Avenatti trolls Cohen over that little matter of not telling "David Dennison" about the NDA...

[Miles Archer]

Michael Avenatti
‏
@MichaelAvenatti

Well that didn't take long. Next. LOL.
Michael Cohen’s Attorney May Be a Worse Lawyer Than He Is
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/03/michael-cohens-attorney-may-be-a-worse-lawyer-than-he-is.html?utm_source=tw&utm_medium=s3&utm_campaign=sharebutton-t … via

Link to tweet

[OnDoutside]

1. Welcome to the big leagues....bigglies !

[Loki Liesmith]

2. This man is the most vicious effective shark of a lawyer Ive ever seen

It’s so rare to see such raw competence anymore.

[Jarqui]

4. He may be a shark but he's up against the dumbest lawyers I've ever seen

This is shooting fish in a legal barrel

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[pnwmom]

52. I've been loving your posts, Jarqui.

When I first read the contract, I only read it from a logical, lay perspective -- but it sure seemed to me that it wasn't fair. How could Stormy have gotten all her "consideration," including those warranties from DT, if he hadn't even signed the thing and didn't know about it?

Now this tweet you just posted makes me wonder something:

If one party fraudulently leads the other to believe contract’s commitments are being made by and on behalf of a third party, no legally binding agreement comes into existence.

Does this mean Michael Cohen committed fraud? And, if so, who has the standing to accuse him?

I would also think that Cohen's legal license must be in jeopardy, given everything . . . .

[Jarqui]

53. Cohen has real troubles here

He could be disbarred for what he did in this contract - if it continues to be established that Trump knew nothing about it. He committed his client contractually without his knowledge - BIG no no.

But if Cohen drags Trump into it trying to save himself, that could cause defamation and further PR and legal problems for Trump. Cohen already has problems with the FEC.

On the basis of how badly written that contact was, Cohen should at least be suspended. He'd flunk a contract law course with that contract.

The easy thing for Trump in this Stormy deal if it was on its own would be to let Cohen take the fall. Trump's problem is that Cohen knows where all the skeletons are buried. If Cohen is getting his head sued off and being disbarred anyway, why shouldn't he threaten to violate his attorney client privilege and take Trump down with him? At that point, Cohen may have nothing or a lot less to lose. Or maybe Trump will be dumb enough to sue Cohen for everything he's worth.

That is a problem for Trump and all these people he's fired or screwed over. Some of them, like Stormy or maybe Cohen, can come back to bite him badly.

This situation is evolving into a legal Rubik's cube for the Trumpsters and I do not think there is any one good solution for those in the Trump camp to get all the colors to line up for all the legal battles and situations they are in. They cannot escape some losses now.

Stormy's lawyer knows this - it's like he can't lose now - the only question is how big he'll win. Yet the thought of Stormy going on national television telling the world how tiny Trump's dick is probably gives the narcissist's ego bigger nightmares than the money.

This much we know at this point: Stormy is going to get rich at Trump's expense. And Cohen is going to lose something here.

[pnwmom]

54. And Stormy's lawyer has been claiming that there are other women

who have been approaching him about their NDA's. Maybe they also involved LLC's and no signatures, who knows?

The woman I'm dying to hear from is Katie Johnson. Wouldn't that be something if it turned out there was an LLC set up for her, too, and a signature-less contract.

[Jarqui]

55. Apparently, there was some paternity reference in Stormy's NDA

I didn't notice that when I read it (saw it in the media later).

Stormy didn't have a paternity issue. Therefore, it appears that this NDA was used by at least one other woman before. Stormy's lawyer said he's heard from 8 other women who had some sort of thing with Trump, and at least two who had a NDA with Trump.

If this is the type of contract that has been drawn up to protect Trump, or if this is the way he's done it, a number of other women may smell some money.

Waiting in the wings with great interest would be Melania's lawyer adding up the unprotected sex - about 51+ times in 2006 or so with Stormy & McDougal in the sex trade.

