Fogbow

New York DA revives investigation into Trump’s hush money payments to Stormy Daniels
Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg to present evidence of $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016

David Smith in Washington
@smithinameric
Mon 30 Jan 2023 20.41 GMT

Prosecutors are to present a grand jury with evidence about hush money payments made by Donald Trump, the former US president, to adult film actor and producer Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election campaign, it was reported on Monday.

The surprise move by Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney in New York, revives a long-running investigation that appeared to be drifting and raises the threat of criminal charges, adding to Trump’s already daunting legal troubles.

The report from the New York Times newspaper came two days after the ex-president became the first candidate to hit the 2024 election campaign trail, delivering speeches in the early primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Daniels, who was born Stephanie Clifford but professes to prefer her stage name, claims to have had sex with Trump in Nevada in 2006 when he was already married to Melania Trump. He denied the allegation but in 2016 his longtime fixer Michael Cohen made a $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels, which Trump reimbursed.

Cohen later pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance violations linked to his role in the hush money payment and alleged that it was made “in coordination with, and at the direction of” Trump. Cohen, who spent time in prison, recently disclosed that on 17 January he met Manhattan prosecutors investigating the matter.

The Times reported on Monday that witness David Pecker, former publisher of the National Enquirer, a tabloid that helped broker the deal with Daniels, was seen entering a building in Lower Manhattan where the grand jury has been empaneled.




https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... y-new-york

noblepa wrote: ↑Mon Jan 30, 2023 12:42 pm I think that it is telling that, seemingly the only person on earth who TFG has never had a bad word for is Vladimir Putin.

Even his kids have occasionally come under fire. But never his good buddy Vlad.

Lawyer warns there will be a 'hellish price to be paid' if attorneys take on Trump as a client

Tom Boggioni
January 21, 2023

Any attorney thinking about taking on Donald Trump as a client should think twice about the repercussions both professionally and financially after the former president and his lead attorney in a federal court case were hit with an almost million-dollar sanction on Friday.

Labeling a suit filed by attorney Alina Habba at Trump's request against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as "frivolous," U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks was unsparing in his ruling.

Writing Trump and his attorney have demonstrated a "pattern of abuse of the courts" that "undermines the rule of law" and "amounts to obstruction of justice," he then added, "Here, we are confronted with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, which was completely frivolous, both factually and legally, and which was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose."

According to legal experts who spoke with Bloomberg, lawyers should think long and hard if Trump approaches them because they believe he will walk away from the latest legal setback "unscathed" and unafraid to file similar lawsuits in other legal venues.




https://www.rawstory.com/trump-lawyers-2659291601/

Journalist Reports Pro-MAGA GOP Insiders Secretly 'Can't Wait Until This Guy Dies'

Ed Mazza
Tue, January 31, 2023 at 9:43 AM GMT+1

Many Republican officials don’t want Donald Trump around ― but they’re also too afraid to publicly challenge him, according to Atlantic journalist McKay Coppins.

“They all wanted him gone, but nobody wanted to confront him directly,” Coppins said Monday on CNN. “There is just this fear that if they go after him or if they try to rally around somebody else they’ll spark a backlash from his base.”

He explained on CNN and in his latest report on The Atlantic that party insiders are hoping something happens to remove Trump from the scene, such as an indictment.

But there’s also another secret hope among those silent anti-Trump Republicans.

“You have a lot of folks who are just wishing for [Trump’s] mortal demise,” former Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) told Coppins, according to his report in The Atlantic. “I want to be clear: I’m not in that camp. But I’ve heard from a lot of people who will go onstage and put on the red hat, and then give me a call the next day and say, ‘I can’t wait until this guy dies.’”




https://www.yahoo.com/news/journalist-s ... 57134.html

Many Republican officials don’t want Donald Trump around ― but they’re also too afraid to publicly challenge him, according to Atlantic journalist McKay Coppins.

“They all wanted him gone, but nobody wanted to confront him directly,” Coppins said Monday on CNN. “There is just this fear that if they go after him or if they try to rally around somebody else they’ll spark a backlash from his base.”

Stormy Daniels: Thanks for just admitting that I was telling the truth about EVERYTHING. Guess I'll take my "horse face" back to bed now, Mr. former "president".

BTW, that's the correct way to use quotation marks.

Kendra wrote: ↑Mon Jan 30, 2023 8:06 pm Nicolle Wallace/Deadline WhiteHouse had a great breakdown/discussion on this today, with Michael Cohen at the table and other great panel members. Worth queuing up and watching IMHO. I'd so like to know the things Cohen knows but can't tell us yet

??? I've never seen addressed on the cable shows, it seems apparent (alledged?) that tfg and his accountants expensed Cohen's *reimbursements* as legal expense (or something else), but in my limited experience in a small company with little legal expenses that at the end of the year ALL THE LAWYERS get a 1099. Period.

Thoughts?

Trump says he has more lawyers working for him than even 'the late great gangster' Al Capone did

Cheryl Teh
Tue, January 31, 2023 at 10:24 AM GMT+1

Donald Trump on Monday compared his legal predicament to that of mobster Al Capone's.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that he has "more lawyers" working for him than Capone did.

Trump appeared to laud the mob boss, calling him the "late great gangster, Alphonse Capone."

Former President Donald Trump on Monday declared that he has more lawyers than the mobster Al Capone did.

In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote that he has "more lawyers" working for him "than any human being in the history of our Country, including even the late great gangster, Alphonse Capone!"

In the post, Trump also baselessly accused the authorities of "Weaponization, Targeting, and Unprecedented Harassment."

It's unclear if Trump does have more lawyers than Capone. Capone, the Prohibition-era mobster, was convicted in 1931 on tax evasion charges.

Trump's critics have previously drawn comparisons between Trump and mobsters.

In August, former FBI official and MSNBC columnist Frank Figliuzzi likened Trump and his allies to the Mafia.

Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal lawyer turned critic, said in September that he thinks Trump's downfall will resemble Capone's. "Like the Al Capone effect, you're not going to get him on murder, extortion, racketeering. You get them on tax evasion," Cohen said on MSNBC's "Deadline White House."




https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-says-m ... 23835.html

raison de arizona wrote: ↑Wed Feb 01, 2023 5:35 pm "You see, the mob takes the Fifth." - tfg, known mobster, 2018

Chris Murphy@ChrisMurphyCT

It will likely get little to no attention today that the current front runner for the Republican presidential nomination just told his supporters to start arming themselves for a civil war to overthrow the government in the case he loses.

Just Trump being Trump! So quirky!


2:19 PM · Feb 2, 2023