2018 Letter from Cohen's attorney could compromise DA Bragg's indictment of Trump

By ramontomeydw // 2023-03-28

Mastodon

Parler

Gab

Copy

A 2018 letter from the lawyer of Michael Cohen could compromise the indictment of former President Donald Trump, which Manhattan District Attorney (DA) Alvin Bragg has been pursuing. Turning Point USA Chief Creative Officer Benny Johnson posted the Feb. 8, 2018 letter to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on his Twitter account. It was written by attorney Stephen Ryan, then serving as Cohen's counsel. "In a private transaction in 2016, before the U.S. presidential election, Mr. Cohen used his own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to Stephanie Clifford. Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party of the transaction with Clifford, and neither reimbursed Cohen for the payment directly or indirectly," the letter said. Clifford pertained to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, the latter being her screen name. "Cohen used his own personal funds to pay Daniels. Trump camp [was] not party to transaction [and] did not reimburse Cohen for payment. It's over," noted the host of "The Benny Report" on Newsmax. Trump himself also posted the letter on his Truth Social account. He remarked: "This is totally exculpatory, and must end the Manhattan DA's witch hunt immediately." "Cohen admits that he did it himself. The DA should get on with prosecuting violent criminals so people can walk down the sidewalks of New York without being murdered." Bragg's pursuit of an indictment centered on payments allegedly made by Trump himself to Daniels as a form of hush money after the adult film actress revealed her affair with the former president. (Related: George Soros exposed as major force behind Trump's prosecution and imminent arrest.)

Cohen not a reliable witness to begin with

"This is the equivalent [of] discovering the murder weapon at the scene of the crime with DNA on it," said Johnson. He pointed out that Cohen – a "convicted perjurer" – has been completely discredited and that Bragg "will be disbarred and face prison time if he knew this." Prior to Ryan's exculpatory letter arguing that Trump was not involved in any way with the hush money paid to Daniels, another testimony also compromised the indictment the Manhattan DA was aiming for. The testimony came from Robert Costello, Cohen's former legal advisor. During his two-hour testimony before the grand jury in Manhattan, he called Cohen a "serial liar" and said Trump did not know about Cohen's payment to the adult film actress. "There can be no doubt in anyone's mind that Cohen has great difficulty telling the truth. He is, after all, a convicted perjurer – and our track record with Mr. Cohen convinced us that he was a serial liar," Costello told reporters. "As might be expected, Cohen's lies were always uttered in a way that was beneficial to himself. When it was in his personal self-interest, he was capable of telling the truth. But those occasions were few and far between." Costello also recounted an interaction he had with Cohen back in April 2018. According to him, Daniels' lawyer Michael Avenatti approached Cohen and told him that the adult film actress had negative information she wanted to put in a lawsuit against Trump. "So Cohen decided … on his own to see if he could take care of this," Costello said. Cohen then sat down with Avenatti, where both lawyers negotiated a nondisclosure agreement to the tune of $130,000. Costello asked Cohen if the money for Daniels was from Trump, to which Cohen replied in the negative. Visit Trump.news for more stories about the former president's potential indictment. Watch Newsmax's Chris Salcedo as he talks to legal expert Alan Dershowitz about Trump's indictment below. This video is from the NewsClips channel on Brighteon.com.

CITIZENS NEWS

Cohen not a reliable witness to begin with

More related stories: