My theory of the Cohen tape. One of the big questions yesterday was "Who leaked the tape?" Since this tape was privileged communication, we have only two possible leakers: Team Cohen and Team Trump. Throughout the day, most commentators presumed that Cohen let the information out. This idea rankled me. Cohen's motive for the release would have been to pressure Trump into stepping forward and paying his legal bills. In other words, the move would have signaled that Cohen wanted to rejoin Team Trump.
Rachel Maddow argued persuasively that Giuliani made the decision to release this information, in order to switch the conversation away from Helsinki. Trump's morning tweet goes some way toward verifying Maddow's theory.
Still, I think that the plan was sneakier. Let me explain my reasoning.
Giuliani declared the tape "exonerative," even though, throughout the day, we kept hearing quiet rumblings that this tape is anything but. For example, this writer claims that it was Trump (not Cohen) who insisted that payment be made with untraceable cash.
We also heard louder rumblings that other tapes exist -- damning ones.
What if Giuliani's ploy was to bait Cohen or Lanny Davis into blabbing about these details publicly?
I'm not sure of the legal ramifications, but if Davis had revealed privileged materials, the resultant brouhaha would have worked to Trump's favor. Republicans specialize in "doing the Martyrella routine," as one of my exes liked to put it.
Added note: I just ran into this story...
Lanny Davis, an attorney for Cohen, said in a Twitter post that, when the recording was heard, it would not hurt Cohen. “Any attempt at spin can not change what is on the tape.” Reuters has not heard the audiotape.That's a measured statement. One doesn't expect Davis to do anything foolish.
On a related note: Yesterday, Michael Avenatti revealed that he bumped into Michael Cohen and offered to represent him! Isn't that a conflict of interest? After all, Avenatti represents Stormy Daniels, who brought a suit against Cohen.
The only way Avenatti could pull off such a trick would be if Cohen settled things with Stormy Daniels completely and quickly. Avenatti would also have to apologize for calling Cohen an idiot on national television. He may have done that bit already.
Trump's women (again). Okay, so there's no evidence of a direct connection between this seedy matter and Der Donald. But don't you think it a little odd that a Russian prostitution ring operated so freely out of a Trump Tower (not the Trump Tower)?
Here's the web page for the Russian Dolls escort service. These people have been operating freely for years out of Trump Tower (but not the one that Trump himself lives in).
You'd think that Trump's management people would know that this was going on. How could they not? If you owned and/or managed a building, wouldn't you make it your business to know about a large-scale, high-end escort service operating out of those premises?
A prostitution service like this -- one which continually imports women from Eastern Europe -- must have strong links to the notorious Russian gangster Semion Mogilevich. He pretty much runs that racket. Mogilevich connects to Trump himself through Felix Sater. See here:
Yet, still, we wait for the media to catch up to, potentially, one of the biggest stories ever told: Donald Trump, our president, is a longtime money-launderer who remains beholden to the Russian mob’s “boss of bosses” Semion Mogilevich.Semion had loads of money to launder. Trump was a morality-free real estate guy who could no longer get loans from decent banks. A match made in hell.
I don't know if the Russian Dolls service has any link to Trump Escorts, the subject of this post. I gave up that line of investigation when the WP ran a story pooh-poohing any connection between the escort agency and Trump himself. (Mystique communications, the new name of Trump Escorts, has changed their website; now it's all white and pink. Despite the bad publicity, they keep doing business.) I note that Mystique and Russian Dolls serve a number of the same cities.
Trump's GIRLS. A new BBC documentary (not yet aired) offers fresh evidence that Donald Trump -- a man known for his love of curvaceous women -- has occasionally shown a taste for younger females.
This documentary features new accusers, including Barbara Pilling, who claims that Trump made advances towards when she was 17 after her modeling agency sent her to one of parties he threw, which were typically populated almost exclusively by models save for a handful of significantly older, wealthy men. Models who attended these parties are alleged to have been as young as 14 or 15.
Pilling said that Trump approached her at the party and asked how old she was. When she responded, she claims that he wasn’t put off that she was underage.
“Oh, great. So you’re not too old and not too young,” Trump allegedly said. “That’s just great.”
An anonymous man who said he was at several of these parties told the BBC that there was “a lot of cocaine around.”Maria Butina. The fashionable new theory is that she helped establish the NRA as a conduit of communication -- not just money -- between Moscow and the Trumpsters. I haven't yet seen proof, but the idea makes a lot of sense.
“It was kind of like a feeding frenzy,” the man said. “The girls were there as consumables.”
You may be interested to learn that Putin sent another one of his whores into France in order to help put LePen in office. The whore's name is Maria Katasonova.
I wonder: Was there still another Russian whore working behind-the-scenes in the Brexit campaign? If there was, and if her name was also Maria, I must presume that I am now living in either a surrealist novel or a New Testament studies class.
