Columbus, Ohio – Ohio’s capital city has reached a $450,000 settlement with Stormy Daniels over the porn actress’ arrest at a strip club last year.
Her federal defamation lawsuit against several Columbus officers alleged officers conspired to retaliate against her over her claims that she had sex with Donald Trump before he became president.
In this Oct. 11, 2018, file photo, adult film actress Stormy Daniels arrives for the opening of the adult entertainment fair Venus in Berlin. Columbus, Ohio has reached a $450,000 settlement with Stormy Daniels over the porn actress’ arrest at a strip club last year.
City attorney’s office spokeswoman Meredith Tucker says the agreement was reached after mediation Friday with all parties agreeing the figure was fair “given the facts and circumstances involved.”
A message was left with an attorney for Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
Daniels was arrested on suspicion of inappropriately touching an undercover officer. Prosecutors later dropped charges.
An internal police review determined her arrest was improper but not planned in advance or politically motivated.
NEW YORK (AP) — Michael Avenatti, the attorney who rocketed to fame through his representation of porn star Stormy Daniels in her battles with President Donald Trump, was charged Wednesday with ripping her off.
Federal prosecutors in New York City say Avenatti used a doctored document to divert about $300,000 that Daniels was supposed to get from a book deal, then used the money for personal and business expenses.
Only half of that money was paid back, prosecutors said.
Daniels isn't named in the court filing, but the details of the case, including the date her book was released, make it clear that she is the client involved.
Avenatti denied the allegations on Twitter.
"No monies relating to Ms. Daniels were ever misappropriated or mishandled.
She received millions of dollars worth of legal services and we spent huge sums in expenses.
She directly paid only $100.00 for all that she received.
I look forward to a jury hearing the evidence," he wrote.
Avenatti added in a later tweet that his agreement for representing Daniels "included a percentage of any book proceeds."
The charges pile on top of previous allegations of legal misconduct by Avenatti, who represented Daniels when she sued to be released from a nondisclosure agreement involving an alleged tryst with Trump.
The president denies an affair took place.
Avenatti was previously charged in New York with trying to extort up to $25 million from Nike by threatening to expose claims that the shoemaker paid off high school basketball players to steer them to Nike-sponsored colleges.
And in Los Angeles, he's facing a multicount federal indictment alleging that he stole millions of dollars from clients, didn't pay taxes, committed bank fraud and lied during bankruptcy proceedings.
Avenatti has denied the allegations against him on both coasts, saying he expects to be exonerated.
The Los Angeles charges alone carry a potential penalty of more than 300 years in prison.
"I look forward to a jury hearing all of the evidence and passing judgment on my conduct," Avenatti wrote in a text message to The Associated Press.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, initially hired Avenatti to handle a lawsuit she filed last year in which she sought to invalidate the nondisclosure agreement she'd signed with Trump's then-lawyer Michael Cohen in exchange for $130,000.
The money was supposed to buy her silence during Trump's run for president about an alleged affair between the two. In August, Cohen pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws in connection with the payment.
In announcing the new charges Wednesday, prosecutors said that Avenatti sent a "fraudulent and unauthorized letter" to Daniels' literary agent, instructing the agent to send payments not to Daniels but to a bank account Avenatti controlled.
They said he used the stolen funds to pay employees of his law firm and pay for hotels, airfare, dry cleaning and his Ferrari.
"Far from zealously representing his client, Avenatti, as alleged, instead engaged in outright deception and theft, victimizing rather than advocating for his client," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said in news release.
Avenatti "blatantly lied" and stole to maintain his "extravagant lifestyle," Berman said.
Daniels raised concerns with Avenatti about late payments around the time her book, "Full Disclosure," was published in October, according to the indictment.
"When is the publisher going to cough up my money," she asked Avenatti in early December, according to the indictment.
Avenatti responded that he was "working them and threatening litigation," prosecutors said, but he did not tell Daniels he had already received the money.
Daniels began publicly raising concerns about Avenatti's conduct in November.
In a statement, she said Avenatti had launched a fundraising effort to raise money for her legal case without telling her.
She also said he had filed a defamation lawsuit against Trump, on her behalf, against her wishes.
"For months I've asked Michael Avenatti to give me accounting information about the fund my supporters so generously donated to for my safety and legal defense. He has repeatedly ignored those requests," she said.
"Days ago I demanded again, repeatedly, that he tell me how the money was being spent and how much was left.
Instead of answering me, without my permission or even my knowledge Michael launched another crowdfunding campaign to raise money on my behalf.
I learned about it on Twitter."
At the time, Avenatti responded that he was still Daniels' "biggest champion."
He said that under his retention agreement, she had agreed to pay him just $100 for his services, and he was entitled to keep all the money he raised for her legal defense to defray what he said were substantial costs of her case.
The defamation case initiated by Avenatti against Trump backfired, with a judge ordering her to pay the president's legal bills.
When Avenatti was first charged with defrauding other clients and extorting Nike in March, Daniels said she was "saddened but not shocked."
