Discussion: What To Make Of The FBI's 'Extraordinary' Raid Of Michael Cohen

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Is that Starsky’s car in the background?

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I always trusted that the U.S. Constitution and the integrity and resilience of our institutions would save the country, but it seems Robert Mueller might single-handedly do that. While I am grateful for that, it is also scary.

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If memory serves, the only other Trumpist whom the Feds have raided and seized documents from is Manafort, who has been indicted on enough crimes to put him away for the rest of his life and then some. It’s a good guess that they’ve got equally serious evidence about Cohen. No wonder the Dotard is becoming so unhinged.

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Has Cohen been supboena’d before this? Because if he had been - and had obscured / hidden certain facts that the SC knew from other sources, then the full weight of the FBI might come crashing through his front door.

Oh wait…

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Could T rump have stashed a bunch of his own criminal records in the possession of Cohen with the expectation that attorney/client privilege would keep them secret for the duration?

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I can’t begin to imagine how much leverage Mueller is going to have on Cohen by the time they finish their review. An ironic end to a man who loved to bully others.

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Answering my own question: Yes, they have subpoenad him before

Congressional committees have been busy requesting subpoenas for their respective investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The House Intelligence Committee hit Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, with one Tuesday, the Associated Press reports, a request he declined to cooperate with, calling it “poorly phrased, overly broad and not capable of being answered.”

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100%. He was just too lazy to get a storage unit like Manafort.

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The man can barely read. I can’t imagine him taking any notes.

Or, as he calls them, “tell-tale evidence.”

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Key graf:

““If you’re talking to your attorney about a crime you’ve already committed, that’s privileged,” Sanchez said. “If you’re talking to your attorney to get them to help you to commit crime, that’s the part that’s not privileged.”

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Well, we are not making mud pies!

Oy, now all the Syria saber rattling is making sense.

M. Paul

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Well… so… here we are. The system is, so far, working as designed. Mueller found evidence of a crime that was outside his purview, and according to Bloomberg, he sent it up the chain to Rod Rosenstein. Rosenstein then called up Joon H. Kim, and suggested that he should deal with it… and he did. (And none of that is hyperbole, by the way, Kim would have had to sign off on the warrant. And so would someone at the DoJ in Washington, because the target was a Lawyer.)

This is the end of the world for Trump. Obviously for Cohen, too, of course, but it’s the end for Trump. He has run out of places to hide. Even pardoning Cohen would likely fail, since Trump is a co-conspirator.

The end of Trump, or our Republic, starts tonight; there’s no way both can survive.

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Edit: I learned, lately that it wasn’t Joon H. Kim who signed off on this raid, but rather Geoffrey Berman, a Trump Donor/Appointee. Which adds just another level of: Oh, wow.

Edit further: Breaking news… it wasn’t Berman. He’s been recused. Trump-appointed US attorney recused from Michael Cohen investigation - ABC News

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And I feel fine.

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Are you saying you think it likely that Trump and Cohen conspired to violate U.S. Law? Two fine, upstanding, guys like them? You think they would do that? And be stupid enough to leave records?

Yepper, I agree, on all counts.

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A. He’s not nearly that clever.

B. Trump doesn’t think he’s committed any crimes. Ever. That’s part and parcel of his delusion.

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Best news in a long time.

And when I read of Trump saying the FBI raid was ‘An Attack On Our Country’, I had a good laugh. I hope he doesn’t have a heart attack though. Things are just getting started.

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I understand if you were surprised it wasn’t The Dukes of Hazzard car behind Cohen.

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This was an excellent article. Popehat’s writeup is also worth five minutes.

My unlearned takeaway for the night is that this is more smoke than fire for Trump… but if you choke to death on billowing clouds of noxious smoke, you’re still dead.

Cohen, well, he’s extra crispy. Cooked blacker than a well-done Trump steak.

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Too cheap.

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