NBC News on Friday reported that Michael Cohen, President Trump’s longtime ally and attorney, had used a Trump Organization email address as he worked to secure the payment to Daniels.
..Trumporg.com redirects to Trump.com. The domain is registered to the Trump Organization. It is, in other words, an email address that belongs to the Trump Organization — an asset of the company.
.. That means that federal election law was almost certainly violated... Daniels’s lawsuit asserts Trump learned she was talking to media outlets shortly after a number of women had come forward to rebut Trump’s denial during the Oct. 10, 2016, presidential debate that he had groped women as he had implied in the famous “Access Hollywood” tape. Hearing that she might tell her story, too, Trump “sought to silence” her, “thus helping to ensure he won the Presidential Election.”
.. The email from the bank to Cohen does not prove that company funds were used to pay Daniels, which Noble told us last month would itself be illegal. Just using that email address is its own problem.
.. even if what happened with Daniels was the sort of thing that was very common for Cohen as part of his duties, the Daniels scenario could still be a contribution if Cohen understood it would aid Trump’s electoral effort.
.. he used his Trump Organization email for any number things.
“I sent emails from the Trump Org email address to my family, friends as well as Trump business emails,” he told the network. “I basically used it for everything. I am certain most people can relate.”
.. Cohen told the network that the funds used to pay Daniels “were taken from my home equity line.” The money, that is, came directly from Cohen. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that Cohen told others that he had not been repaid for his investment immediately — meaning that he had, in effect, made a loan to the campaign of some duration by covering this cost.
.. The only way in which Cohen could have paid the $130,000 without having violated campaign finance laws is if he were totally independent of the campaign and, as a private individual, decided to give Daniels the money to buy her silence.
.. To assume that no campaign finance laws were broken means assuming either that:
- The payment had nothing to do with the campaign, or
- Cohen had nothing to do with the campaign.
Neither seems at all likely.
Stormy Daniels Lawsuit Opens Door to Further Trouble for Trump
As any longtime legal hand in the capital remembers well, it was a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by an Arkansas state employee, Paula Jones, against Bill Clinton that led to his impeachment for lying about his affair with Monica S. Lewinsky.
.. The case of the adult film actress, Stephanie Clifford, who uses the stage-name Stormy Daniels, may not get past even the first considerable obstacles. But if her court case proceeds, Mr. Trump and his longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, may have to testify in depositions
.. Ms. Clifford’s agreement with Mr. Cohen stipulated that they would resolve disputes in the confidential arbitration proceedings. Assuming she does not blink — and her lawyer has said she won’t — it will fall to a judge in Los Angeles, where the suit was filed, to decide whether to compel Ms. Clifford to return to arbitration or allow the case to go forward in court
.. “A lawsuit opens the door, and judges almost always allow for a plaintiff to have a fishing expedition,” said Robert S. Bennett, the Washington lawyer who represented Mr. Clinton in the Paula Jones case. The questions could include, “Have you paid other people money?” he said.
.. perhaps intending to broaden it later to include claims that Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen coerced her into silence. “If that happened,” he said, “they certainly could seek to depose Trump.”
And in that case, he said, “I can certainly imagine how it might get broader.
And if it did, the wide array of Trump’s sexual interactions could be addressed
.. Ms. Clifford’s signature on the contract, and acceptance of the money, could count as a clear sign of agreement.
.. But other legal experts were struck by the sweeping nature of the nondisclosure agreement Ms. Clifford signed, and expressed skepticism that it would hold up in court. Beyond the circumstances of the alleged sexual relationship, the agreement barred her from doing anything, even indirectly, to “publicly disparage” Mr. Trump.
.. Ms. Clifford has claimed that she met Mr. Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in 2006 and began a relationship that included sex and promises from Mr. Trump to get her on his NBC show “The Apprentice” and to give her a condominium... Mr. Avenatti argues that because Mr. Trump did not sign it himself, the agreement is invalid — a point Mr. Super, the Georgetown professor, basically agreed with and Mr. Noble said might have merit... The extent to which Mr. Cohen was acting on his own in striking the agreement with Ms. Clifford and paying her is crucial.. Important factors in the case would include just how closely Mr. Cohen coordinated the payment to Ms. Clifford with Mr. Trump and whether it was intended to help the campaign avoid negative publicity... But in her suit, Ms. Clifford tries to implicate Mr. Trump in the transaction, saying the offer of money was intended to buy her silence to help “ensure he won the presidential election.”.. It could have simply been a personal matter, he said, of Mr. Trump wishing to keep a secret from his wife.
