General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums***BREAKING*** Feds investigating Cohen $774,000.00 slush fund.
Those transactions could factor into a broad investigation of Mr. Cohens business affairs being conducted by Manhattan federal prosecutors and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who are examining whether Mr. Cohen violated any laws in his efforts to raise cash and conceal negative information about Mr. Trump, according to people familiar with the matter. Those include transactions tied to his credit line and his ownership of real estate and taxi medallions, the people said.
In February 2016, as Mr. Trumps fortunes as a presidential candidate rose, Mr. Cohen nearly doubled the amount he could use on a bank credit line tied to his Manhattan apartment, increasing his ability to borrow by $245,000, according to real-estate records.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-probes-cohen-over-cash-he-built-up-during-campaign-1525478682
The rest is behind a paywall.
malaise
(268,664 posts)Wonder if they finally found some of that inauguration money?
Zoonart
(11,828 posts)You're evil I love it.
woodsprite
(11,902 posts)raven mad
(4,940 posts)DUzy, malaise!
elleng
(130,714 posts)BigmanPigman
(51,563 posts)when the moron could do it himself. Apparently the moron knew that things like hush money would be needed by his fixer. How many others did he pay off? The investigators are all over this!
MSNBC is covering this now.
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,938 posts)BigmanPigman
(51,563 posts)and therefore no one would be looking into this stuff in the first place. He only ran as a PR stunt to make money on his "brand" and as an ego boost.
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,938 posts)Pluvious
(4,305 posts)kentuck
(111,051 posts)If there was nothing to hide and he wanted to pay it off, why not just write a check?
Why set up an LLC? Why pay in monthly payments? There are a lot more questions here that have not yet been uncovered.
Civic Justice
(870 posts)fierce, violent, and uncontrolled.... a people regarded as primitive and uncivilized !!!!!!
BumRushDaShow
(128,372 posts)if you can see the tweet and click on the "wsj.com" link in the tweet (doesn't work using the text version of the tweet) -
Link to tweet
TEXT
Steve Herman
✔
@W7VOA
According to @WSJ, @MichaelCohen212 gained access to as much as $774,000 during #Election2016 as the lawyer to fix problems for his boss, @realDonaldTrump. https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-probes-cohen-over-cash-he-built-up-during-campaign-1525478682
8:19 PM - May 4, 2018
babylonsister
(171,029 posts)Neverending...
SCantiGOP
(13,862 posts)I didnt realize that would work.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)Is it so hard to pay 50 cents a day to read a newspaper? Not sure how newspapers are supposed to stay in business if people keep trying to get around paying for them.
BumRushDaShow
(128,372 posts)-literally paying almost $1000 dollars a year to do so, and back in the mid-'70s, used to ALSO subscribe to the WSJ (they would mail it to our household every day). When Murdoch bought Dow Jones (and with it the WSJ) that was the end of that.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)Seems reasonable to pay for content - especially under the current circumstances.
I'm not a fan of looking for work-arounds to get around paywalls and the like. Feels like stealing, to me.
BumRushDaShow
(128,372 posts)have a 10-article "free" view policy... sortof like how you can walk by a newspaper machine and can read the articles on the top part of the front page of the physical paper.
I don't think there are many if any newspapers (physical) at a newsstand or out of a machine that are less than $1 (NYT is $2.50, WP is $1.25, and both the WSJ & Philly Inquirer are $1.50).
oberliner
(58,724 posts)And you are right to point out that the paper versions have gotten pricier. That's why I think paying for digital subscriptions (to the NY Times for instance) is such a good deal.
I don't see how the model is sustainable, though, when it is relatively easy for people to get the content without paying via a few internet tricks.
The health of The NY Times and WaPo is more critical now than it ever was, in my opinion.
BumRushDaShow
(128,372 posts)I.e., most now offer videos and audio clips and of course the biggest thing - they are continually updated 24/7!
When I was younger, my parents had a subscription to the Philadelphia Bulletin - and they had 2 editions - the "morning" and "evening", so we got the paper twice a day. But also back then, you had the "paper boy" and a bit later, the "paper girl" delivering them (before school and after school). Now just about every door delivery is done by grown men and women (who have a salary way more than any kid). Of course there were a myriad of reasons for that change but that did change the cost model.
