DragonI

Michael Cohen says "blind loyalty" to Donald Trump took him down a dark path

Michael Cohen was sentenced to 36 months in prison on Wednesday, saying of his time with President Donald Trump, "Time and time again, I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds."

www.newsweek.com

Cohen appeared in court on Wednesday for sentencing after he pleaded guilty to multiple crimes, including lying to Congress. He was sentenced to 36 months in prison.

“Today is one of the most meaningful days of my life. The irony is that today I get my freedom back,” Cohen said in the courtroom, via Vice News editor Gabrielle Bluestone. “Blind loyalty to this man led me to choose a path of darkness over light.”

"Recently the president tweeted a statement calling me weak and it was correct but for a much different reason than he was implying," Cohen said, via CNN's Abby Phillip. 

this is the worst hour of Trump's entire presidency--no, make that entire life

— Norm Eisen‏  @NormEisen - Aug 21, 2018

Eisen‏ is a former special counsel to President Barack Obama for ethics and government reform.

Cohen, who was Trump's longtime lawyer, pleaded guilty to violating two campaign finance rules — willfully causing a corporate finance violation and making an excessive campaign contribution. 

Each charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and involved hush-money payments to two women who said they had relationships with Trump.

As of Wednesday morning, the tweet is gone (though a cached version can still be found here).

Aug. 22, 2018

Today he stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election. 

If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn't they be a crime for Donald Trump?

— Lanny Davis‏ @LannyDavis -  Aug 21, 2018 

Firm Tied to Russian Oligarch Made Payments to Michael Cohen

The shell company Mr. Cohen used to pay Stormy Daniels later received over $1 million from the firm and several companies with business before the Trump administration.

www.nytimes.com

A shell company that Michael D. Cohen used to pay hush money to a pornographic film actress received payments totaling more than $1 million from an American company linked to a Russian oligarch and several corporations with business before the Trump administration, according to documents and interviews.

Financial records reviewed by The New York Times show that Mr. Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer and longtime fixer, used the shell company, Essential Consultants L.L.C., for an array of business activities that went far beyond what was publicly known. Transactions adding up to at least $4.4 million flowed through Essential Consultants starting shortly before Mr. Trump was elected president and continuing to this January, the records show.

Among the previously unreported transactions were payments last year of about $500,000 from Columbus Nova, an investment firm in New York whose biggest client is a company controlled by Viktor Vekselberg, the Russian oligarch. A lawyer for Columbus Nova, in a statement on Tuesday, described the money as a consulting fee that had nothing to do with Mr. Vekselberg.

References to the transactions first appeared in a document posted to Twitter on Tuesday by Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for Stephanie Clifford, the adult film star who was paid $130,000 by Essential Consultants to keep quiet about an alleged affair with Mr. Trump. The lawyer’s seven-page document, titled “Preliminary Report of Findings,” does not explain the source of his information but describes in detail dates, dollar amounts and parties involved in various dealings by Mr. Cohen and his company. Most of the transactions involved two banks: First Republic Bank and City National Bank.

Mr. Cohen also used the company to collect $250,000 after arranging payments in 2017 and 2018 by a major Republican donor, Elliott Broidy, to a former Playboy model he allegedly impregnated, according to news reports last month.

• Novartis Investments S.A.R.L., a subsidiary of Novartis, the multinational pharmaceutical giant based in Switzerland 
• Korea Aerospace Industries, an aircraft manufacturer, has partnered with the American defense contractor Lockheed Martin
• AT&T, whose proposed merger with Time Warner is pending before the Justice Department