She added on Twitter that she had fired Avenatti a month earlier after "discovering that he had dealt with me extremely dishonestly."
Michael Avenatti sued Donald Trump for defaming Stormy Daniels against her wishes, Daniels told The Daily Beast in a statement on Wednesday.
Avenatti also started a new fundraising site to raise money for her legal defense fund without telling her, Daniels said. She said she is not sure whether or not she will keep Avenatti on as her lawyer.
Here is her full statement, provided to The Daily Beast:
“For months I’ve asked Michael Avenatti to give me accounting information about the fund my supporters so generously donated to for my safety and legal defense. He has repeatedly ignored those requests. Days ago I demanded again, repeatedly, that he tell me how the money was being spent and how much was left. Instead of answering me, without my permission or even my knowledge Michael launched another crowdfunding campaign to raise money on my behalf. I learned about it on Twitter.
“I haven’t decided yet what to do about legal representation moving forward. Michael has been a great advocate in many ways. I’m tremendously grateful to him for aggressively representing me in my fight to regain my voice. But in other ways Michael has not treated me with the respect and deference an attorney should show to a client. He has spoken on my behalf without my approval. He filed a defamation case against Donald Trump against my wishes. He repeatedly refused to tell me how my legal defense fund was being spent. Now he has launched a new crowdfunding campaign using my face and name without my permission and attributing words to me that I never wrote or said. I’m deeply grateful to my supporters and they deserve to know their money is being spent responsibly. I don’t want to hurt Michael, but it’s time to set the record straight. The truth has always been my greatest ally.
“My goal is the same as it has always been—to stand up for myself and take back my voice after being bullied and intimidated by President Trump and his minions. One way or another I’m going to continue in that fight, and I want everyone who has stood by me to know how profoundly grateful I am for their support.”
The Daily Beast shared this statement with Avenatti. He provided the following statement:
“I am and have always been Stormy’s biggest champion. I have personally sacrificed an enormous amount of money, time and energy toward assisting her because I believe in her. I have always been an open book with Stormy as to all aspects of her cases and she knows that. The retention agreement Stormy signed back in February provided that she would pay me $100.00 and that any and all other monies raised via a legal fund would go toward my legal fees and costs. Instead, the vast majority of the money raised has gone toward her security expenses and similar other expenses. The most recent campaign was simply a refresh of the prior campaign, designed to help defray some of Stormy’s expenses.”
Stephen Gillers, a New York University Law School professor and expert on legal ethics, said Avenatti could face serious problems if he sued Trump against Daniels’ wishes.
“If he filed the case with her name when it was clear that she told him not to, then he could be sued for that,” Gillers said. “He could be sued for malpractice. If true, she has a malpractice case against him. I emphasize if true. And if true, he would be subject to discipline but not as serious as disbarment.”
The current CrowdJustice site is one of just three fundraisers highlighted on CrowdJustice’s homepage as of Wednesday afternoon. An earlier CrowdJustice site raised more than $580,000 for Daniels’ legal defense and no longer accepts contributions.
When The Daily Beast contacted Avenatti on Tuesday and asked about Daniels’ two active Crowdjustice sites, the lawyer said, “We reset the page as the focus of the case changed from when we first launched the site.” The Daily Beast also asked on Tuesday for a breakdown of expenses. In response, Avenatti said via email, “The money has gone toward the areas identified on the page. For instance, Stormy's security detail has cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, especially due to the high level of death threats. The other out-of-pocket costs of the litigation are also extraordinary (and I'm not speaking of attorneys' fees). Trump and Cohen have spent millions in their defense].”
Avenatti claimed at the time that he hasn’t “received a dime in attorneys’ fees” from the crowdfunding effort. He said his firm has “spent well over a thousand hours of attorney time on the case at a value of over $1,500,000 (and no, we do not count interviews or media as attorney time).”
Avenatti’s legal work for Daniels hasn’t always succeeded. In the April defamation lawsuit against the president, Avenatti argued Trump hurt her by tweeting that she participated in a “total con job.”
But in November, a judge dismissed the suit and ordered Daniels to pay the president’s legal bills. Trump’s lawyers asked for almost $350,000 in legal fees; Daniels is now fighting to try to lower that bill.
Daniels and her lawyer have become household names since the revelation that Michael Cohen—then Trump’s personal attorney—paid her hush-money during the presidential campaign. Daniels says she had an affair with Trump years before he ran for office (a claim Trump denies), and accepted $130,000 from Cohen to stay quiet.
Cohen admitted in court in August that he made illegal payments during the campaign at Trump’s direction. He pleaded guilty to eight criminal counts and is awaiting sentencing.
Avenatti, meanwhile, has become a darling of the #Resistance, traveling to Iowa, raising money for Democratic candidates, and openly touting a potential 2020 presidential bid. But his White House dreams have faced major challenges; earlier this month, he was arrested under suspicion of domestic violence—allegations he roundly denies. And when he represented migrant children whom the Trump administration separated from their parents earlier this year, long-time immigration lawyers told The Observerhe was “fantastically irresponsible.”
