Today’s Episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is a bit different. Want to know how Donald Trump got this deep in with Michael Cohen? Where Cohen came from? We pack the whole story into a single episode from the early days at the mob social club with Felix and the crew (a la Spider and Henry Hill) to the Ukraine-money-backed taxi and casino cruise businesses, his Ukraine based operations, the big prize tens of millions dollar investments in New York City real estate. Trump brought Cohen in to the Trump Organization because he was a conduit for Russian and Ukrainian money. In the last ten years Cohen has touched virtually every part of the Russia story and Trump’s vast and opaque business dealings around the country and the world. Trump is worried because he should be worried. In this episode we explain why. I’m joined by my co-host David Taintor and TPM Reporter Allegra Kirkland who covers the Cohen beat and was in the court room downtown Friday and yesterday. Listen on iTunes or Google Play or use our Podcast RSS feed. If you’re on iTunes or Google Play please subscribe. That helps us build audience. We hope you enjoy.
For you junkies, the top GOP group trying to hold onto the House majority has signaled with a multimillion dollar ad reservation which seats it’s fighting to hold and which ones it may have already given up on.
In an earlier report, Allegra Kirkland described the scene in the federal courthouse when Sean Hannity was revealed to be Michael Cohen’s third client. We now have her full, must-read account (Prime access) of her day at the federal courthouse with Cohen and Stormy Daniels.
Allegra Kirkland on the scene in the courtroom when Hannity was unmasked as Michael Cohen’s third client.
The judge in the Michael Cohen case has denied Cohen’s bid to have the government blocked from going through the materials they seized last week from his offices and hotel room. But she outlined a process where both sides will go though the documents for privileged material. The government can’t look at the substance of the materials, beyond the narrow search. The judge did not rule out appointing a special master to look through the materials, but said she’d decide at a future hearing.
The upshot: This slows things down somewhat, but, at least for now, it doesn’t derail the government’s investigation. We’ll have more details up shortly.
Update: And here they are.
One sub-thread to the Cohen investigation is that the US Attorney in Manhattan (SDNY) recused himself from involvement in the case. It’s been assumed that that was because of his ties to Trump. Trump appointed him (he hasn’t actually been confirmed yet or technically even nominated). He made campaign contributions to candidate Trump and even did some work on the transition. But most notably he sat for a personal interview with the President while he was being considered for the post. That is entirely irregular, though there’s no particular rule against it. It’s been widely assumed that some combination of those factors triggered Berman’s recusal. But this new New York Times piece suggests that’s not the case. Read More
President Trump’s lawyers last night argued that the DOJ can’t be trusted to review the materials seized from Michael Cohen. Now Cohen’s lawyer are arguing that taking it out of the DOJ’s hands will protect the investigation from the toxic atmosphere created by all the attacks on the DOJ (which of course are all coming from President Trump and his allies.)
I think this video captures Friday and the Michael Cohen story.
omg this is amazing pic.twitter.com/TOlAIKvPl5
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 14, 2018
What on earth is going on with the Michael Cohen investigation? Here’s my stab at putting together the big picture (sub req.)