Bizarre, Criminal law, Lawyering

“Sleep Well”: Cohen Attorney Conveyed Alleged Message From Giuliani To Rest Assured Because He Had “Friends In High Places”

As the attorneys for Michael Cohen struggle to get Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings not to fulfill his promise to refer Cohen for prosecution for any perjury in his recent testimony, Cohen has released a shocking email from April 2018 in which Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani is quoted as telling Cohen to effectively not worry about his situation because he has “friends in high places.” The email telling Cohen to “sleep well” was part of a “back channel” communication with A lawyer told Cohen in an email in April 2018 that he can “sleep well” because he has “friends in high places,” following an alleged “back channel” communication with Cohen lawyer Robert J. Costello.

If Giuliani made such a truly moronic statement, it could present deepen allegations of obstruction. While Giuliani is quoted as saying that the President was not prepared to offer a pardon at this time, it is hard not to read those words and conclude that a pardon was being dangled in front of Cohen to keep him from cooperating. The use of a “back channel” also mirrored communications with Paul Manafort after he became a cooperating witness with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

The problem is that in April 2018 Cohen was clearly a potential witness against Trump. We now know, despite Cohen’s countervailing testimony, that Cohen did actively seek a pardon.

The Trump team is likely to argue that it was merely telling Cohen that he did not have to worry about being bullied and threatened by Mueller — part of its claim that the Special Counsel investigation was a hoax and witch hunt. They will argue that they did not encourage any change in testimony but merely expressed the same mutual support as contained in the joint defense agreement. However, few people would not see such a statement as highly problematic.

What do you think?

25 thoughts on ““Sleep Well”: Cohen Attorney Conveyed Alleged Message From Giuliani To Rest Assured Because He Had “Friends In High Places””

  1. I think… I am sick of it all! At this point I don’t care if Trump was standing naked at Cohen’s door with a pardon in hand. I have seen absolutely no evidence of what the left and the media have told me was true for the last 2 years. I do not care if Trump paid off pornstars, in fact, I think Trump should play that up. I like a President that gets to bang pornstars. It is certainly better than listening to Obama sing or listening to a whole party call half the country deplorable, support people who have never owned a slave paying reparations to people who have never been a slave, and caring more about illegal immigrants than American citizens.

    I think that Mueller should finish his damn report and if he determines there is no collusion, every investigation of Trump, his family, and his businesses should be immediately dropped. I want to see media outlets apologize en mass, and the door shuttered on a few of them. They should have to bear a whole lot of responsibility.

    I think that the new AG has a month or two and he better start handing out indictments to people like Glenn Simpson, Christoper Steele, and others. I want to see James Clapper and John Brennan, if not going to jail, surely walking out of the CNN building accompanied by security and carrying a box of office items. There is no, “But we thought we had the evidence…” or,”Fusion GPS tricked us.” Same with Comey, Flynn was fired for lying to the Vice-President and it sure seems an awful bit like Comey lied to actual President.

    Peter Strzok was on Mueller’s team and had to be kicked off for the text messages between him and Lisa Page. Andrew McCabe was referenced in those messages and he is the one that started an investigation into Trump when Comey was fired. He now has been fired and been criminally referred by the IG to the DOJ. Andrew Weissman had his fingers all over this mess from the start with Bruce Ohr and is still on the team. Then, the man who appointed Mueller, did so after consulting with the man he helped fire, Comey, on the day after Mueller interviewed for the FBI Director job. Rosenstein then, already having his fingers all over a, possibly bad, FISA warrant in this case, and having wrote a memo in support of Comey’s firing, ends up being the one to oversee this whole mess. In what world is this BS ethical? Are they eating magic mushrooms over at Justice. I wonder how much the average DOJ, FBI Division and Media News outlets parents had to shell out to get their average at best, kids into a top notch colleges and Universities…You know Mario Cuomo had to fork over a huge portion for his two.

    No attempts are being made to find the chubby go-between for Papdapoulos, the mysterious Professor Mifsud (maybe we have to call Scooby-Doo and his band of hippies to find and unmask this guy), or maybe Fusion GPS or other cronies paid him for a frame job that supported their Dossier. Mostly it means Mueller doesn’t really care, he is likely just there to cover for the FBI and nail some trophy mounts in the form of Stone and Manafort and to send the message that outsiders are not welcome in the theater of the absurd that is Washington. It sure would be nice if someone in the UK could dig up or leak the super secret stuff that they supposedly didn’t want Trump releasing awhile back. Those stuffy liberal Brits have their booger hooks in this river of turd too.