And as The Daily Beast reported in October, court records reveal that the lawyer and his companies owed millions to the IRS in unpaid taxes and judgments.
President Donald Trump’s former attorney lied to Congress about his role in pursuing a business deal in Russia for his old boss, covering up that discussions stretched into the 2016 presidential campaign and even reached the Kremlin.
Michael Cohen pleaded guilty in a Manhattan federal courtroom on Thursday to one count of making a false statement to Congress last year when he told lawmakers about his efforts to secure a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen’s plea was part of a deal he struck with special counsel Robert Mueller’s office that included significant cooperation with the investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia during the presidential campaign.
In an August 2017 letter sent to the House and Senate intelligence committees, Cohen said plans for a Moscow tower had ended shortly before Trump competed in the Republican presidential primaries. “By the end of January 2016, I determined that the proposal was not feasible for a variety of business reasons and should not be pursued further,” Cohen wrote.
But prosecutors say Cohen continued to discuss the proposal throughout the primaries and into the general-election season with Trump’s former business partner, the real-estate developer and convicted felon Felix Sater.
Cohen also told the Senate Intelligence Committee he did not discuss the project extensively within the Trump Organization. In fact, Mueller’s office said, Cohen discussed the project with Trump more than three times and “briefed family members of” Trump about it.
Cohen told Congress that he “never agreed to make a trip to Russia” about the proposal, but emails with Sater show Cohen repeatedly agreeing to Sater’s proposal for a trip to Moscow to seal the deal.
“ASSUMING the trip does happen the question is before or after the convention,” Cohen wrote to Sater in May 2016, two months before the Republican National Convention, adding Trump might potentially go to Moscow and meet Russian President Vladimir Putin around that time.
House Intel Panel Hiring Money-Laundering Sleuths
Cohen also allegedly lied about his communications with Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson and close adviser to Putin, about the project. Cohen’s letter to Congress said he did “not recall any response to my email, nor any other contacts by me with” Peskov after he emailed him in January 2016 looking for help with the real-estate development plans.
But prosecutors say Cohen followed up with Peskov’s assistant in a phone call and “requested assistance in moving the project forward, both in securing land to build the proposed tower and financing the construction.”
In a court appearance Thursday, Cohen explained his lies by saying he “made these statements” to Congress to be consistent with Trump’s “political messaging” and to be loyal to Trump.”
Just a few weeks after Cohen’s last discussions of the tower project in June 2016, Trump tweeted: “For the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia.”
It was also revealed Thursday that Cohen has entered into a cooperation agreement with Mueller’s office as part of his plea deal. ABC News reports that Cohen sat with members of the office for a combined 70 hours, fielding questions about possible contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign, Trump’s business dealings in Russia, as well as possible obstruction of justice by the president.
Cohen’s cooperation with the Mueller inquiry on potential Russian collusion is significant because it shows that Cohen has been spilling more information to the Mueller investigation than previously known.
In August, Cohen pleaded guilty to tax evasion and bank-fraud charges to Manhattan federal prosecutors as part of an illegal scheme to pay hush money to Trump’s alleged former mistresses, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.
Cohen is scheduled to be sentenced for those crimes on Dec. 12. In exchange for his guilty plea and cooperation with the special counsel’s office, Cohen may hope to receive a lighter sentence than he otherwise would.
"Was it blackmail, bribery or just sheer stupidity?"
Not only did these #MeToo, highly paid professionals make a complete mockery of those whose voices have been silenced when it comes to the realities of the trafficking of "The Poors" (always said with clinched teeth), but they did it for personal inurement while destroying the legacies of civil rights in the annals of history.
Now, whether that was through blackmail, bribery or just sheer stupidity, we shall have to wait for the FBI to complete their conjugal collaboration with multiple other law enforcement and investigative entities to find out what is the most plausible reason why these individuals thought it wise to lie into the public record.
A woman who acknowledged falsely accusing Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of rape is being referred to the FBI and Department of Justice for investigation, according to an official letter.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said in a letter sent Friday to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Jeff Sessions that the woman, Judy Munro-Leighton, admitted Thursday that she falsely claimed in an email to committee staff on Oct. 3 that Kavanaugh and a friend had raped her.
In the email, Munro-Leighton claimed to be the author of an anonymous letter sent to California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris on Sept. 19. In that letter, a person who signed the letter as “Jane Doe” claimed Kavanaugh and a friend raped her in the back of a car.
But after reaching Munro-Leighton on Thursday, she admitted “that she had not been sexually assaulted by Judge Kavanaugh and was not the author of the original ‘Jane Doe’ letter.”
Munro-Leighton said that she “just wanted to get attention” for her “ploy.”
“In short, during the Committee’s time-sensitive investigation of allegations against Judge Kavanaugh, Ms. Munro-Leighton submitted a fabricated allegation, which diverted Committee resources,” Grassley said.
