endless potential for that), i.e., is Hannity pay to Cohen really not for legal purposes at all but just to get inside info on the Trumpian brain? Not that I can't envision Hannity wanting to get in on a totally unrelated (or not!) taxi medallion deal with Russian emigres or something similar....

by artappraiser on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 3:16pm

I think Sean (and now everyone else) has a pretty good understanding of Michael Cohen's expertise.

PS There really isn't much mystery to the Trumpian brain.

by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 3:38pm

I hear he's multilingual - "I breaka you face" in English Russian and Italian - maybe even Yiddish. Picture hom in Harvey Keitel's role in Pulp Fiction - suddenly it's Reservoir Dogs II.

by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 3:53pm

Hannity says he never got an invoice from Cohen, and Cohen says he never sent one to Trump for the 130k "out of my pocket" Stormy payoff.

Cohen solely and exclusively does pro bono work for millionaires and billionaires........is that normal..?...something rotten in Denmark...!!!!

by NCD on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 4:31pm

It is a peculiar business model, for sure.

by moat on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 4:54pm

So I presume there is no attorney-client privilege then?

by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 4:58pm

while it's ridiculous in this situation, I'd hate to think anyone who has a pro-bono lawyer doesn't have privilege because they didn't pay anything

But you made me delve into what's really going on in court this a bit.The arguments involved are actually pretty fascinating, as we are really delving into unusual territory with this case. I found this good piece from NPR from yesterday: LAW: Cohen, Trump Push To Decide What's Protected By Attorney-Client Privilege And this two pager from the ABA Confidentiality, Privilege: A Basic Value in Two Different Applications.

Makes pretty clear to me that everyone is doing what they are supposed to now in Judge Wood's court. It's like a trial in itself where we've got a strict advocacy situation where it's Cohen's job and Cohen's attorney's job (paid or not) to argue not to let them see a single damn thing (unless Trump and Hannity say they can). Both ethically and legally, it's their job to argue over every damn item. And it's the prosecutor's job to try to prove they've got adequate safeguards in place for any privileged information and also that there's significant threat to rule of law if they don't get it what they need. Judge Wood decides.

Makes clear the privilege, it's not ironclad, and its different in each jurisdiction, and it can be picked at if the opponent really wants to and makes a convincing case. But ethics seems to prescribe that the attorney should fight like hell over each and every piece of information.

by artappraiser on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 6:56pm

Michael Cohen has never represented me in any matter. I never retained him, received an invoice, or paid legal fees. I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective.
— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) April 16, 2018

He's not just saying that he didn't pay Cohen. He's saying that Cohen isn't his lawyer.

by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 7:00pm

More on this in my last comment below. You do not have to hire an attorney to get it, just to seriously ask the attorney for advice as if you might hire him for your problem. The point: attorney's are just not supposed to talk to anyone else about what you told them when asking for advice.

Yeah the Hannity situation and what he says are ridiculous. But we don't want to throw out our principles just to get Sean Hannity.

The Judge decides. Luckily we have a good one in this case. Who knows bullshit when she sees it, and therefore said already: let his name be known. But she also is letting Cohen have copies of everything they took. Which puts Hannity in the place of being able to say: there's nothing to this if he and Cohen think they can argue it has nothing to do with the Feds.

by artappraiser on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 7:21pm

yeah

by moat on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 7:22pm

Quite interesting to see what (Atty./Prof) Seth Abramson saw in the very same Hannity tweet, hah:

In one fell swoop, Hannity:

1 Says Cohen lied to a federal court about being his lawyer
2 Says any docs about him the feds seized aren't privileged
3 Makes himself a witness for Mueller
4 Revealed an undisclosed on-air conflict of interest
5 Contradicts what he said on the radio https://t.co/ZznOALMULq
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) April 16, 2018

by artappraiser on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 10:41pm

You are right. The compensation involved is not a factor in the decisions to be made by the court per se. Unless evidence of compensation is a part of the case we cannot see.
That is the problem with us trying to figure out what is happening inside of these processes designed not to show what is going on.

by moat on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 7:12pm

I am reminded of Socrates asking if you go to a doctor to fix your door......

by moat on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 4:36pm

Jake Tapper has it right:

.@jaketapper: The judge forced Michael Cohen to admit in court he has a third client. And the third client is Sean Hannity.

Go home 2018, you’re drunk. https://t.co/7McUZSjki8 pic.twitter.com/rXkx91hxCI
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) April 16, 2018

by barefooted on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 6:31pm

From the third link there, by

"I've known Michael a long, long time. Let me be very clear to the media. Michael never represented me in any matter. I never retained him in the traditional sense as retaining a lawyer. I never received an invoice from Michael. I never paid legal fees to Michael," Hannity said.

"But I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective," he added. "And I assume that those conversations were attorney-client confidential."

Hannity added, "not one of any issue I ever dealt with Michael Cohen on ever, ever involved a matter between me and any third party."