This thing could really mushroom.

[pnwmom]

56. It would be so ironic, knowing all the evil things he's been involved in,

if what finally brings his world crashing down is an good old-fashioned sex scandal.

But it's not above the realm of possibility. Stormy's lawyer (I keep forgetting how to spell his name) and Mueller make quite a team.

[Jarqui]

57. I doubt Congress would ever impeach him

for lying about Stormy Daniels. They might have 40-50 years ago but not now.

They did not impeach Bill Clinton for lying about "I did not have sexual relations with that woman"

But what it does is add to his legal burden and pressure. And that could increase with Melania taking a hike or other women joining in.

The job is tough enough.
Add to that he doesn't have a clue how to do the job
Add to that he's fired about 50 of his staff - a bunch are flipping to Mueller
Add to that all the avenues Mueller's investigation is going down
He already had a few lawsuits going on but now, we've got more.
and his legal staff is thin and getting thinner with no one in sight to help

How much can a person take in terms of that stress?

It might be the straw that breaks the camel's back

[pnwmom]

58. Yeah, this Congress certainly wouldn't.

But if, for example, this case caused Katie Johnson to come out and tell her raped-as-a-13 year old story (the one that disappeared about 4 days before the election), the next Congress might impeach him, and the Senate might even convict. By then there would probably be that much more evidence on other things.

[Jarqui]

59. A pedophile rapist conviction?

If that didn't do it, we would need to start over from scratch.

But he got to her. And she was obviously having a tough time with it.

No matter how flawed her NDA is, I doubt we will ever hear from her. He probably paid her 10 times what Stormy got - maybe more. She would have killed his chances in the election or of remaining in office.

It is the people that he's hurt like her or the blacks he discriminated against in NY or the business people he cheated or the fake university fraud ripoff of students, etc. - they're the ones and people like them who really work me up to want to see him brought down without mercy. He's a sociopath with no regard for those he's hurt.

[Jarqui]

6. This tweet thread might be a better answer

Link to tweet

Clink on the tweet to see his numerous other points

[leftynyc]

32. digenova and his repulsive wife

didn't make that decision. They're saying it was due to a conflict of interest but sources are saying donnie didn't feel a connection with them and when they showed up for a meeting, they looked disheveled which means they didn't look like TV lawyers out of central casting.

[Jarqui]

39. digenova had argued that Bill Clinton could be indicted

http://time.com/5206281/joseph-digenova-donald-trump-president-indicted/

“Nobody should underestimate the upheaval that a prosecution of the president would cause,” he wrote in a March 6, 1997 piece published when independent counsel Kenneth Starr was only investigating financial irregularities in the Whitewater scandal and Clinton’s affair with a White House intern had not yet come to light. “But we went through it once before, in Watergate, and survived. The nation, in fact, could conceivably benefit from the indictment of a president. It would teach the valuable civics lesson that no one is above the law.”

That position could be more than problematic for the narcissist and I'm sure it was brought to his attention

[leftynyc]

40. Karma rocks

And we didn't go through it during watergate. Nixon resigned and was never indicted. That said, I'm of the belief that a president can be indicted for the reason indicated, nobody is above the law (I'll pay Mueller every dime in my paycheck if he uses digenova's quote to make his point).

[Jarqui]

43. The majority of people then felt that Nixon should not have been pardoned

If the members of the 1974 Congress were in those positions today, Trump would probably have already resigned or they'd have impeachment underway. Those members of Congress would not have sold out to Russian money & Putin the way the current Congress has.

If you want a conviction, help get the Dems back in control of Congress so they can put the boots to this asshole.

[leftynyc]

45. The pardon may have been

wrong in the name of justice but it was the right call for the country. We needed to get past nixon - the prior decade was one gut punch after another - JFK, Bobby, MLK, Vietnam - the country needed peace.