Grassley asked Wray and Sessions to investigate Munro-Leighton for making materially false statements and obstruction.
The criminal referral is the fourth issued by Grassley during the Kavanaugh confirmation process.
Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court on Oct. 6. Three women came forward publicly to accuse the conservative judge of sexual misconduct in high school and college. Kavanaugh denied all of the allegations.
Grassley submitted FBI referrals on one of those Kavanaugh accusers, Julie Swetnick, and her attorney, Michael Avenatti. Swetnick claimed in a Sept. 26 declaration that she witnessed Kavanaugh drugging girls’ drinks at parties in the 1980s. She also claimed Kavanaugh was present at parties where girls were gang-raped.
Grassley also referred one man for investigation who claimed in a letter to Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse that he witnessed Kavanaugh raping a woman in the 1980s.
In her sworn statement, Swetnick says that she "fully understands the seriousness" of her accusations and charges that she was "gang raped" when she was a high school student at a party where Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were both in attendance.
Little is known about Julie Swetnick, the woman who came forward on Wednesday to accuse Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct in high school.
Swetnick, who is being represented by Michael Avenatti, claims that Kavanaugh spiked drinks at parties where women were gang-raped.
Kavanaugh vehemently denies the claims.
Julie Swetnick, a 55-year-old IT professional living in Washington, D.C., leveled serious allegations of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Wednesday, a day before the Senate Judiciary Committee is poised to hear testimony from the judge and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, another woman accusing him of sexual misdeeds when he was in high school.
In a declaration released by her attorney, Michael Avenatti, Swetnick alleged that Kavanaugh and a friend spiked girls’ drinks with alcohol during parties in the early 1980s. She also suggested the conservative judge was present during gang rapes, which allegedly took place in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.
Swetnick claimed that Kavanaugh was at one party in 1982 where she was gang raped, though she does not accuse him of taking part in the attack.
Of particular note in Swetnick’s declaration is the age difference between she and Kavanaugh. Swetnick said the events described in her declaration occurred between 1981 and 1983, when she was between 18 and 21 years old. Kavanaugh would have been between 15 and 18 years old at the time.
She graduated from Gaithersburg High School in 1980, according to Swetnick’s resume. She was born in December 1962, according to publicly available records. Kavanaugh was born in February 1965 and graduated from Georgetown Prep School in 1983.
Swetnick’s eleventh-hour emergence has come under scrutiny, as has her representation by Avenatti, the lawyer for Stormy Daniels, the porn star who claims to have had an affair with President Donald Trump.
In her own complaint against Kavanaugh, Blasey Ford alleged that Mark Judge, a longtime friend of Kavanaugh’s, was present when Kavanaugh attempted to rape her during a house party in the summer of 1982. Ford claimed that Kavanaugh and Judge trapped her in a bedroom, and that Kavanaugh forced himself on her and attempted to remove her clothes.
Both Kavanaugh and Judge have denied that the incident occurred. A college classmate of Kavanaugh’s has also come forward to claim that he thrust his penis in her face at a party when they both attended Yale. Before coming forward, the accuser, Deborah Ramirez, told friends that she was not entirely certain that Kavanaugh was the person who exposed himself to her.
Swetnick’s allegations are vague on details and specifics, though she claimed that unnamed eyewitnesses will back up her claims.
She alleged that she attended more than 10 house parties with Kavanaugh and Judge. During the gatherings, Swetnick says she witnessed Kavanaugh “drink excessively and engage in highly inappropriate conduct, including being overly aggressive with girls and not taking ‘No’ for an answer.” She alleged that the conduct “included the fondling and grabbing of girls without their consent” and that Kavanaugh was “abusive and physically aggressive” towards girls.
She alleged that Kavanaugh and Judge would spike drinks at parties in order to lower victims’ defenses.
“I also witnessed efforts by Mark Judge, Brett Kavanaugh and others to cause girls to become inebriated and disoriented so they could then be ‘gang raped’ in a side room or bedroom by a ‘train’ of numerous boys. I have a firm recollection of seeing boys lined up outside rooms at many of these parties waiting for their ‘turn’ with a girl inside the room. These boys included Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh.”
Swetnick further claimed that “in approximately 1982,” she was the victim of a gang rape at a party where Kavanaugh and Judge were present. Swetnick would have been 19 or 20 years old at the time, while Kavanaugh would have been 16 or 17.
“I don’t know who this is and this never happened,” Kavanaugh said in a statement issued through the White House.
Little else is known about Swetnick, other than items included on her resume and several court cases she has been involved in over the years.
A credentialed web developer, Swetnick lists security clearances with the U.S. Department of Treasury and U.S. Mint. She previously held clearances at the “Secret” level (“Top Secret” is the highest) for the State Department and Department of Justice.
Swetnick also claims to have a security clearance with the IRS despite having recently had a $40,000 judgement against her for unpaid taxes. She settled a $40,303 IRS judgement on March 23 of this year, according to a public records search. Maryland court records show a $62,821 tax lien filed against her on Oct. 2, 2015.
