Cohen Flips, Manafort falls, Avenatti does cartwheels

[grantcart]

Giuliani Gasps
Trump Implodes
Prosecutors salivate

and the loquacious Dr. Meadows searches for a historical parallel that could match today's events.


As to Cohen's pleading guilty and not cooperating there are contradictory observations:

CNN: “As part of the plea deal under discussion, Cohen is not expected to cooperate with the government, one source said. However, by pleading guilty both Cohen and prosecutors would avoid the spectacle and uncertainty of a trial.”

New York Times: “Even though Mr. Cohen has decided not to cooperate with prosecutors, his decision to plead guilty is a political blow to Mr. Trump.”

And since it doesn't cost any thing to guess, my guess is that they needed to get the plea in before September and that gives them time to work out the proffer and the written agreement for cooperation.

[NewJeffCT]

1. Cohen is NOT flipping

Link to tweet

?s=19

[grantcart]

2. Even without a cooperation agreement (yet) it is still a flip

He will still have to allocate by testifying under oath that he committed the crime and how he did it.

I am wondering if they wanted to get the plea in while they work out a more omnibus cooperation agreement.

When he pleas guilty for these 3 counts it will do nothing to all the other possible counts that could still be brought against him without a plea agreement.

In any case his plea on campaign contribution violations will require him to testify in court under oath to what he did and how he violated the law to the benefit of Trump.

It is flipping, but without the agreement, he will have to go on the record.

[NCTraveler]

3. Do they need him to cooperate....

Considering all of the info they were able to get from his office. Considerable amounts were allowed to be kept. Cohen would make a bad witness for two reasons. 1) Any testimony about Trump would be stopped after every single question to determine admissibility. 2) Credibility.

[grantcart]

7. Cohen is useful to confirm tape authenticity

The admissability question has already been settled with special master. She already excluded anything covered by privilege (which turned out to be very little).

[NCTraveler]

8. Tape authenticity is pretty easy to prove.

Cohen is not needed. He could have already confirmed authenticity as well.

We don't know.

"The admissability question has already been settled with special master. "

Only on documents and that is a done deal. Cohen not needed. Even Cohen discussing the documents in front of a jury has not been deemed admissible. Only the documents themselves.

[grantcart]

9. Prosecutors will tell you that having one of the persons on the

Tape is essential to get the full value of the tapes for 3 reasons

1) confirming authenticity. Using voice and technical testimony to confirm participants is dry and time consuming (and expensive)

2) confirm what was said. Tapes often have segments where volume drops and a witness can testify to what they heard.

3) Most importantly a witness is critical to give context to what is discussed. For example the statement

"Give the money to Bill to get the job done"

Experts can confirm (most of the time) who was on the tape but can't testify to the context of which Bill are they talking about and what job are they talking about, repairing a car or paying off a witness.

Prosecutors always want witnesses to guide the jury through evidence, especially tapes.

[NCTraveler]

10. Cohen would not be a good witness.

It would be better if they had him on tape doing the confirmation in an interview than actually having him on the bench.

Tapes aren't that difficult. Specially if clear. An overwhelming amount of what they got from Cohen are not tapes.

The defense would love to have Cohen on the stand. It would be gridlock in a courtroom.

Even Cohen simply stating who the parties on the tapes are has not been deemed admirable. Much of the paper trail has been.

[grantcart]

11. Prosecutors would find little to agree with what you assert

But the proposition that it would be a "logjam" is the most egregious. Judges allow attorneys to make a motion on a principle but as long as the follow up objections are"on point" with the previous objection/ruling by the judge they cannot interrupt the trial repeating the same objection over and over again. After the initial ruling the attorney can make note of continuous objections for the record and it is noted for possible apoeal.

Any witness that has the cache of supoortive evidence that Cohen has is the greatest possible witness. In Cohen's case there are more than a million items in the record (including tapes, emails, and documents including shreded documents). He isn't golden he is platinum.

[TheRealNorth]

4. Pardon incoming!

[nycbos]

5. Lets not count our chickens when it comes to Manafort

[grantcart]

6. We can count the eggs

We will either get scrambled eggs or little chickens