Brings up a point of interest to me. I just saw the anchor at CNN ask the reporter Shimon Prokupecz about attorney-client privilege in general and he said you do not have to have signed a retainer with a lawyer to have attorney client privilege. I.E., you can call a lawyer about a problem and get initial advice in a consultation, and you've got it, forever. Even if you end up hiring someone else.

So all of this is really up to the Judge. And the FBI was really going out on a limb here. Which to me says: they were confident it was important and a judge would end up agreeing with them.

The ruling today was actually in the favor of both sides. She's letting Cohen see and go over everything they took. Which means he could argue over every damn piece of info. At risk of angering the Judge if the arguments are flippant on either side. One clue is she already said: let Hannity's name be known.

by artappraiser on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 7:11pm

I read Hannity's statement to simply mean he did not hire Cohen to pay off any Third Parties.
As if to say:
I am not a dog like Trump.

by moat on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 7:43pm

hah. but ya know, I was thinking earlier on his whole Whitey Bulger/Mueller shtick, that could be all projection about some relative or another. His public persona certainly has the some of the Irish mob character ticks where he could easily play one in a drama

by artappraiser on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 8:11pm

In this case, I think the problem is more specific.
All your friends go to a certain massage parlor to relieve stress. That is how you heard about the place.
But that is not why you went to the establishment. The charge for it came up on a credit card and the wife wants to know what is going on before she writes the check for it.

by moat on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 8:38pm

And your response is that you went for the same reasons as your friends ... how it is proven to be otherwise is the question.

by barefooted on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 8:51pm

That excuse only works if your wife knows and trusts the integrity of your friends, more than she trusts you.

by ocean-kat on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 9:13pm

This response is an attempt to distance himself from those friends.
Whatever falls out from this connection, Hannity is no longer a player.
He just wrote himself out of the script.

by moat on Wed, 04/18/2018 - 7:03pm

The above is just borrowing from many poets and playwrights who observed that It takes many years to build up trust but only an afternoon to throw it all away.

by moat on Wed, 04/18/2018 - 8:34pm

Yes - we've all seen the ads and know the fact that you can consult an attorney for free for legal advise without ending up as their client, with the conversation being protected by privilege.

What the judge is ultimately deciding here is not whether there was privilege, but whether it's of the sort that is protected.

by barefooted on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 7:46pm

As I've repeated ad nauseam we still don't know what Mueller has found. But there's only two possibilities. Either he has some very compelling evidence or there's a grand conspiracy involving Mueller and all his attorneys, the DOJ, the state attorney and at least many of the attorneys in his office, and several judges. He got a no knock warrant for Manafort's documents and a warrant to search documents of Trump's attorney despite the protections of attorney client privilege. Neither of those warrants are easy to get. I almost never believe in grand conspiracies.

by ocean-kat on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 9:19pm

Agreed.

by artappraiser on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 9:17pm

Judge Wood should not get all the credit, according to Bertrand, who was in the courtroom:

A note about this: Judge Wood was prepared to let Ryan give her the name of Cohen’s third client under seal. At that point, an attorney for the NYT and CNN approached the podium and convinced her that the press (&public) should know. She agreed. He played pivotal role here. https://t.co/nbJUaAw4Ys
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) April 17, 2018

by artappraiser on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 11:59pm

Unintended consequences indeed:

WTW (what the what) https://t.co/430tKhoVCD
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) April 17, 2018

WATCH: Dershowitz confronts Hannity on-air over Trump lawyer representation https://t.co/wLOt3rq9pl pic.twitter.com/P0BZcvWTt0
— The Hill (@thehill) April 17, 2018

by artappraiser on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 9:49pm

"it was such a minor relationship" - I think he got that excuse from Roy Moore. Wondering if that's a a Fraudian slit?

by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 2:04am

How does this work when the president himself tells reporters to call “my attorney,” meaning Cohen? https://t.co/Rvu2MW0dTS
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) April 17, 2018

WH continues remarkable effort of trying to distance Trump from Cohen. Hogan Gidley on @ac360 says Cohen is one of “many” Trump lawyers. Earlier today, Sanders: “I believe they've still got some ongoing things, but the President has a large number of attorneys, as you know.”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) April 17, 2018

by artappraiser on Mon, 04/16/2018 - 10:01pm

Of course, the most & the best. It's a combination of The People's Court/Judge Judy and The Sopranos - all like on TV (though skipping any of the serious stuff). I'm rather tired of being on this bastard's RealityTV, and I will hold no end of a grudge against the party that continues to enable it (that includes you, weasel Ryan, your sneaky Gollum-in-the-shadows Nunes and Supreme Court-stealer McConnell - rule of law my ass).

by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 2:02am

Constitutional law expert Noah Feldman @ Bloomberg.com:

Trump Should Be Worried by Cohen Probe. Really Worried.

Federal prosecutors can dog him for the rest of his presidency, and he has no power to fire them.

April 16, 12:28 PM EDT

by artappraiser on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 1:11am

Same opinion in a less legal, more eloquent, (and to me, more convincing) frame:

Michael Cohen and the End Stage of the Trump Presidency by Adam Davidson @ NewYorker.com, April 14 (yes, way back on Saturday unless it's a typo!)

by artappraiser on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 2:56am

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