[Jarqui]

48. Nixon would have had to plead guilty - the debate would have been over the sentence

It would not have dragged it out as much as the debate over his pardon which was more divisive. A guilty verdict would have delivered closure.

Only 30 some percent supported a pardon back then. I didn't and I would like to see Trump convicted and severely punished to discourage presidents of the future from going down the path Trump chose.

The president should never be above the law.

[leftynyc]

50. Agree president is not above the law

and colluding with russia and doing NOTHING to protect our votes and election processes will be seen as far, far worse than what nixon did (even if that also was trying to screw with an election). Colluding with an enemy? Even donnie's 35% base wont be able to save him if Mueller has an airtight case.

[Jarqui]

51. I agree with that too.

This is way worse than Watergate though some of the stuff Nixon did to the Vietnam peace talks was pretty bad like what Reagan did with the hostages.

If these guys knew they really risked being held to account, it might discourage such behavior in the future.

I'm fine with Trump getting his due process. But I want that seen through this time and if he and/or his cronies are proven guilty, they get sentenced like anyone else.

Why should Trump get "presidential" treatment when his actions appear to amount to him stealing the presidency while working with the enemy. That's point blank treason. They should be prosecuted and sentenced accordingly. That would one great way towards helping regain the respect of the planet - prove to the rest of the world that in the United States of America nobody is above the law.

[SHRED]

3. Another good one

Link to tweet

[gratuitous]

5. I see Trump reading these tweets

And every last person in the West Wing battling him to keep his "smart" phone away from him. A real free-for-all.

[PJMcK]

7. I wonder if Trump reads the threads

Trump is notorious as a non-reader. Could it be that he never reads the threads his tweets generate? It seems that he never responds the the responses. Some of them are so incendiary, I'd expect Trump to respond.

[FakeNoose]

19. Occasionally Cheeto retweets, so he does read tweets from other people

But it's odd that he never replies to anyone who replies to him. Is it possible to turn off replies on Twitter? Maybe he never gets any replies, and thinks he's doing just fine.

[shanny]

29. He only follows a handful of people--his tens of fans I'm sure--

so he doesn't see the vast majority of tweets directed his way.

[unblock]

8. beyond invalidating the contract, isn't it criminal fraud?

if cohen got stormy to clam up based on deceiving her that donnie had agreed to certain things, but in fact donnie wasn't even aware of any of this, then how is that not fraud?

granted she got $130,000, but according to the document donnie's gave other things that were material enough so that she wouldn't have agreed without it. it's like they went out of their way to spelled out that the deception was enough to amount to fraud.

[erronis]

25. It does sound like fraud to me, too.

Of course, IANAL but I've had to deal with too many of them...

It's a pity that we need such crises to give all of us lessons in government, civics, legalities, prosecution, treason, justice, and pure imbecility. Maybe a Tea Pot, Watergate, or dump presidency is necessary every few decades.

[leftynyc]

33. The part that's really a problem for Cohen

is his insistence that donnie didn't know about the payoff. A lawyer CANNOT agree to a settlement of any kind on behalf of his client without informing the client. That's a serious enough breach to get disbarred.

[unblock]

35. he could get disbarred *and* go to prison.

i think he needs a lawyer.



i think his lawyer might also need a lawyer.



hey, maybe cohen could represent his lawyer as well.

[leftynyc]

36. It's simply mindbogling that

man as rich as donnie (not as rich as he says but he's not poor by any count) cannot find competent counsel. Even murderer OJ had a "dream team". Donnie's lawyers are cartoon figures.

[unblock]

37. and with four thousand civil cases it's not like they lack experience

[leftynyc]

38. This is donnie's problem

He's gone through his life cheating people because he buries them in legal costs where they wind up settling for a fraction of what donnie actually owes them just so they don't go bankrupt suing him for their due payment. There are literally hundreds of cases of this. That's not going to work here.