Swetnick has also been involved in civil cases in Maryland and Oregon.
Swetnick filed a personal injury lawsuit against the Washington, D.C. Metro in September 1994. The outcome of that case is also unclear.
A: A menagerie of privileged psychotic zoo animals who fail to understand that making false claims into the public record under oath is a fraud, which just so happens to be a federal crime to be referred to the Office of Special Prosecutor for further action.
So, that is why there will be trials in 2019.
Oups, j'ai dit une bétise!
I am biting my pearls to find out what these people are going to do when the parents testify, under oath, of the screams of their children who were ripped from their arms in the middle of the night to be drugged, raped and tortured in foster care for years.
I wonder if the Congress and the public will give this much attention to the children when they tell their stories, and it is not 35 years ago, it is going on, still, to this day, as we speak, and no one cares.
Priorities, you know.
Bill Cosby his sentence for sexually assaulting Andrea Constand
Just to properly frame the Kavanaugh Psyoptic in a more down to earth light, allow me to introduce a counter argument to spotlight, again, the need for everyone to tell their stories, under oath, in Senate Judiciary Hearings.
Yes, at no time have any of the women who have accused Kavanaugh of attempted rape and rape, or whatever the new story of the day is, have ever filed a police report.
You would think, instead of going online and starting a fundraising campaign, even though these are weathly, professional women, who have access to legal representation, have never, ever, ever filed a police report.
Nope.
So, let me explain to you the role of the police since it seems we are dealing with "Legal Geniuses" (trademark pending).
Police are keepers of the peace, civil servants, which means they have the duty to preserve the public record, as keeper of the record.
Police are civil servants to preserve civility of society, which includes protecting the civil rights of individuals who have been accused of any transgression, because it is the role of the officer to investigate, gather evidence and process it to prevent any future harms to society.
Law enforcement is more than just body armor and guns.
Law enforcement records the claims in the annals of history.
Law enforcement is supposed to enforce law, like the U.S. Attorney General, and we have civil rights laws on the books that have yet to be stripped by these "Legal Geniuses" (trademark pending).
So, this means that, in the event these transgressions happened when they were juveniles, under the age of 18, the legal guardian, in this instance, the parents were supposed to bring forth claims to law enforcement, due to privacy issues in child welfare law, which is just another reason to have congressional testimony.
If no one has brought forth claims against Kavanaugh, then, the responsibility defaults to Congress to report it to law enforcement for full investigation and prosecution, whether valid, or invalid.
If law enforcement finds the enough evidence that there are grounds for prosecution, then, the U.S. Attorney General can take action, if the accusers have given false testimony in a congressional hearing, then, there are grounds for criminal prosecution, just like Mary Zolkowski.
Then, the New Yorker, that you must pay to read unless you know who to circumvent the paywall, comes out with the story of the latest Kavanaugh accuser, Deborah Ramirez, who has also hails from the hermetically sealed ivory tower of society, came out with an even more salacious 36 year old suppressed memory.
Avenatti is a third rate lawyer who is good at making false accusations, like he did on me and like he is now doing on Judge Brett Kavanaugh. He is just looking for attention and doesn’t want people to look at his past record and relationships - a total low-life!
“False accusations?” Like those crimes your fixer Cohen pled to? You are an habitual liar and complete narcissist who also is a disgrace as a president and an embarrassment to our nation. You are so inept that your “best and brightest” are Cohen and Giuliani. Let’s go.
Have you ever wondered how propaganda campaigns are manufactured?
Well, if you have been following along for the last 10 years, you should, at this point, be able to spot a propaganda campaign in the blink of an eye.
In this case, this is how anonymously funded groups are forming in the dark web, I mean really, really dark web, coming up with propaganda campaigns to rally vulnerable populations, with the intent of executing their nefarious schemes, which more than likely, as seen in this live case study, for the purposes of privateering, or probably a legal defense smear campaign.
Speaking of smear campaigns... it feels like Perkins Coie has there hand stuck in the batter of this psyop.
I am going to just go out there, on a limb, and make an "unfounded assertion" that this "Q" might be a familiar, "spurious correlation" somewhere, floating around, in a financial transaction.
Police are investigating a man photographed outside the office of Stormy Daniels’s attorney after ‘Q,’ the theory’s leader, sent followers there.
Stormy & Avenatti
Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti is the latest target for supporters of the pro-Trump conspiracy theory QAnon, with police investigating a man’s appearance near Avenatti’s office after the building was mentioned in QAnon posts.
QAnon believers claim that a series of cryptic clues posted to internet forums 4Chan and 8Chan are coming from a high-level Trump administration insider, describing a world where Trump has teamed up with the military to take on a global cabal of powerful elites, celebrities, and pedophiles.
“Q,” the online poster whose messages make up the basis of the QAnon theory, targeted Avenatti on Sunday by posting a link to Avenatti’s website and pictures of his Newport Beach, California, office building.
