Cohen admits under oath to stealing $60,000 from Trump, calls it ‘self-help’



As Michael Cohen wrapped up his testimony in Trump’s hush-money trial, he made a huge confession: Trump’s friend turned foe stole $60,000 from the Trump Organization.

Cohen admitted under oath that he did so by "grossing up" payments for tax, and he justified the stealing as “self-help” because his bonus had been slashed. Cohen also claimed he dealt with an apparent photo extortion blackmail attempt involving Tiffany Trump and that he had personally laid out $130,000 for the Stormy Daniels hush-money payment.

When his bonus was later reduced, he was upset and decided to steal.

“So all I’m saying is he admitted to stealing, okay? Stormy Daniels admits to hating Trump, so is it really unheard of that they could be lying to get him in trouble?” Sara Gonzales theorizes.

Glenn Beck’s chief writer and researcher, Jason Buttrill, agrees, calling her theory a “strong case.”

“Is he up for sainthood yet with that rap sheet? You know, like stealing, lying, all this stuff. Like did they put Satan up on the stand here to testify in this case?” Buttrill asks. “This is a joke, and what’s even more of a joke is that it’s still up in the air, that because of a New York jury we have no freaking clue.”

And the jury has not seemed promising.

“We’ve gone through the jurors,” Gonzales says, “their demographics, where they get their news from, and it did not look good for Donald Trump at that time. There were several of them who get their news from TikTok, MSNBC, the Washington Post.”

“I don’t know about that; that does not make me comfortable,” she adds.


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Breaking: Manhattan prosecutors signal to Trump attorneys that he may be criminally charged, reports NYT



A report in the New York Times said the Manhattan district attorney’s office had signaled on Thursday that criminal charges against former President Donald Trump were likely.

The possible charges are related to $130,000 of hush money paid to Stormy Daniels, an adult film actress who claimed she had an extramarital affair with Trump before he became president. The money was paid by Michael Cohen, who worked as Trump's attorney at the time, in the last days of the 2016 presidential election. Cohen has since turned on his former employer and often excoriates him in the media.

The report said that District Attorney Alvin Bragg offered to allow Trump to appear before a grand jury, a move often made before indictments are issued.

If Trump were to face criminal charges, it would be the first time in U.S. history that a former president was indicted.

The former president is also under investigation by the Fulton County district attorney in Georgia over claims that he tried to interfere with the 2020 presidential election. He is also being probed by a special counsel, which is investigating election interference as well as the classified documents seized from Trump's possession.

Daniels' lawsuit against Trump took a bizarre turn after her attorney, Michael Avenatti, was arrested and convicted for stealing money from clients and trying to extort money from the Nike shoe company. The adult film actress accused him of stealing money from her and filing lawsuits at her behest but without her knowledge.

If Trump were to be convicted of the possible charge, he would face a maximum sentence of four years in prison.

Here's more about the possible charges against Trump:

Michael Cohen meets Manhattan's DA over Trump's alleged hush money payments www.youtube.com

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FEC drops Stormy Daniels hush-money case against Trump



The Federal Election Commission announced Thursday that it would not proceed with a case investigating whether former President Donald Trump made an alleged "hush money" payment to porn star Stormy Daniels through his ex-attorney Michael Cohen.

In a statement, the FEC said it had "failed by a vote of 2-2" to "find reason to believe that Donald J. Trump knowingly and willfully" violated federal election law.

The question was whether Trump had broken the law by allegedly ordering Cohen to pay Daniels $130,000 in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election to keep her quiet about an affair they had years earlier.

Cohen, who was sentenced to three years in prison for breaking campaign finance laws by making the payment, tax evasion, and lying to Congress, had claimed that Trump ordered him to make hush-money payments to two women during the election.

"It was my own weakness and a blind loyalty to this man that led me to choose a path of darkness over light," Cohen said in 2018.

In a statement to the New York Times, Cohen repeated his claims against the former president.

"The hush money payment was done at the direction of and for the benefit of Donald J. Trump," he said. "Like me, Trump should have been found guilty. How the F.E.C. committee could rule any other way is confounding."

Trump reacted to the FEC decision on his personal website, thanking the Commission.

"The Federal Election Commission in Washington, D.C., has totally dropped the phony case against me concerning payments to women relative to the 2016 Presidential Election. It was a case built on lies from Michael Cohen, a corrupt and convicted lawyer, a lawyer in fact who was so corrupt he was sentenced to three years in jail for lying to Congress and many other things having nothing to do with me," Trump said.

"I thank the Commission for their decision, ending this chapter of Fake News. Between two sleazebag lawyers, Michael Avenatti and Michael Cohen, we were all able to witness law and justice in our Country at its lowest!"

The Times reports that the FEC in December 2020 issued an internal report from its Office of General Counsel stating that it had "reason to believe" Trump "knowingly and willfully" broke the law.

However, in a split decision on party lines last February the Commission declined to move forward with the case against Trump. Two Republican commissioners voted to dismiss the case, two Democrats voted to continue with it, the third Democrat was absent and one Republican was recused.

FEC Chairwoman Shana Broussard and Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, both Democrats, raised complaints over the decision.

"To conclude that a payment, made 13 days before Election Day to hush up a suddenly newsworthy 10-year-old story, was not campaign-related, without so much as conducting an investigation, defies reality," they wrote in a letter.

The two Republican commissioners who voted to dismiss the case wrote in a letter that pursuing the investigation is "not the best use of agency resources."

"We voted to dismiss these matters as an exercise of our prosecutorial discretion," said Commissioners Trey Trainor and Sean Cooksey.