[unblock]

41. indeed, the experience is actually working against him

he's built his enterprise around abusing the civil legal system.

don't honor a contract, just wait for the other person to sue.
bully people with the threat of legal action or countersuit.
negotiate with lots of threats and offer very little.
delay payments.
settle for a fraction of what you owe.

there's no concept of "justice" in any of this.
just whatever he can get away with.

he's been trying to apply similar tactics everywhere. with the media, with prosecutors.

it doesn't work.

[leftynyc]

42. Mueller wont be bought off

nor does he need to worry about paying his team. He's got government resources which FAR outweigh any bank account donnie is using. I also think he's taken to heart the old adage "if you're going to shoot the king, you better kill him" and is building an airtight case with no room for doubt.

[unblock]

44. i certainly hope so.

we're doomed if this goes the route of the oj simpson trial....

[leftynyc]

46. The OJ prosecutors SUCKED

That was far from an airtight case, their witnesses were easily impeached and a jury that was looking for a reason to acquit easily found several.

[unblock]

47. and the jury's still out on how this one plays out.

this one certainly seems to be harlem globetrotters vs. keystone kops, but there are a lot of republican operatives working the media, trying to generate that "looking for a reason to acquit" sentiment.

hopefully, in the end, the media won't be able to resist an epic tear-down story as they all scramble for their pulitzers for their part of the "stupid watergate on steroids" story.

[leftynyc]

49. I honestly think

if Mueller comes up with airtight (video, audio, texts, emails) of collusion with russia, even fox news wont be able to protect donnie. Especially in light of the absolutely nothing he's done to protect our votes for 2018. There already is plenty of circumstantial evidence donnie is beholden to putin.

[Frustratedlady]

9. The way these people throw money around for their jollies, this idea popped up in my head...

What if Cohen had a "fund" of laundered money from Trump. He put it into an LLC or whatever...tin can in the backyard...and only got into the account when Trump got in trouble with his dollies? Cohen withdrew whatever he needed, but was able to carry out the NDA without telling Trump? Cohen would do the dirty work and Trump could move on to the next dollie with a clear conscience? That way, he could honestly say he didn't know anything about it.

I know, that sounds weird for even Trump/Cohen, but look at the whole picture. They don't operate in normal ways.

[bigbrother05]

13. That actually makes sense for Trump given his history

He just tops up the fund as it runs low. Probably adds money on an annual basis and any savings Cohen negotiates he can keep. Like a Medical/Health Savings Account.

[FakeNoose]

20. In Michael Wolff's book Fire and Fury

... Wolff quotes Steve Bannon that they paid off about 100 women in the last few weeks of the campaign so they wouldn't come forward and embarass Cheeto before the election. Wolff doesn't name any of the women, but most likely Stormy Daniels was one of them. I'm sure Michael Cohen knows all their names.

This was not an isolated case, there were many more women, and they don't want them all coming forward now. (Some already have.) I'll guarantee you, Cheeto did know about this, and he was surely the one who told Cohen to contact them. But they're maintaining "deniability" for Cheeto and that's why Cohen says he did it without consulting Trump. Typical move for a mobster's fixer.

[tblue37]

23. Considering that the NEW was an all-purpose standardized form, he probably has a bunch of

empty forms in a drawer in a file cabinet.

[brush]

21. Cohen's alleged heloc is easily reseachable though.

[Roland99]

10. He should probably stop this before his court date.

Fun to see but don’t think a judge would take it so well re: his overall behavior

[grantcart]

11. All they care about is the deposition IMO

[csziggy]

15. I expect Avenatti will know how to behave in court

While Trump/Cohen's attorney will be less competent than Kobach was in the court case over voter registration:

Kobach's Behavior During Recent Trial Prompts Ethics Complaint From Overland Park Lawyer
By Dan Margolies • 20 hours ago

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach committed ethical violations during the just-completed trial over the state’s voter registration law, a Kansas immigration lawyer alleges in a bar complaint.