“Buckle up!” the post, made on 8Chan, read.
About 45 minutes later, Q posted a picture of a man standing in the street near Avenatti’s office. The man, who has his back to the camera, is holding what appears to be a cellphone in one hand and a long, thin object in the other.
We are trying to identify the man in this picture, which was taken outside my office yesterday (Sun) afternoon. Please contact @NewportBeachPD if you have any details or observed him. We will NOT be intimidated into stopping or changing our course. #Bastapic.twitter.com/YIKS6D0Grq
Avenatti said that the man in the picture might be holding a shank.
“That’s not a set of keys,” Avenatti told The Daily Beast. “It also looks like he’s wearing a toupee of some sort. And not a very good one, I might add.”
Lanny Davis is now representing Michael Cohen, former attorney for Trump, who is a financial conduit for Perkins Coie, that paid for the attorney Michael Avenatti. who representing Stormy Daniels and suing Cohen because she alleges that he colluded with her former attorney Keith Davidson to make sure she did not break her Non Disclosure Agreement, or something like that.
So, why would Michael Cohen reach out to Al Sharpton, a media representative of MSNBC, for a very public meeting, that they actually both tweeted, without legal counsel?
Where was Lanny?
I would hope Cohen does not believe good old Al is going to do anything to jeopardize that lucrative contract he has over there at MSNBC.
I most certainly hope Cohen was not shopping around for the services of the National Action Network for the purposes of launching a civil rights propaganda campaign for hire.
What I think is that Mueller found other stuff when Cohen was raided.
I think Cohen was caught with some other surreptitious stuff that is "civil rights" related, but only realized, post hoc. that he did not use his law license very wisely, where Lanny had Cohen reach out, thinking that Al would provide his assistance in plotting and scheming to preserve his Attorney Client Privileges.
Well, at least that is what I see out of this, but, hey, what do I know.
Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s meeting on Friday with Al Sharpton was intended to send a signal to the president, the civil rights activist says.
“Out of all the people he could reach out to, reaching out to me is sending a signal to Mr. Trump and I think, probably, to prosecutors that he was not one who would not deal with someone who has been fighting Donald Trump for decades on social justice issues,” Sharpton said in an interview on MSNBC on Friday.
Sharpton and Cohen met at a restaurant for over an hour on Friday morning, shortly before news broke that months before the 2016 election, Cohen secretly recorded a two-minute conversation with Trump regarding Karen McDougal, a Playboy playmate who allegedly had an affair with Trump in 2006.
The Washington Post reported that Cohen suggested purchasing the rights to McDougal’s story from AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer. AMI paid McDougal $150,000 in August 2016 for her story.
According to The Post, Trump is mostly silent in the recording. At one point he asked Cohen how the payment would be made.
“I received a text from him saying he wanted to meet,” Sharpton said on Saturday. “We met at a public restaurant and we spoke for over an hour. He was very troubled and felt in many ways cast wrongly.”
“And I feel he was saying that he had been abandoned by Mr. Trump,” Sharpton continued, adding: “He was adamant that he was opposed to things that Mr. Trump was doing.”
Sharpton tweeted about his meeting with Cohen shortly after it ended.
“Just spent an hour w/ Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney,” Sharpton wrote. “I bet you’re wondering what we could be talking about! Stay tuned.”
Cohen confirmed the meeting, writing that “I have known Rev for almost 20 years. No one better to talk to!”
Trump blasted his former attorney in an early-morning tweet on Saturday.
“Inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyer’s office (early in the morning) – almost unheard of. Even more inconceivable that a lawyer would tape a client – totally unheard of & perhaps illegal,” he wrote.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan is reportedly investigating Cohen over his business dealings and possible campaign finance violations. Cohen’s payments to women are reportedly a part of the investigation. Just before the 2016 election, Cohen paid $130,000 to Stormy Daniels, an adult film star who also allegedly had an affair with Trump in 2006.
The FBI raided Cohen’s home, office and hotel room on April 9.
Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's longtime lawyer, secretly recorded a conversation between himself and the president in which they discussed payments to a former Playboy model who said she had an affair with Trump, according to a report Friday in The New York Times.
According to the report, the FBI seized the recording this year during a raid on Cohen's office three months ago as part of an investigation into his business dealings. The tape was recorded two months before the presidential election, according to the Times.
Cohen hasn't been charged with any crime. In recent weeks, he has made clear that protecting Trump, whom he once said he would "take a bullet" for, is no longer his first priority.
Among other things, investigators are looking into a $130,000 payment he handled as part of a confidentiality agreement with porn star and exotic dancer Stormy Daniels, who says she had an affair with Trump in 2006. Trump denies that.
Cohen in the past has said that the payment was made on his own initiative, but has since indicated otherwise.