    It also seems, despite both Russians in the Trump Tower meeting being tied to Fusion GPS, their Magnitsky Act stories literature came from…Fusion GPS, and Glenn Simpson meeting with them before and after this meeting, the medias still are a bunch of brain dead stoners with no memory. They aren’t even looking for answers to that or from Glenn Simpson, whose testimony is not in line with Ohr. Maybe that is why he pled the fifth…Why hasn’t Mueller dropped a lying to Congress charge on him? Hello…

    So to sum it up I am deeply disturbed about the lack of anything the DOJ, or FBI, are doing to answer these questions about the non-activity on the other side of this. I don’t care if Trump wants to give pardons to anyone or even everyone. From where I am sitting he might as well because several agencies of the Government have been infected with their own protectionism, political bias, and feel they are above those that voters appointed to lead, with an unbridled arrogance about it when challenged.

    Well, you did ask for my thoughts.

    1. Anthony……What a terrific comment. I enjoyed it immensely. Thank you!

    2. Haha. Excellent. Thanks for reinforcing the the the fact that there are some gullible rubes, dupes, klan wannabees, pocket-traitors and grifters on the make who just won’t ever figure out the big con. Pro tip: On January 21, 2021, your hero the day glo bozo will have a GPS ankle bracelet–take it to the bank. Pro tip: the feds really, really do enforce the laws governing obstruction of justice, wire fraud, bank fraud, and false statements to federal agents. (And that’s not even touching upon New York state laws). Maybe you can get on his visiting list. So sorry for your loss and lack of discernment.

      this is to “I have a ‘hannity was here’ tattoo across my lower back” anthonie

      1. Thanks! Your insults re-enforce your lack of intelligence and reason. SO I will take that as a compliment

        1. Excerpted from the article linked downstream under the present commenters user name:

          Omertà (/oʊˈmɛərtə/, Italian pronunciation: [omerˈta])[a] is a Southern Italian code of honor and code of silence that places importance on silence in the face of questioning by authorities or outsiders; non-cooperation with authorities, the government, or outsiders; and willfully ignoring and generally avoiding interference with the illegal activities of others (i.e., not contacting law enforcement or the authorities when one is aware of, witness to, or even the victim of certain crimes). It originated and remains common in Southern Italy, where banditry or brigandage and Mafia-type criminal organizations (like the Camorra, Cosa Nostra, ‘Ndrangheta and Sacra Corona Unita) are strong. Similar codes are also deeply rooted in other areas of the Mediterranean, including rural Spain, Crete (Greece), and Corsica, all of which share a common or similar historic culture with Southern Italy.

          The word defined above is essential to understanding what Trump has been doing with and through his Joint Defense Agreements with an estimated 34 or more people who have been witnesses or subject of the special counsel’s investigation. When one of the defendants in a JDA possesses the power to pardon the other defendants in the JDA, The Omertà replaces the rule of law with conspiracy to obstruct justice through subornation of perjury and witness tampering for the sake of covering up the original conspiracy to defraud the United States. And that’s why it takes time and a great deal of effort for the United States to get the goods on the Mafia Don pretending to be President of the United States.

  2. sleep well is not obstruction of justice. gosh. what about free speech?

  4. Alleged means “Yet to be proven, same a Claimed, Reportedly and Purportedly.

    “If” has a lesser stature.

    Short version is BS the term holds star billing in the Socialist Fictionary

  6. Friends in high places are in Heaven. We religious folks believe in God and Hey Zeus and hope for the best when things look bad down here on planet Earth. Trump’s problem is that he is from Mars and has no friends in Heaven. Mars Heaven is gas.

  8. Men in high places have, of course, been skirting the law for centuries. Today it is recorded electronically and exposed to the world. Those in power must recognize that anything they say any time anywhere will be held against them.

  10. The link included in the article, concerning the purported email, actually says that when they contacted Gulliani he told them the president was not prepared to discuss a pardon with them. A far cry from the headlines or the implications in this essay.

  11. Turley wrote, “The problem is that in April 2018 Cohen was clearly a potential witness against Trump. We now know, despite Cohen’s countervailing testimony, that Cohen did actively seek a pardon.”

