Category Archives: Law

Hiring The Best People, POTUS? Legal Scholar Jonathan Turley Thinks Michael Cohen Is A Rotten Attorney

Donald Trump, Human Accomplishment, Law, Sex

Legal scholar and quintessential gentleman Jonathan Turley is seldom wrong on the intricacies of the law. He was on Fox News propounding the theory, no doubt anchored in law, that Michael Cohen, President Trump’s fix-it lawyer, has gotten his client into a lot of trouble. (Alas, Turley, like Cohen, makes spelling mistakes):

… In what is now the most famous non-disclosure agreement in history, Cohen sought to silence Daniels with a $130,000 payment just days before the election. He drafted a flawed agreement that magnified the problems for his client. The agreement is entitled “Confidential Settlement Agreement and Mutual Release; Assignment of Copyright and Non-Disparagment (sic) Agreement.” If Cohen hoped to avoid “disparagment,” he could not have gone about it more ham-handedly. Cohen created the shield company Essential Consultants LLC and used anonymous identities for Daniels (“Peggy Peterson”) and Trump (“David Dennison”). However, Trump never signed. Instead, Cohen signed as EC LLC, which appears to be simply Cohen.

The agreement is frought [sic] with errors, including the fact that the arbitration provision seems to be an option for Trump rather than EC LCC. Nevertheless, Cohen (aka EC LLC) filed for arbitration and demanded $20 million in damages (as part of an excessive damages provision allowing for $1 million for every disclosure or even threatened disclosure by Daniels).

Now that Cohen’s counsel has confirmed the lack of knowledge or consent by Trump, the potential fallout from this agreement has become even more apparent and more serious.

… When this agreement first came to light, I wrote that Cohen would face very serious ethical questions over his conduct. First there was the fact that Cohen paid for the $130,000 out of his own pocket – a highly usual and troubling mixing of his personal and professional interests. Second, if Trump was not aware of the agreement, Cohen could be alleged to have made false representations to an opposing party as well as failing to meet his duty of conferral with a client. …

Mark Steyn, hardly a great thinker—although a thoroughly amusing one—made fun of Michael Avenatti, lawyer for porn star Stormy Daniels. Turley, who is a serious thinker on the law, says Avenatti did a superb job in representing his client.

You be the judge.

MORE: “Beware The ‘Lawyer Acquaintance’: How Fifty-Six Words May Have Just Sunk Trump and Cohen In The Daniels Litigation.“

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UPDATE II (4/5): Nothing New About Parkland School Massacre. FBI Has Been Criminally Negligent In Almost All Of America’s Major Terrorist Attacks.

Ethics, Government, GUNS, Homeland Security, Internet, Justice, Law

The FBI, now investigating POTUS, was criminally negligent or criminally culpable in almost all of America’s major terrorist attacks and, not surprisingly, in the Florida Parkland School massacre, too. Patrick Pool, national security and terrorism correspondent for PJMedia, coined the phrase Known Wolf just for the FBI’s feats of incompetence.

However, as far as I can recall, this is the first time this rogue agency has admitted to some wrongdoing.

FBI Statement on the Shooting in Parkland, Florida

On January 5, 2018, a person close to Nikolas Cruz contacted the FBI’s Public Access Line (PAL) tipline to report concerns about him. The caller provided information about Cruz’s gun ownership, desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and disturbing social media posts, as well as the potential of him conducting a school shooting.

Under established protocols, the information provided by the caller should have been assessed as a potential threat to life. The information then should have been forwarded to the FBI Miami Field Office, where appropriate investigative steps would have been taken.

We have determined that these protocols were not followed for the information received by the PAL on January 5. The information was not provided to the Miami Field Office, and no further investigation was conducted at that time.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said:

“We are still investigating the facts. I am committed to getting to the bottom of what happened in this particular matter, as well as reviewing our processes for responding to information that we receive from the public. It’s up to all Americans to be vigilant, and when members of the public contact us with concerns, we must act properly and quickly.

“We have spoken with victims and families, and deeply regret the additional pain this causes all those affected by this horrific tragedy. All of the men and women of the FBI are dedicated to keeping the American people safe, and are relentlessly committed to improving all that we do and how we do it.”

Another Florida-based mass murderer, Omar Mateen, practically begged the FBI to put him on their terror watch list. FBI refused. Director James Comey thought Mateen was too wholesome looking. Blood on their hands. See “Let The Gun Market Close Government Loopholes“:

It transpires a friend of Orlando mass murderer Omar Saddiqui Mateen had done his duty and reported Mateen to the FBI. Mohammed A. Malik had also worshiped at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce and had become alarmed when Mateen openly professed to an infatuation with the videos of Yemeni Jihadi Anwar al-Awlaki. Not only did the FBI discount Malik’s report, but when Malik softened his assessment of the danger his friend posed to others—a natural human tendency—the FBI acted post haste on that assessment.
In mitigation of the FBI’s decision to back-off Mateen, Director James Comey even cited Malik’s good reference. Better that FBI agents watch reruns of CBS’s Criminal Minds, than follow FBI Standard Operating Procedure, dictated by the Obama administration. Taxpayers would be safer.
The mad farrago got more maddening when Attorney General Loretta Lynch (confirmed by Republican lickspittles) stepped up to assure the public that federal authorities were scouring their contacts with Mateen, and those around him, to ferret out whether they’d missed anything. When grilled about Mateen’s wife, a key figure in the investigation and a possible co-conspirator, Lynch replied that Noor Salman was … missing.