Columbus Police Makes 3 Arrests at Adult Entertainment Club
As part of a long-term investigation into allegations of human trafficking,
prostitution, & other vice related violations, CPD arrested 3 individuals from Club Sirens at 6190 Cleveland Ave., early this morning, 7/12/18. pic.twitter.com/UJQzJ3iI6c
— Columbus Ohio Police (@ColumbusPolice) July 12, 2018
Then, Michael Cohen retains Lanny Davis to renounce his, well, I guess, pending stripping of "attorney client privilege" with Trump, just like Stormy is doing with Cohen.
Did @rudygiuliani really say on Sunday shows that @michaelcohen212 should cooperate with prosecutors and tell the truth? Seriously? Is that Trump and Giuliani definition of “truth”? Trump/Giuliani next to the word “truth” = oxymoron. Stay tuned. #thetruthmatters
Stormy Daniels has struck again — or rather, according to Ohio authorities, she “fondled.” The backward legislation that landed the adult-film actress in trouble has a lot in common with the conservative campaign to discredit her.
While performing her “Make America Horny Again” act on Wednesday night at a strip club in Columbus, Daniels was arrested on three counts of touching a patron (and, allegedly, undercover police officers) at a “sexually oriented business.” Ohio law, it turns out, prohibits “nude or seminude” employees from physical contact with customers who aren’t, uh, their immediate family members. The charges were dismissed on Thursday.
Daniels’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti, called his client’s arrest a “sting operation” and a “setup” that “reeks of desperation” from those worried about the adult-film actress’s lawsuit against President Trump and Michael Cohen over the hush agreement governing her alleged 2006 affair with the president.
It’s fair to say things look fishy. That the charges were so speedily dismissed suggests there wasn’t much merit to them in the first place. The Columbus Dispatch reported last year that the “no-touching” law was rarely enforced, and had not been cited even once in the county in its 10 years of existence. Plus, as Avenatti said, Daniels had performed her act all across the country without any trouble.
But whether Avenatti is on-point or simply paranoid, it’s worth looking at the motivations behind Ohio’s so-called Community Defense Actand how they dovetail with the Trump camp’s attacks against Daniels.
Daniels was arrested, in effect, for being a stripper — for doing what customers come to strip clubs to see strippers do, and what, in many cases, they pay extra for. The law, backed by conservative Christian advocates, essentially seeks to stop strippers from stripping the way they want to, and the language it uses to do so is telling: A performer not only faces a penalty for touching a patron, but also for allowing herself to be touched by a patron.
The rule plays on people’s moral disapprobation to cast the dancer as a crook even in consensual interactions that clearly have two parties involved. (Patrons aren’t allowed to touch dancers, either, but there’s no rule against them “allowing” themselves to be touched.) She becomes responsible for someone else’s actions as well as her own, essentially because, by stripping in the first place, she has put herself in a compromising position.
The Trump team has tried to play the same trick throughout the Daniels scandal. Even as they’ve denied the president’s liaison with the porn star, they have taken pains to attack Daniels for what she does — to diminish her credibility and to diminish her claim that she deserves protection at all.
“I don’t respect a porn star the way I respect a career woman, or a woman of substance, or a woman who has great respect for herself as a woman, and as a person,” Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, saidlast month. He added, “Explain to me how she could be damaged. She has no reputation. If you’re going to sell your body for money, you just don’t have a reputation.”
No matter what happened, this argument goes, Daniels had it coming. It’s not so concerning to Trump’s defenders that he may have cheated on his wife four months after she gave birth to their first child together. Any fallout that harms him is Daniels’s fault, and any fallout that hurts her is her fault, too. The president is the president, after all. The porn star is a porn star.
This attitude — that a woman is responsible not only for what she does with her body, but for what a man does to it, too — is a variant of the “she-was-asking-for-it” argument so common among those who commit sexual assault. It took a while for society to stop accepting the defense so readily for any woman. But when it’s deployed against a stripper, or an adult-film actress, or someone else so many Americans still deem deviant, it’s easier to get away with. And perhaps it’s even easier for the president. After all, when you’re a star like he is, you can do anything.
What the writer has failed to mention in the article below is that sometimes, you have "Legal Geniuses" (trademark pending) who execute these NDA's without the knowledge of the individual who is being accused.
Have I reminded everyone today that Perkins Coie Sucks?
Nondisclosure agreements can allow defective products to stay on the market, mask sexual predators and restrain whistleblowers
Thanks to Stormy Daniels, Harvey Weinstein and #MeToo, most of us are now familiar with agreements where one party purchases the other’s silence. But such nondisclosure agreements, also known as NDAs, aren’t limited to allegations of sexual misconduct, and often they involve public money. The agreements regularly undermine the accountability of the powerful and protection for the public.
Nondisclosure agreements are more prevalent than you may think. More than one-third of U.S. employees are bound by NDAs of some kind, according to the findings of a 2014 national survey of 11,500 labor-force participants by researchers at the universities of Michigan and Maryland. That means there’s a good chance your own employee contract may forbid you from disclosing certain kinds of information about your employer.
‘Accountability requires transparency, as more policymakers are realizing.’
