Marshall - TPM - "Tonight's Staggering Revelations"

[NRaleighLiberal]

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/tonights-staggering-revelations

Tonight we have what I’d say may be the most staggering revelations since the tangle of “Trump/Russia” investigations began almost two years ago. This is not hyperbole.

Late this afternoon Stormy Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti posted what he called a “Preliminary Report” on financial transactions of Michael Cohen. The claims were staggering. But this wasn’t a legal filing in which the attorneys in question need to vouch for their accuracy. For all the fancy language it was simply a press release, with no clear explanation of the basis for the various claims. (It’s an example of how TPM is in many ways a much more conservative operation than many mainstream media publications. Bloomberg for instance published basically all the claims even though they were clear that it could not independently verify them. To be clear, this is not necessarily a criticism. These are fact sets for which there is little obvious precedent.) In any case, the key claims are now being confirmed – in most cases to the letter.

The most important ones are that a Russian oligarch paid more than $500,000 into the shell company that Cohen earlier used to make his payment to Stormy Daniels. The money is nominally from the US affiliate of Viktor Vekselberg’s holding company. But this is a direct connection. AT&T made payments totaling $200,000. Novartis, the drug manufacturer, chipped in almost $400,000. In what still must be considered preliminary reporting, The New York Times now says that transactions totaling at least $4.4 million flowed into “Essential Consultants LLC”, the shell company Cohen used as the vehicle to pay Stormy Daniels and then later used to arrange another hush agreement at least nominally for billionaire Elliott Broidy, a then-RNC deputy finance chair who is tied up in the Trump/Russia probe through fixer George Nader. The payments all end in January 2018. That’s when the name “Essential Consultants LLC” was first published by The Wall Street Journal as part of the Stormy Daniels’ story.

In other words, just through this single shell company Cohen was receiving major payments from a Russian oligarch and additional moneys from various Fortune 500 companies looking for access to President Trump. On the US corporate side these are classic off-the-books pay-for-play payments to what appears to have been a slush fund. If you’ve spent any time covering political scandals you can’t look even at these initial details and not think this is the kind of story that sends a bunch of people to prison.


snip - more at the above link

[GusBob]

1. 4.4 million bucks, chump change

There's more for sure.

[tblue37]

2. I so hope Trump and his criminal spawn end up in prison. nt

[MyOwnPeace]

4. Won't it be beautiful............

to see how that orange hair matches the special suits he gets to wear for his "service" to our country?

[GusBob]

3. Why would the companies admit to this so readily?

Admit to the amounts and everything?

[BSdetect]

8. They know Mueller knows. And drumpf probably screwed them anyway.

[WhiteTara]

9. It must have been irrefutable.

[GusBob]

10. Yes I get that

The information is accurate

But still one would think they would offer no comment at best

Unless they think they have done no wrong?

Asking cuz I dont know

[WhiteTara]

11. I think the Russians are washing their hands of 45

and ATT has so much baggage, I guess they thought if they got it out now, they would escape scathing public comments?

[honest.abe]

5. This is the smoking gun.

Follow the money. I dont see how the Trump mob can escape this.

[Stuart G]

7. I sure hope it is...and you are right....time will tell.

We will watch along..

[calimary]

17. Sure wraps a lot up together, doesn't it.

I’ve been asking myself for awhile now - how is this NOT collusion?

[babylonsister]

6. I can't keep up!

Seriously, you can't freakin' blink!

[AllyCat]

20. My thinking too babsis

I cannot even follow it anymore.

[dalton99a]

12. Kick

[Pepsidog]

13. And better yet, Avenatti promises More to Come !!!

[Laura PourMeADrink]

15. So how could he have gotten this information? Its

Almost like he is on the Mueller case and just happened to hook up with stormy to help her. NOT the other way around.

[ffr]

14. TPM's very next paragraph -- confirmation of some of the details are coming in.

I said above that we didn’t have confirmation of the claims in Avenatti’s document. But over the last three or four hours Columbus Nova (the Vekselberg company), AT&T and Novartis have each confirmed the payments as described. So there’s no question that they happened. And these are only some of the pay-offs. They’ve also confirmed the dollar amounts.

[Cha]

18. Mahalo, ffr!

[ffr]

19. Right back at you, Cha!

[Cha]

21. :)

[blake2012]

16. So tiring. Just throw Trump to the Alligators and be done with it

As “riveting” as all of this is, unless Trump ends up resigning or is thrown into prison, I don’t care. Trump is a madman and needs to be gone.