<SNIP>

Although he declined to spell out the contents of his bar complaint, Hoppock’s tweets made clear he believes Kobach violated at least four of the Kansas Rules of Professional Conduct, the canons governing attorney behavior:

By acting as an attorney and serving as a fact witness in the same case, Kobach violated the rule that bars lawyers from acting as advocates at a trial in which they themselves are witnesses.
Because U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson found before the trial that Kobach had made “patently misleading representations to the court,” Kobach violated the rule prohibiting attorneys from knowingly making false statements to the court.
By missing filing deadlines, Kobach violated the rule requiring attorneys to “act with reasonable diligence and promptness in representing a client.”
Because he was repeatedly chastised by the judge for running afoul of evidentiary rules during the trial, Kobach violated the rule requiring attorneys to “provide competent representation to a client.

More: http://kcur.org/post/kobachs-behavior-during-recent-trial-prompts-ethics-complaint-overland-park-lawyer#stream/0

Apparently the judge had to - repeatedly - instruct Kobach on trial procedure.

I can see Trump/Cohen's lawyers making similar mistakes, while Avenatti is obviously competent and well versed in how to handle a court case.

[FakeNoose]

22. Does America have Kenneth Starr to thank for this?

I believe so. I believe Starr made it perfectly acceptable for RWNJ's to consider themselves top rate lawyers, even though they were only RWNJ's.

[csziggy]

28. It's the Dunning Kruger Effect

Stupid people are too stupid to know how stupid they are!

In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein people of low ability suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their cognitive ability as greater than it is. The cognitive bias of illusory superiority derives from the metacognitive inability of low-ability persons to recognize their own ineptitude; without the self-awareness of metacognition, low-ability people cannot objectively evaluate their actual competence or incompetence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

[hedda_foil]

30. Has the judge ruled on the case yet?

[csziggy]

31. The deposition case was dismissed without prejudice

So Avenatti can refile that later. I didn't catch the details last night and just got going this morning.

Here we go:

Judge: Stormy Daniels' lawyer can't depose Trump — yet
John Bacon, USA TODAY Published 1:58 p.m. ET March 29, 2018 | Updated 3:40 p.m. ET March 29, 2018

A federal judge in California on Thursday rejected a request by Stormy Daniels' lawyer to depose President Trump on the $130,000 "hush agreement" she signed days before his 2016 election.

Judge S. James Otero said the court motion filed by Michael Avenatti, Daniels' lawyer, was "premature" on procedural grounds because lawyers for Trump and Essential Consultants — a corporation set up by Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen to sign the agreement — have not yet filed an anticipated motion to compel arbitration.

"While EC and Mr. Trump have stated their intention to file a petition to compel arbitration, they have not yet done so," Otero said in his ruling. "If such a petition were filed, a number of the questions raised in plaintiff's motion may be answered in the petition, thus limiting the need" for a deposition.

Avenatti said he will refile his request to depose Trump after the arbitration petition is filed, which he said he expects "any day."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/03/29/judge-stormy-daniels-lawyer-cant-depose-trump-yet/470001002/

[hedda_foil]

34. Thanks csziggy!

[czarjak]

12. Please proceed...

[Puzzler]

14. K&R

-Puzzler

[iluvtennis]

16. I really like Avenatti's tactics - he's hitting Trump/company with their modus operandi - SO PERFECT

[Hassin Bin Sober]

17. I want to know what "problems" the "fixer" had to fix after 3am calls (per Schwartz)?

Warning:semi gory scene from Godfather2 depicting a dead bloody body

[Pobeka]

18. Distracting Trump from Mueller's investigation can only be a good thing.

Two thumbs up for Avenatti using up both of Trump's neurons every day!

[MoonRiver]

24. OMG, hilarious!

[Gothmog]

26. Trump has bad attorneys

[SL1]

27. I like where this is heading