In the public sphere, there’s a double issue: NDAs can cost American taxpayers money, while preventing us from knowing what kind of silence the dollars are buying and whether it is against the public interest. Nevertheless, since 1997, the Congressional Office of Compliance says it has paid $17 million to settle all sorts of workplace disputes in Congress itself, allowing NDAs to be included in the final settlements. That figure doesn’t include agreements such as those made by Reps. Patrick Meehan of Pennsylvania and John Conyers of Michigan, each of whom resigned in recent months after it came to light that they had paid settlements from their office funds to women who accused them of sexual harassment. Both men denied the harassment.
Some state governments and agencies have increasingly used NDAs as well, even as others have banned or limited their use. In Montana, an auditor found that money spent on settlements including non-disclosures between state employees and the executive branch had quadrupled from 2009 to 2017, from $200,000 to $800,000. A former New Jersey prosecutor, who claimed that he was fired for whistleblowing that exposed alleged corruption in Gov. Chris Christie’s administration, received a $1.5 million settlement from the state in 2016, but the details of the case are concealed by a confidentiality agreement. New Jersey officials reject his accusations, but the state’s lower house has since passed legislation now under consideration in its senate to curtail the use of NDAs in cases involving public officials.
In North Carolina, a 2016 settlement that included an NDA helped shield law-enforcement officials from scrutiny after a Harnett County prison inmate named Brandon Bethea died after being stunned repeatedly with a Taser by a detention officer. Bethea’s family received $350,000 of public funds and agreed not to speak of the case. A video of his death that later leaked to a local newspaper showed that prison officials had misrepresented the incident, though county officials say they still consider the matter resolved.
Even in cases involving private companies, rejecting NDAs can unveil issues that affect the public interest. In exchange for confidentiality, Enterprise Rent-A-Car offered $3 million to the parents of two California sisters who died in a crash, the parents’ attorney told reporters, because of the company’s failure to repair a recalled PT Cruiser. The parents refused the offer, won a $15 million court judgment in 2010, and then went on to help get a federal law passed in 2016—the Houck Act—banning rentals of cars with manufacturers’ recalls in effect until repairs are done.
Of course, secrecy is sometimes justified. Victims of sexual abuse or harassment understandably may value confidentiality. Companies have good reasons to protect trade secrets. Many argue that parties to a voluntary contract ought to be able to reach whatever agreement suits them, so long as there is no public harm.
Accountability requires transparency, as more policymakers are realizing—and there is public harm in allowing defective products to stay on the market, masking sexual predators or restraining whistleblowers. Congress has passed legislation in recent months to restrict the use of taxpayer money and nondisclosure in settling sexual harassment cases, though the bill has yet to be sent to the president for his signature. Lawmakers in California and Pennsylvania, in addition to New Jersey, are exploring changes. Several other states, including Florida, Washington and Louisiana, already have laws prohibiting NDAs if they conceal “public hazards,” such as dangers to general health or safety.
These are promising developments that point to the same conclusion: It is time to rethink the balance between private interests in secrecy and the public’s right to know.
"You do know Pretty Preet was running the investigation before Juicy Joon took it over?" "Oh yeah, you might want to pour me a bit more wine and get more popcorn."
Stormy was supposed to meet with the U.S. Attorney's Office, "Juicy" Joon Kim in Manhattan.
Stormy Daniels to meet with prosecutors in Cohen probe
Porn actress Stormy Daniels, who has said she had an affair with President Donald Trump and was paid $130,000 as part of a confidentiality agreement days before the 2016 presidential election, will meet with federal prosecutors in New York on Monday as part of their investigation into the president's former longtime personal attorney, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Monday's interview with prosecutors from the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan is in preparation for a possible grand jury appearance as they work to assemble a case against Trump's longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, the person said.
If prosecutors bring a case to a grand jury, they could call witnesses to testify under oath and the grand jury would decide whether to bring criminal charges with a written indictment. Unlike a trial jury, a grand jury does not determine guilt or innocence and a federal grand jury hears evidence presented by federal prosecutors.
Daniels and her attorney, Michael Avenatti, have also turned over documents in response to a subpoena from federal prosecutors about the $130,000 that Daniels was paid, the person familiar with the matter said. They weren't authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has said she had sex with Trump in 2006 when he was married. Trump has denied any sexual relationship with Daniels.
Daniels is suing to invalidate the confidentiality agreement that prevents her from discussing it.
She argues the nondisclosure agreement should be invalidated because Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, signed it, but the president did not.
In April, FBI agents raided Cohen's home, office and hotel room as part of a probe into his business dealings and investigators were seeking records about the nondisclosure agreement that Daniels had signed, among other things.
Cohen had said he paid Daniels himself, through a limited liability company known as Essential Consultants, LLC, and that "neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly." Pay very close attention to this statement. It is going to be very important when learning about another reason why Perkins Coie Sucks. They did the same exact thing to some one else.
In May, Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump's attorneys, said the president had repaid Cohen for the $130,000 payment to Daniels, contradicting Trump's prior claims that he didn't know the source of the money.
