Re: Real Manafort and "Russiagate" story is out
Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2019 7:26 pm
New Game, Let's Play!
Here is a Manafort-related story that won't have media legs.
Can you see what's missing?
Here's some criminal dealing by Cohen involving online manipulations designed to benefit the Trump campaign. Despite that highly promising start, this true story also will not dominate news cycles.
Can you see what's missing?
Here is a Manafort-related story that won't have media legs.
Can you see what's missing?
Skadden Arps Settles With DOJ Over Manafort Ukraine Dealings
Source: Talking Points Memo
By Josh Kovensky
January 17, 2019 3:39 pm
The prominent law firm Skadden Arps reached a civil settlement with federal law enforcement today over work it performed in Ukraine on Paul Manafort’s request, the Justice Department announced in a statement.
The firm agreed to pay $4.6 million that it secretly received for the work that it performed on behalf of the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice, and agreed to retroactively register as a foreign agent of the Ukrainian government.
Skadden wrote a report in 2012 whitewashing the Ukrainian government’s prosecution of a main political opponent, Yulia Tymoshenko.
The press release says that the lead partner in the matter made “false and misleading statements” to the DOJ after its foreign agents registration unit contacted the firm in 2013 in connection with the case. The lead partner was former Obama White House Counsel Gregory Craig, who left the firm in April 2018. The lead partner told the FARA unit that he had only replied to media requests regarding the report, and did not actively attempt to disseminate it in the American press, according to the press release.
Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker ... e-dealings
Here's some criminal dealing by Cohen involving online manipulations designed to benefit the Trump campaign. Despite that highly promising start, this true story also will not dominate news cycles.
Can you see what's missing?
Cohen Hired IT Firm to Rig Early CNBC, Drudge Polls to Favor Trump
By Michael Rothfeld, Rob Barry and Joe Palazzolo
Updated Jan. 17, 2019 9:25 a.m. ET
In early 2015, a man who runs a small technology company showed up at Trump Tower to collect $50,000 for having helped Michael Cohen, then Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, try to rig online polls in his boss’s favor before the presidential campaign.
In his Trump Organization office, Mr. Cohen surprised the man, John Gauger, by giving him a blue Walmart bag containing between $12,000 and $13,000 in cash and, randomly, a boxing glove that Mr. Cohen said had been worn by a Brazilian mixed-martial arts fighter, Mr. Gauger said.
Mr. Cohen disputed that he handed over a bag of cash. “All monies paid to Mr. Gauger were by check,” he said, offering no further comment on his ties to the consultant.
Mr. Gauger owns RedFinch Solutions LLC and is chief information officer at Liberty University in Virginia, where Jerry Falwell Jr., an evangelical leader and fervent Trump supporter, is president.
Mr. Gauger said he never got the rest of what he claimed he was owed. But Mr. Cohen in early 2017 still asked for—and received—a $50,000 reimbursement from Mr. Trump and his company for the work by RedFinch, according to a government document and a person familiar with the matter. The reimbursement—made on the sole basis of a handwritten note from Mr. Cohen and paid largely out of Mr. Trump’s personal account—demonstrates the level of trust the lawyer once had within the Trump Organization, whose officials arranged the repayment.
After this story published Thursday morning, Mr. Cohen said in a tweet that he attempted to have the polls rigged with Mr. Trump’s knowledge.
“What I did was at the direction of and for the sole benefit of [Mr. Trump],” Mr. Cohen wrote. “I truly regret my blind loyalty to a man who doesn’t deserve it.”
The Trump Organization declined to comment. Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, said Mr. Cohen’s being reimbursed more money than he paid RedFinch showed the former Trump lawyer to be a thief. “If one thing has been established, it’s that Michael Cohen is completely untrustworthy,” he said.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/poll-riggi ... 1547722801