Pay for play politics. Draining the swap indeed.
I hope that I can some day be the kind of Legal Person who can shrug off over a million dollars.
“Eh, let him have it; it’s not worth trying to get it back.”
Michael Cohen reached out to pharmaceutical company Novartis in early 2017 and promised the company help in gaining access to President Donald Trump and his administration…
Who else did Cohen reach out to? Did he just send spam e-mails to all companies in the world?
Fascinating. So the usual way to get access to a President is not only to support his election, but also to pay one of his sycophants for access to the Prez and his inner circle. That certainly makes me feel better about the role of money in politics.
Perhaps what is worst is that they were so direct in doing it and apparently never thought that they should do a little protective screening of the transaction, because, hey, that’s how it’s always done. Swamp, hell. This is a cesspool.
Good LORD they are all a bunch of grifters!!! I wonder how much of a kick back Cohen had to give Donnie for his various shakedowns. This is kind of like Eric Trump’s ‘charity’ scam. There is not a doubt in my mind this comes straight from the top…the Orange buffoon himself.
"It was almost as if we were hiring him as a lobbyist.”
I predicted this bad argument this morning. Cohen is not a lobbyist. He meets none of the requirements and none of the payments were made under the auspices of lobbying work. There is a reason for that.
Hint: It was not a “booboo.”
So far the attorney for Stormy Daniels has been spot on with his allegations - everything has checked out. Now he’s even dishing on Big Pharma. I usually learn at least something new and jaw-dropping from him when he makes a TV appearance.
“Nice company ya got here. Be a real shame if anything happened to it – OH MY GOSH [points to ceiling] is that a loose wire up there? This place is a total fire trap! Whole thing could go up in flames [snaps fingers] …just…like…that…”
In 1989, chicken magnate Bo Pilgrim literally walked onto the floor of the Texas Senate and passed out $10,000 checks to senators in, he says, an attempt to encourage senators to reconsider the workers’ comp. legislation then under debate. The payee’s space was left blank. (No one accepted the checks.)
This stuff with these people paying Cohen for access to Trump is only a little less subtle that that.
So, Cohen was at least an unregistered lobbyist, if not the administration’s face of pay to play. It’d explain why they didn’t bring him into the administration.
It’d be nice to know where the funds went after Cohen deposited them. Was there a taste for the Trump Org?
Donnie makes sure he profits off of everything where his name is used. That’s been his business for years. These people are anything but flexible and inventive, so I’d be surprised if the arrangements were any different here. Ya know, just normal licensing fees for use of the brand.
Let’s not forget that some of the money coming into Essential Consultants LLC was arguably Russian, so Cohen may also have a Foreign Agents Registration Act problem, too. Same on Paul Manafort has.
“The company was not able to leave its contract, so it continued to pay Cohen without engaging with him.”
Wow! That’s some fucking hilarious euphemism right there.
Corruption Rosetta Stone: “These were pay-to-play bribes and no actual services were ever expected to be performed other than Mr. Cohen letting Trump know that the money was coming in.”
Yeah, one would think that spending multi millions on the campaign and multi millions more on Senate and House candidates who all promise to do your bidding (i.e. not doing anything that would bring prescription drug prices in the US in line with the rest of the entire world) and then following up with multi millions more in K street lobbyists would be enough, and anti-democratic enough. The founders would without question be back in the hall writing up more provisions in the Constitution if they had any idea that anything like this would happen.
Paying for access to the president through his fixer is third world corrupt dictator stuff.
“We’ll just raise the price of cancer medications to make it back up”
“Cohen Promised Novartis Help Accessing Trump Administration”
Ya think? I assumed it was just a birthday present or something.
Total bullshit. I’ve worked with pharma companies. They ALWAYS have ways to get out of contracts.
“The employee told STAT News that Novartis decided against attempting to cancel its contract with Cohen in part because the company did not want to irk Trump.”
HAHAHA!!! More euphemism?
CAVEAT BRIBER: BRIBES ARE NON-REFUNDABLE. BRIBE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Of COURSE they do. Big Pharm companies have billions. They can afford the most expensive attorneys and firms and, if nothing else, will simply walk away from a contract, daring the other party to find out the hard way who can stomach the most attorneys fees.
Why did Cohen reach out to Novartis? Name out of a hat?
Why did Novartis meet with a guy who owns taxi businesses and real estate to consult on healthcare policy?
Why did Novartis continue to pay him, if he could not deliver the services promised?
Why was Novartis afraid of angering the President?
What was Trump’s cut?
There is no way in hell that Trump allowed Cohen to freelance a grift without getting a piece of the action. If we have learned nothing about Trump, we’ve learned that he gets two scoops to everybody else’s one. And he had no respect for Cohen.