Go Ahead, Millennials, Destroy Us
they forgot what adults always forget: that our children grow up, and remember everything, and forgive nothing.
.. Those kids have suddenly understood how little their lives were ever worth to the people in power. And they’ll soon begin to realize how efficient and endless are the mechanisms of governance intended to deflect their appeals, exhaust their energy, deplete their passion and defeat them. But anyone who has ever tried to argue with adolescents knows that in the end they will have a thousand times more energy for that fight than you and a bottomless reservoir of moral rage that you burned out long ago.
.. whenever you disapprove of young people, you’re in the wrong, because you’re going to die and they’ll get to write history, but I just can’t help noticing that the liberal side isn’t much fun to be on anymore.
.. Young people have only just learned that the world is an unfair hierarchy of cruelty and greed, and it still shocks and outrages them. They don’t understand how vast and intractable the forces that have shaped this world really are and still think they can change it. Revolutions have always been driven by the young.
.. the N.R.A.’s unassailable coalition of greed and fear
.. I’d come to the conclusion that America has always been a violent nation, from our founding genocide to the slave labor that built the country to the arsenal, unprecedented in human history, that maintains our empire.
.. We spend $60 billion a year on pets
.. cynicism is also a kind of faith: the faith that nothing can change, that those institutions are corrupt beyond all accountability, immune to intimidation or appeal
.. Harvey Weinstein ultimately wasn’t the one enforcing the code of silence around his predations: It was all the agents and managers and friends and colleagues who warned actresses that he was too powerful to accuse.
.. Once people stopped believing in his invulnerability, his destruction was as instantaneous
.. It has been inspiring and thrilling to watch furious, cleareyed teenagers shame and vilify gutless politicians and soul-dead lobbyists for their complicity in the murders
.. Wayne LaPierre was reduced to gibbering like Gen. Jack D. Ripper in “Dr. Strangelove” about a “socialist” takeover and “hardening” our schools. You could see the whites all around his irises. That look is fear.
.. why adults should listen to anything young people had to say about the world. My answer:
- because they’re afraid of you.
- They don’t understand you. And
- they know you’re going to replace them.
.. Go get us. Take us down — all those cringing provincials who still think climate change is a hoax, that being transgender is a fad or that “socialism” means purges and re-education camps. Rid the world of all our outmoded opinions, vestigial prejudices and rotten institutions. Gender roles as disfiguring as foot-binding, the moribund and vampiric two-party system, the savage theology of capitalism — rip it all to the ground. I for one can’t wait till we’re gone.
Trump Is ‘Losing a Limb’ With the Departure of Hope Hicks
The departure of Ms. Hicks, arguably the least experienced person to ever hold the job of White House communications director, capped an astounding rise for a political neophyte whose seemingly implausible career hinged on a deep understanding of, and bottomless patience for, her mercurial charge.
.. Ms. Hicks had stopped monitoring news coverage of herself, restricting her television intake to Fox News, which she often watched on mute,
.. Jia Tolentino tweeted: “Goodbye to Hope Hicks, an object lesson in the quickest way a woman can advance under misogyny: silence, beauty, and unconditional deference to men.”
.. Ms. Hicks’s success was viewed as a product of other qualities, including her nuanced understanding of Mr. Trump’s moods, her ability to subtly nudge him away from his coarser impulses and her skill as a liaison for some of the most prominent journalists in the country.
.. “When she tells you something, you know she is speaking to the president, because she is with him all the time,” said Steve Scull
..in an administration riven by infighting, Ms. Hicks’s privileged position with the president meant that, for journalists, she was among the few officials whose information was deemed reliable, or at least not often compromised by personal squabbles.
.. Those confident in Ms. Hicks’s future prospects sounded more concerned about Mr. Trump and his ability to work without an aide he has relied on nearly every day for three years.
“This is not losing a staffer,” Mr. Feldman said. “This is like losing a limb.”