Giuliana scrambles to clarify his earlier remarks. But I don't think this helps.

[RandySF]

Link to tweet

[GusBob]

1. Discussed long in advance and Hannity is a Cohen client too

Yeah, you thInk they would have planned tonight's presentation a little better, not so messy

[manor321]

2. Question

Could at least one reporter ask Rudy if Trump is admitting to the affair? How are they not asking that question yet?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

3. So, a 3 billionaire has to make payments, like ordinary people, on a

measly $130 k?

[uppityperson]

4. $35,000 at a time to make it look like he was paying Cohen for work

i.e. Go on Hannity and explain how to try to cheat the system.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

6. To make it deductible on taxes as an professional service expense?

.......

[lunatica]

7. Trump may have used campaign financing which is illegal

Paying in small amounts would look like he was paying for work done for the campaign.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

15. Campaign finance makes one's head spin (at least mine!)

There's far too many avenues for corruption in our government, IMO, and little public interest to change that.

How can anyone keep track of all the various categories of assets with any politician: 1.) personal funds, 2.) affiliated company funds, 3.) 2016 campaign funds and 4.) re-election campaign funds? And, what prevents them from becoming mixed?

For this situation to be fair and moral for the electorate, a politician's books would need to be totally open and transparent.

Rant over.... .....Very discouraging for our democracy......

[uppityperson]

5. Trump spent so much on the campaign, $130,000 is nothing! Only a couple of checks.

[Mc Mike]

8. Giuliani said dRump paid, in an effort to advance dRump's claim that the confidentiality agreement

is legally enforceable.

[PJMcK]

9. This lie won't work

Giuliani said, "I'm almost certain that there wasn't an itemized bill."

Bullshit.

Every lawyer that has done work for me or my business has presented me with billing statements. They are detailed and specific. I believe they are legally and ethically required.

Are we supposed to believe that Trump and Cohen are so sloppy that the lawyer doesn't send the client accurate statements?

This is a stupid lie by stupid people. Robert Mueller has all of Michael Cohen's files. The statements either exist or they don't.

As I wrote, bullshit.

[jberryhill]

10. No, they aren't required

Last edited Thu May 3, 2018, 10:52 AM - Edit history (1)

There are a lot of problems with the issues around the 130k payment, but not sending an itemized invoice isn't one of them.

It is pretty common to simply have a lawyer on retainer to deal with some defined universe of "stuff" for a fixed periodic (typically monthly) amount.

For example, I have a client that runs a business. Their customer support department gets a couple thousand inquiries/complaints/questions a month. Maybe a dozen or so of those, sometimes more, sometimes less, contain some kind of legal threat or claim. The customer support department hits a button that forwards those to me, I take a look at them and let them know whether the communication raises a genuine problem, whether its just frivolous nonsense, what sort of reply to send back, etc.. Because that work doesn't involve sitting down for an hour at a time to go over any one of them, and because it also feeds back into general work on keeping their contracts up to date to address previously unidentified potential issues, it's not billed on an hourly basis, but is simply an agreed monthly retainer. It's a one-line invoice for "dealing with that stuff" each month.

What sort of bill you get from a lawyer depends on what the fee agreement was initially. Most legal billing is done on an hourly fee plus costs basis. But there are lots of other common arrangements - flat fee, recurring retainer, contingent fee, etc..

The biggest problem lawyers have is simply being able to get their clients to pay their bills. In order to actually enforce a fee agreement for that purpose then, yeah, the typical arrangement is to have a very clearly defined fee agreement, and very detailed invoices.

[PJMcK]

12. Well, okay then

Once again, your excellent knowledge and willingness to share it clarifies this for me.

Thanks, as always.

[rsdsharp]

13. I can't speak to New York law

but in my state, retainers are deposited in the attorney's trust account. Funds are withdrawn by the attorney for work performed, and an itemized statement must be sent to the client within 24 hours of the withdrawal.

[PJMcK]

17. It's interesting law

The response by jberryhill above once again illustrates why I'm an administrator and not an attorney!

The dictum from the movie, "All The President's Men" was "Follow the money." While Mark Felt, aka, "Deep Throat," never actually said those words, they are obviously the cautionary directive.

[Luz]

11. 35k per month for a year? That's a lot more than 130k.

[Bucky]

14. Why would a "billionaire" like Trump have to pay $130k in installments?

The dude was broke

[Cognitive_Resonance]

16. Digging the hole deeper and deeper every time he opens his mouth. nt