Cohen was wiretapped

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_MeDotOrg
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Cohen was wiretapped

Post by _MeDotOrg »

From NBC:

Federal investigators have wiretapped the phone lines of Michael Cohen, the longtime personal lawyer for President Donald Trump who is under investigation for a payment he made to an adult film star who alleged she had an affair with Trump, according to two people with knowledge of the legal proceedings involving Cohen.

It is not clear how long the wiretap has been authorized, but NBC News has learned it was in place in the weeks leading up to the raids on Cohen's offices, hotel room, and home in early April, according to one person with direct knowledge.

At least one phone call between a phone line associated with Cohen and the White House was intercepted, the person said.

Previously, federal prosecutors in New York have said in court filings that they have conducted covert searches on multiple e-mail accounts maintained by Cohen.

It strikes me that the we are the battlefield observers in a fight between Robert Mueller and Donald Trump. The battlefield is covered in smoke, and there are conflicting reports of casualties and victories from both sides. Individual facts bubble up, like dispatches from platoon commanders, and we have to put all of these dispatches together to form a coherent image of the battlefield.

So what to make of this latest report? One of the things I ask myself is "why now?" Was there a tactical or strategic cause and effect that made this information appear now?

The pace of events seems to be quickening. Ty Cobb is gone, replace by Emmet Flood. Guiliani joins the team, immediately goes on Fox to contradict the President's previous statements about payments to Stormy Daniels, saying he "had to get this over with". Why? Is it possible that Cohen or Trump found out about the wiretap, knew that wiretap information would contradict the original story, and therefore put Giuliani out with the bad information in the sympathetic environment of Fox News?

Regardless, the knowledge that Mueller has probably a few month's worth of Cohen's phone calls means that those who know what are in those phone calls will start reacting to the fact that this information is now public. It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out. I would expect to see a few more Trump surrogates out and about.
Last edited by Guest on Thu May 03, 2018 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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_Jersey Girl
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Re: Cohen was wiretapped

Post by _Jersey Girl »

I might expect Trump himself to stir up a twitterstorm smokescreen about wiretapping in order to draw attention away from this and confuse the public. We'll see...
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_MeDotOrg
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Re: Cohen was wiretapped

Post by _MeDotOrg »

Clarification: The first reports were erroneous. Cohen was not wiretapped in the sense that anyone listened to his conversations. The records are of the date, time, duration and location of the call.
"The great problem of any civilization is how to rejuvenate itself without rebarbarization."
- Will Durant
"We've kept more promises than we've even made"
- Donald Trump
"Of what meaning is the world without mind? The question cannot exist."
- Edwin Land
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