What did the FBI do in response to Nikolas Cruz? Double down on Russia, of course. For which CNN’s Evan Pérez expressed his gratitude. Perez sure tapped into what Americans are thinking when he confessed to breathed a sigh of relief because … the best of the FBI just caught dem Russian bots, although the agents missed Florida shooter Nikolas Cruz (Perez added as an after thought).

UPDATE I (3/26):

FBI recruited Omar Mateen’s dad.

General intelligence:

UPDATE II (4/5):

Joe Kennedy hated the CIA:

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The Malevolent Matriarchy Is Gunning For John Kelly

Celebrity, Culture, Donald Trump, Feminism, Gender, Justice, Law

NEW COLUMN, “The Malevolent Matriarchy Is Gunning For John Kelly,” is now on WND.COM. Yes, the “Kushner-Cohn Democrats” who ousted Bannon are now after the chief of staff. 

An excerpt:

What would Joan Rivers (allegedly) say about Rob Porter?

Until her untimely death, the iconic comedienne was a personality that had somehow lived on into our post-personality era.

Until his #MeToo ex-wives began baying for his blood, Mr. Porter, as good as dead politically, was President Trump’s White House staff secretary.

If the irreverent Rivers were alive today, she’d most certainly joke about Porter, the man upon whom America’s deranged matriarchy has descended:

“They should rehire Rob Porter. He is now the most vetted man in the world.”

“No wonder Porter didn’t punch his new paramour, Hope Hicks. Did you see what a knockout she is?”

In the true sense of the word, a personality is an individual with an originality and a distinctness of character and thought—a definition that precludes every member of the joyless matriarchy hammering away at the foundations of a civilized, Anglo-American society: the notion that a man defamed in the court of public opinion has the right to defend himself and confront his accusers; that there are often at least two sides to a story, and that relationships are complex and reciprocal, irreducible to the rigid, one-sided scripts enforced by certain vicious and vindictive womenfolk.

Or, “peoplefolk,” as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would say. Included among America’s malevolent matriarchy are legions of domesticated menfolk. But the liliths, especially, faces contorted, are those screeching at us from the television daily. They want White House Chief of Staff John Kelly gone. For he is alleged to have covered for Porter, calling him “a man of true integrity.” Now Porter’s wives swear he is a potential O. J. Simpson.

Kelly is a retired United States Marine Corps general. His son, First Lieutenant Robert Michael Kelly, was killed in Afghanistan, in 2010. While President Barack Obama had not called Gen. Kelly to offer condolences, President Trump did phone the parents of four young men lost under his leadership, in Niger, in October of 2017.

For his inarticulate but well-meaning effort, the president came under vicious attack from Frederica Wilson, congresswoman for life, it would seem, from South Florida. A Maxine Waters with a cowboy hat.

“All hat and no cattle,” quipped Sarah Huckabee Sanders, deliciously. The White House’s press secretary walked away unscathed. But a “good old white boy” like Kelly dare not assign a black matriarch like Wilson to “the long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise.” …

… READ THE REST. “The Malevolent Matriarchy Is Gunning For John Kelly” is now on WND.COM.   

UPDATED (2/10): The Goldman-Sachs Wing Of The White House (Fox News Included) Likely Wants Gen. John Kelly Gone

Democrats, Donald Trump, Ethics, Feminism, Gender, Government, Law, Media

President Trump has no right to be “venting about Chief of Staff John Kelly,” who is an excellent man. But I bet “Jarvanka” (the Jared-Ivanka organism), and their Goldman-Sachs wing of the White House, are urging that the president purge one of the last good men in his administration. Once Kelly goes, of the old MAGA Guard, only Stephen Miller will remain. Then you’ll know the Trump Revolution is truly over.

The media, which has morphed into a Trump Scandal Watch, are baying for the general’s blood. The many fine things Gen. Kelly has done—defend Robert E. Lee as a great American hero, condemn Frederica Wilson for her anti-Trump tackiness—have riled the media.

They would like to think there is no political life after Kelly’s transgression.

Ditto Fox News. On grounds too stupid, weak and wobbly to dignify, a Fox News “writer” (Stephen L. Miller) is calling for the good general to go. It’s encouraging to read the antagonistic comments of the readers. Against Fox News’ neoconservative lefty, the commenters echo my opinion.

UPDATE (2/10): Another reason the left wants the irreplaceable Gen. Kelly replaced:

“John Kelly says some immigrants didn’t sign up under DACA because they were ‘lazy.'”

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