But then in general, the money obtained by the newspapers was not primarily obtained from subscriptions but from advertising and when the advertising started drying up (including due to so many other places where businesses could advertise like radio, TV, internet), then that made it difficult for them to remain solvent by trying to rely on revenue from subscriptions alone.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)NY Times in particular (and especially on Sunday).
I still can't get used to doing "digital" crossword puzzles.
BumRushDaShow
(128,372 posts)(and it may still apply in some offices today) - Say you have someone who commutes to work on the train. They buy a paper out of the machine, go through the complicated etiquette of carefully folding the paper while reading on the train, eventually shoving it in a bag as they get off the train... and then when they get to work, rather than throw the paper away (or throw it in the recycling bin nowadays), they plop the paper on a table in the "break room". You then have other folks walk in and sit down and read that "gratis" copy of the paper that they did not pay for because it was not thrown away. And the newspaper folks knew this. It was (still is) extremely common.
In fact, when I was a kid and commuted downtown to school on a commuter train, many of the adults would just leave the paper on the seat when they got off the train and I would pick it up to read later or take home. I didn't "pay" for it, it was "discarded", but it did get me introduced to stuff like "Barrons" and whatnot.
So the newspaper industry knows this happens and they do offer (at least the 3 I subscribe to) the ability to "share" a subscription with a family member/friend etc for their device. WP also offers a "30 day pass" each month in addition, for subscribers to give to people to get them interested. And slowly they have picked up new subscribers this way.
And I won't even attempt an electronic crossword. lol
XRubicon
(2,212 posts)Leghorn21
(13,522 posts)NEW YORK (AP) President Donald Trumps personal attorney, whose business dealings are being investigated by the FBI, and the lawyers father-in-law have lent $26 million in recent years to a taxi mogul who is shifting into the legalized marijuana industry, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Semyon Sam Shtayner, a longtime business associate of Michael Cohens father-in-law, created Nevada-based Cannaboss LLC the day before the 2016 election. A few months later, he took a majority position in a company that is provisionally licensed to cultivate medicinal marijuana and produce edibles, the records show.
snip
Its not clear whether Shtayner used any of the loans $6 million of which have come directly from Cohen since 2014 to finance his grow operation.
https://www.apnews.com/f25ba6551a8144f2bef149c0ff80b169
So Im just sayin...somehow, Cohen can pony up $6M?!? - that we know of - in 4 years...so how did he do that? ... hey, I hope he gets busted for $774 thou or $6M worth of financial misdeeds, but I dont think were seeing more than little fractions of the quantities of BLOOD MONEY this little smart-mouthed mobster wannabe has been moving for the last 10+ years...
George II
(67,782 posts)....to be tightened after the Watergate scandal.
kentuck
(111,051 posts)...they were laundering money thru the RNC into the Trump Organization.
Just my opinion.
Tracyjo
(729 posts)SCantiGOP
(13,862 posts)Wall Street Journal. I guess they and FOX are the only two sources Trump cant deny. Hell, hes even calling Fake News on what Giuliani said the past two days.
packman
(16,296 posts)bucolic_frolic
(43,027 posts)to most of us, but for billionaires and their closest associates, $774k is a retirement fund, a vacation home, a few indexed mutual funds.
I'm surprised the sums are not larger, and it's also surprising to me that lines of credit were needed to obtain the float.
I'm just thinking there is something else going on here, but I can't put my finger on it.
Pluvious
(4,305 posts)Didn't ya know mon ?
Volaris
(10,266 posts)Cost a pretty substantial amount of money, and the DIShonest ones, even more.
If so much as one red cent of that enormous amount can be proven to have come from russia, the entire Republican party is gonna need a lawyer heh...
Follow the money seems like advice Mueller knows well.
onetexan
(13,019 posts)WSJ is really turning against trump isn't it?
Vinca
(50,236 posts)billions he claims, can't he just cut a check for $130,000? To a real billionaire, that's pocket change. I don't understand the need for Cohen to turn himself inside out borrowing money if Don is supposedly rolling in it.
Botany
(70,442 posts)n/t