Discussion: Michael Cohen’s Sentencing Memo Is Packed With Tantalizing Details

It’s from the old English ‘sceat’ meaning coin; so it just means getting away without paying any money. Scotsman here, too.

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If Cohen turns out to be one of the good guys I am going to be so pissed!

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That would be a dream for Melania and Ivanka.

I prefer Wolverine steel toe work boots.

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I’ll bet you that Donald Trump puts ketchup on a hot dog and then eats that hot dog with a knife and fork

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Honestly, if you’re eating hot dogs, it doesn’t much matter how.

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“…and get his wife and father-in-law (who has the money?) off Scott Free,” the President wrote.”

Who is this Scott Free??

Naturally we can’t expect a colossal dunderhead like Trump to know that it’s “scot-free”.

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“purgering” ? I didn’t know he was bulemic.

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And here I thought the Trump Tower was going to be the world’s largest orphanage, because isn’t that what the meeting in the NYC Trump Tower was about? s/

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I understand your point.

I’d make him do some prison time to send the following message: the longer you others hold out, the longer your time. Lie under your plea agreement, you rot in prison.

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In the 1990s, there was an informal group of federal and local law enforcement agents investigating the Russian Mafiya in New York that called themselves “Red Star.” They shared information they learned from informants. It was well known among the members of Red Star that Cohen’s father-in-law was funneling money into Trump ventures.

In Seth Hettena’s “Trump/ Russia” book, Hettena then asserts that Trump hired Cohen as a favor to Fima Shusterman (Cohen’s father-in-law) and speculates that Shusterman was Trump’s silent partner at the time. TPM published excerpts last spring, so I apologize that I can’t find the block quote above in one of those and am settling for the Rolling Stones’. The book is really interesting. Cohen’s only in one chapter. It gives a lot of specifics going back to the early 1980s that Trump’s business model increasingly depended on courting Russian money laundering and it’s a good primer for the who’s who in the Russian mob (tying back to the current Russian government).

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Another point that I found interesting is that unlike most cases of tax fraud the DOJ immediately moved to convict him on tax fraud. He was not offered the chance to make things right, as usually happens in cases of tax fraud. This was explicitly brought up in his filing.

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Trump’s twitter storm this morning re: Roger Stone highlighted an under appreciated aspect of the Petrillo memo. Petrillo argues that Trump’s public statements improperly influence witnesses and co-conspirators to undertake actions which constitute perjury, obstruction or other federal crimes. Petrillo is saying that whether Trump tweets it out or calls someone up and directly tells them to do something, the intent and effect are often the same. Trump is a co-conspirator. He commits obstruction and witness tampering in broad daylight on a weekly basis. Courts should not dismiss it as at technical or operational distinction that changes the liability issue. Courts should look at his methods as another way to achieve the equivalent result of calling someone up and telling them to lie to protect himself.

Trump’s public statements have been cited several times in a number of court cases as prejudicial. Why would such public statements in the context where Trump is the subject and/or target of an investigation not have an even greater impact?

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The best part are the NY state cases Coen may be able to bring against Trump and his associates, hopefully he can build cases there against Corsi and Manafort. If that happens and they realize a Presidential pardon won’t save them, they’ll jump ship in a “New York minute”.

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“Nearly every professional and commercial relationship that he enjoyed, and a number of long-standing friendships, have vanished. Thus, the necessity, at age 52, to begin his life virtually anew, including developing new means to support his family, convinced Michael to seek an early sentence date.”

How could such an awful thing have happened to such a nice boy?

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“So I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting. You understand me?”

“I’m going to mess your life up…for as long as you’re on this frickin’ planet…you’re going to have judgments against you, so much money, you’ll never know how to get out from underneath it.”

chef’s kiss

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Yes, Cohen is despicable and deserves to get jail time. But when going after a big fish, you don’t get to choose the small or medium fish on the way. Sometimes you have to make a deal with some unsavory characters to get the big kahuna.

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[quote="bankerpup, post:43, topic:81470, full:true]
I prefer Wolverine steel toe work boots.
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Me too, especially if they’re falling on Melanoma and Lust Object.

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Continuing the fish metaphor make mine the big wild salmon.

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Ok, the whole ‘woe is me, my life is ruined’ bit is getting zero sympathy from me. The stuff about how he has to start over in his career is ludicrous, seeing as the reason he can’t continue his previous career is that it was built on money laundering and other illegal/questionably legal schemes. Oh no, is he going to be disbarred because of his massively unethical actions?! Poor guy.

Perhaps someone should remind him that he helped install a dementia stricken old racist with authoritarian tendencies into (what was then) the most powerful job in the world. Or that he participated in what clearly amounts to treason to do so. The phrase ‘too little, too late,’ doesn’t begin to be adequate.

That said I am fine with him getting off with a relatively light punishment if he can take Donnie down - but I’d rather he not get sentenced before he finishes cooperating, especially after Manafort’s shenanigans.

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You must be from Chicago. :wink:

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