Finally: Does anyone have a decent theory regarding the Kristin Davis connection? Yesterday, everyone mentioned the matter, but nobody discussed it in depth. The reactions ranged from Wow to Whoopee to Weird. I'd prefer a Why.
Here's a guess: Davis, it is said, possessed much blackmail information. It seems very possible that this information -- kompromat -- was used to keep force the Republican party to line up behind Trump. For example, Paul Ryan clearly hated Trump, yet he morphed into one of those people who would applaud if Trump opened fire on 5th Avenue. Fox News (headquartered in NY) used to be somewhat critical of Trump and is now sycophantic. Most of you can guess what I think of Devin Nunes.
I'm not going to say here that Nunes or any other specific individual was blackmailed. What I'm saying is that blackmail as a general theory would explain a lot.
8 comments:
Mogilevich and Putin BFFs?
I'm guessing not much mob stuff goes on that Vlad don't know.
If records of the Rubles Trump laundered for the Russian mob got out how much damage would it do?
The Great White Dope better hope the Russians don't have a revolution bc the Pee Tape is nothing compared to money laundering.
Steve Bannon plans to set up a Europe-wide foundation called "The Movement". The idea is to lead a "right-wing populist revolt" across the continent, an early step being to gain at least a third of the seats in the EU Parliament next May.
Trump's granddad was a brothel operator, so it would hardly be surprising if the current Trump was involved too.
I believe the Kristin Davis matter can *only* be about blackmail. If you were as old as me, you would probably remember the Profumo affair. I was then a little teen jacking off to very mildly sexy pictures of one Christine Keeler that appeared in the subprime media of the time. The year was 1961. Meanwhile I’m an old man, and Christine of fond memory recently passed away at age 75.
Anyway, Christine had simultaneous relationships with the British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, and a Soviet spy, Yevgeny Ivanov. I suspect such a type of triangle just might be in Mueller’s sight.
Christine published a book in 2001, entitled “The Truth at Last: My Story”, an update of which appeared in 2012 under the title “Secrets and Lies”. There was no opportunity in those times to become a Stormy Daniels, but Christine was every bit as courageous, decent, and extraordinary. She never got the redemption she deserved.
-brumel
I don't why everyone is saying Avenatti cannot represent Cohen. You explain in your quote. Of course there would be a conflict if Daniels was still suing Cohen, but obviously representation would be contingent on dropping or settling the suit. This isn't a hard problem to solve. Or Avenatti is just trolling Trump.
The only way Avenatti could pull off such a trick would be if Cohen settled things with Stormy Daniels completely and quickly. Avenatti would also have to apologize for calling Cohen an idiot on national television. He may have done that bit already.
It seems that blackmail and bribes are the currencies of this administration. My guess is that the Russians hacked the RNC as well as the DNC, and in order to keep the GOPers on the reservation, Manafort was brought on board to ensure that the right people got paid or blackmailed. Stone and Manafort worked together on this effort but I believe there were others in contact with Russians like Eric Prince.
It seems clear from reporting in the NY Times Business scecton alone, that the decades of dealings between Trump and Russians can only be shady.
The term to describe a dominating player popularized among fans of SF Giants Baseball broadcasters Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper comes to mind: ownage. Roughly equivalent to nash.
“Whore” seems so loaded with archaic judgement. How about Sex Agent?
Tom
The "Russian" mob is part of the FSB scene and it has been since the FSB (plus SVR) was called the KGB. As I never tire of saying, the KGB was (and in its current form, is) a formidable organisation.
It's striking that there's been so little gang warfare in the Russian-speaking mob scene over the past few decades. That would be the vector that western intelligence would try to use to help change the regime in Russia if ever they were in a position to do so. They would not use a political party or a "democratic movement". Fuck all of that. This is Russia. Forget about a "Moscow spring" or a Moscow version of Tienamen Square. The "opposition" leaders are just as mobbed up (and just as ~KGBed up) as pro-government politicians. The method used would be mob warfare. The news would be e.g. "Kazan and Yekaterinburg have been taken out of Moscow's hands overnight, and St Petersburg is split down the middle with artillery and heavy armour on both sides". And that is not going to happen.
In a time of a a deterioration in US-Russian relations most of the foreign-based "Russian" mob would go home to Russia and bring the City of London and Wall Street crashing down as they flew out. (Supporters of Chelsea football club, please note.)
Western intelligence have never been in the position to be able to crack Russia and impose "regime change" and they probably never will be, even though, as we know, there is a great deal of "Russian" mob-linked money in London and New York. Why not? Because the ~KGB outclasses them. The ~KGB knows a great deal about intelligence and finance but unlike the CIA and SIS it is essentially a security organisation.
Note that the upper reaches of the "Russian" mob are mainly Jewish and there is a spectrum that runs from making money in Russia (and other places)(e.g. Mogilevich) and having mostly left Russia behind them in the past (e.g. Nevzlin) even though they may still speak the language. This hasn't caused a huge amount of tension so far but that would change if there were a military flare-up between Russia and Israel.
The role of Chabad is a fascinating question.
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