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The Stormy hush agreement was a complicated, messy deal that almost fell apart numerous times. The central problem was how to get the payment to Stormy.
And according to Cohen, Trump exec Weisselberg had "a hundred different ideas" for how to launder the money through Trump Org.
And according to Cohen, Trump exec Weisselberg had "a hundred different ideas" for how to launder the money through Trump Org.
One of Weisselberg's ideas for laundering the money to Stormy, according to Cohen, was to "have a party at one of" Trump's clubs, or use a golf club membership, and then redirect the money paid to the Trump club to Cohen, who in turn would redirect it to Stormy's attorney.
According to Cohen, he was middle man in the hush money transaction, but the architect of it was the Trump Org CFO: "The amount of money that they were going to pay back was created by [Weisselberg]. How they were going to pay me the money back was created by [Weisselberg]."
And if Cohen is telling the truth -- an important "if," to be sure -- then the best evidence of the conspiracy to commit campaign finance violations would come not from Michael Cohen, but Trump Org itself.
The most critical period in the Stormy hush agreement was between Oct 17, 2016 and the morning of Oct 26, 2016. That's when the Trump campaign came to the edge of disaster, and — due to Trump's continual failures to actually pay up — Stormy was a heartbeat away from going public.
Coincidentally or not, that happens to be the exact same date range in which the Trump Campaign made a series of payments totaling a few pennies shy of $130K to the Trump Organization. These payments were for unspecified alleged campaign events. viewfromll2.com/2018/03/11/on-…
When I first noticed the transactions totaling $130K, I had no idea about the significance of that particular date range. I noticed the oddity in the payments first — only later did it become the clear that those payments also happen to have been made at the exact critical time.
We still have no answers for whether Trump Org has invoices that can explain those payments, or who authorized them, or how those prices were agreed upon.
But we know Cohen has alleged Weisselberg wanted to use events at Trump Org clubs to get the $130K together to pay Cohen.
But we know Cohen has alleged Weisselberg wanted to use events at Trump Org clubs to get the $130K together to pay Cohen.
So how do you find out if Cohen is telling the truth about Weisselberg's role in using Trump Org as a way to launder the $130K to Stormy? Or if the $130K payment from Trump Campaign was merely a lottery-win-level coincidence?
Well, search warrants on Cohen won't tell you that.
Well, search warrants on Cohen won't tell you that.
What the DOJ did do to investigate Trump Org was to grant Weisselberg limited immunity to testify before a grand jury in Cohen's case. But, by all accounts, the nature of Weisselberg's testimony was extremely limited. nbcnews.com/card/trump-org…
So why, without apparently taking any of the steps necessary to investigate the available evidence and the claims of a man in prison for his own admitted role in a conspiracy, has the DOJ now "effectively concluded" its investigation?