    Turley, Turley, Turley. When did Cohen actively seek a pardon? When Cohen and Trump had a Joint Defense Agreement in force. Both Trump and Cohen, alike, have already waived the attorney-client privilege that that JDA provided their communication with one another through their lawyers. When Trump gave information to Republicans on the House Oversight Committee information that Trump had acquired through his JDA with Cohen, Trump waived his own attorney-client privilege on that same information. Since Trump never gave Cohen a job in Trump’s White House, neither can Trump assert executive privilege for whatever information Trump and Cohen may have shared with one another through the JDA before Trump reneged on his promise to pay Cohen’s legal fees, which was right after the results of the Special Master review had convinced Trump that Cohen’s audio-tape collection could not implicate Trump in a quid prop quo with Russia over the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations, which, in turn, is what led Cohen to switch lawyers and become a cooperating witness with SDNY and Special Counsel Mueller.

    The absolute last thing Trump needs or wants, now, is for the Justice Department to conduct a thoroughgoing investigation of Trump’s pardon dangling proclivities in exchange for the false statements or perjury of any current or former member of Trump’s JDA omerta, beginning with Cohen, but quite possibly leading to Flynn, Manafort and who knows who all else. There are or were at one time an estimated 34 people or more who were part of Trump’s JDA omerta. Cohen has stuck his foot in the front door of that JDA omerta. And if the DoJ comes busting in right behind Cohen’s foot in the door, then Trump’s legal jeopardy could take a radical turn for the worse. Trump cannot assert executive privilege for any conversation he had with Manafort or Manafort’s lawyer. Trump assertion of executive privilege over conversations with Flynn cannot extend past the date on which Trump fired Flynn.

    Sleep on that. Why don’t you?

    1. dear Late4Dinner: your assertive pomposity is indeed stunning. Unfortunately, your speculative assertions are merely that, along with your overuse (always a clue) of the new word you must have recently learned….amusing.

      1. What new word? None of the words in that comment are words that I recently learned. Are any of the words in that comment words that you’ve recently learned? If so, then I would not call that a “clue” let alone “amusing.”

      1. Excerpted from the article linked above:

        In a 20-page complaint filed in Manhattan, Cohen alleges that the Trump Organization, now run by the president’s sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr., suddenly stopped paying his legal bills last summer after Cohen agreed to cooperate with federal investigators in their probe of Trump’s ties to Russia.

        Up until that point, the lawsuit says, the company had reaffirmed its obligations under the agreement multiple times, but on multiple occasions required Cohen’s “direct appeal” to the Trump sons “regarding the Organization’s repeated delays in paying his attorneys’ fees and expenses.”

        “Mr. Cohen reasonably relied upon the Trump Organization’s agreement to pay for his attorneys’ fees and costs, and based on this agreement, engaged counsel to represent him in the Investigations and other matters,” the suit says. The company’s refusal beginning last year to pay Cohen’s mounting legal bills prompting his first attorney to quit, requiring Cohen to seek other legal representation, it says.

        [end excerpt]

        The article garbles the timing. The Trump Organization stopped paying Cohen’s legal fees before Cohen entered into a cooperation agreement with SDNY and SCO. That is so because Cohen’s first lawyer quit before Cohen started cooperating. And Cohen’s first lawyer quit because he wasn’t being paid. Also, Cohen’s first lawyer did not represent Cohen in any proffer sessions with SDNY or SCO. However, Cohen’s first lawyer did represent Cohen at the time that Cohen had a Joint Defense Agreement with Trump. And that was the lawyer who had discussed a pardon for Cohen from Trump with Trump’s lawyers as part of their JDA communications. IOW, Cohen’s first lawyer was really representing Trump and quit so soon as Trump stopped paying him.

        Chances are that a fair number of the lawyers whose clients have or had a JDA with Trump are similarly representing Trump rather than their actual clients. And that raises obvious questions about who is really paying Paul Manafort’s legal bills or Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn’s legal bills. IIRC, one of the reasons that Richard Nixon was in the process of being impeached before he resigned was that Tricky Dick, too, was so cheap that he started a slush fund for the defense of the Watergate burglars.

  13. The lawyer now in question said he was referring to a Garth Brooks song. Problem… The song is really called, friends in low places. Rudy G thinks he has problems divorcing his what? 15th wife? wait till he is called in front of Congress or the bar. Cohen said he tapes people, If he has it on tape…Rudy G will be sitting with Manafort in Club Fed.

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