Free Republic

Attorney General William Barr’s refusal to appear before the House Judiciary Committee Thursday is giving critics plenty of ammunition, but few are taking advantage of the opportunity like Rep. Steve Cohen. The Tennessee Democrat held a press conference this morning before the Committee met, calling the attorney general “Chicken Barr” while holding a ceramic hen. After he took his seat, though, things got especially surreal. Cohen, once he placed his ceramic chicken in full view on his podium, pulled out a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and began to chow down on it. It was not yet 9 a.m. As...

A Georgian-American businessman is calling for a retraction of a footnote in the special counsel’s report that refers to a text message exchange with Michael Cohen about a rumored Trump sex tape. Giorgi Rtskhiladze’s lawyer sent a letter to the attorney general claiming that the Mueller report has “glaring inaccuracies.” The report quoted a text message in which Rtskhiladze told Cohen he was “stopping the flow” of tapes of Trump. But in a text message left out of Mueller’s report, Rtskhiladze suggested he did not believe the rumor. .... "We Strongly demand that a full and immediate retraction of these...

Michael Cohen, in Recorded Phone Call, Walks Back Parts of Guilty Plea Michael Rothfeld 8-10 minutes Michael Cohen has disavowed responsibility for some of the crimes to which he has pleaded guilty, privately contending in a recent recorded phone call that he hadn’t evaded taxes and that a criminal charge related to his home-equity line of credit was “a lie.” As he prepares to begin a three-year prison term on May 6, Mr. Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, expressed dismay during the conversation that after testifying for more than 100 hours to federal and congressional investigators about his work for...

Republican Rep. Devin Nunes sent a criminal-referral notification to Attorney General William Barr on Thursday alleging several “potential violations” of the law... alleged misconduct during the FBI’s investigation into Russian meddling and contacts with Trump advisers during the 2016 campaign. The referrals stem from the investigation conducted by the House Intelligence Committee when Republicans held the House majority.

During the dark days of the early Russia collusion probe, House Republicans often were fractured on how to best defend Donald Trump or pursue evidence of FBI bias and abuses. Key conservatives such as Reps. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) were often frustrated by then-Speaker Paul Ryan’s proceed-carefully approach. What a difference two years makes! Ryan (R-Wis.) has left the House and, before he did, even he had come to the conclusion that the FBI probe of Trump likely involved abuses. Special counsel Robert Mueller has closed his investigation with the conclusion that there was...

A lawyer representing President Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen, said Thursday that his client's expected surrender to federal authorities in a month for the beginning of his prison term would adversely affect congressional committees which could benefit from his testimony and procurement of documents. Lanny Davis wrote in an emailed statement Thursday evening that Cohen had recently obtained a hard drive containing "14 million files" related to his personal business and the Trump Organization which investigators could be interested in viewing, while cautioning that Cohen heading to prison would disrupt his ability to provide Congress with information. "Michael Cohen’s recent...

In the past week, he was spotted at Polo Bar Friday evening, Saks Fifth Avenue’s new L’Avenue Saturday night, and at the Regency Bar & Grill for a power breakfast on Tuesday. “He used to sit in the back room because he had a lot of private conversations,” according to a Regency waiter. “But now he sits in the main room.” While New York City liberals may have despised Cohen when he worked for the president, he’s enjoying new popularity since his congressional testimony. “People come up and hug him,” said a friend. “New Yorkers see him as someone in...

The head of the Southern Poverty Law Center on Friday announced that he is stepping down, the latest high-profile departure from the watchdog organization best known for its work monitoring extremist groups. Southern Poverty Law Center President Richard Cohen sent an email to staff saying that he would be stepping down from his leadership role at the organization. The organization last week fired founder and prominent civil rights attorney Morris Dees for unspecified reasons. “Whatever problems exist at the SPLC happened on my watch, so I take responsibility for them,” Cohen wrote. […] Last year, it agreed to pay a...

he investigation of Michael Cohen began in the summer of 2017, nearly a year before federal agents raided the home and office of President Donald Trump's former lawyer and fixer, according to search warrants made public Tuesday. The newly-released documents show that the first FBI warrant was executed on July 19, 2017, targeting Cohen's Gmail account and seeking messages from all of 2016 up to July 2017. The FBI raided Cohen's office and hotel suite on April 9, 2018, seeking evidence of bank fraud and hush money payments to two women, porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal,...

Judge Declares FBI’s Search for Peter Strzok Records Inadequate Judicial Watch Sues for Key Anti-Trump Coup Doc Judicial Watch Files Ethics Complaint Against Congressman Adam Schiff Clinton Email Scandal Witness Testimony Begins Judicial Watch is #1 on FOIA! Judge Declares FBI’s Search for Peter Strzok Records Inadequate A petulant child or employee will perform a task halfway and wait to see if he can get away with it. Such seems to be the strategy of the entire Deep State bureaucracy. The FBI is particularly good at this, and we are particularly good at calling them on it. Luckily for...

The Democratic chairman of the House Oversight Committee said Wednesday that he will not attempt to punish Michael Cohen for misleading the committee last month when he claimed he’d never asked President Trump for a pardon. Rep. Elijah Cummings said Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, has since clarified through his own lawyer that his testimony “could have been clearer.” Cohen now says he was only referring to a specific period of time in his testimony, according to a letter from his lawyer. The Maryland Democrat said that was good enough to get Cohen off the hook. He could have...

An attorney for Michael Cohen on Tuesday attempted to clarify the former Trump lawyer’s congressional testimony regarding whether he sought a presidential pardon, maintaining that his client never “personally” requested one.

Shortened title. Full title: Judicial Watch Files Ethics Complaint Over Rep. Adam Schiff’s Contacts with Glenn Simpson and Michael Cohen Judicial Watch announced today that it filed an official complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics about Rep. Adam Schiff’s (D-CA) controversial communications and contacts with two congressional witnesses: Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS and Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal lawyer. The complaint asks that Rep. Schiff, who is the new chairman of the House Intelligence Community, be investigated in connection with recent revelations that he met with Simpson in Aspen, Colorado, in July 2018 and that he and...

Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney for President Trump, told House investigators this week that staff for Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., traveled to New York at least four times to meet with him for over 10 hours immediately before last month’s high-profile public testimony, according to two sources familiar with the matter who spoke to Fox News — as Republicans question whether the meetings amounted to coaching a witness. The sources told Fox News that the sessions covered a slew of topics addressed during the public hearing before the oversight committee — including the National Enquirer’s “Catch and...

President Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen met with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., several times before testifying before the panel last week, Fox News reports. According to two unnamed sources, Cohen met with Schiff's staff in New York at least four times, for a total of 10 hours, before his appearance before the committee. Fox News reports Cohen and Schiff's staff discussed several of the topics that came up during the panel's hearing, including the National Enquirer's policy of stifling stories, the CEO of its parent company, American Media, and Trump's alleged actions regarding the value of...

President Donald Trump's former longtime attorney and fixer Michael Cohen on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the Trump Organization, claiming his former company has failed to pay "fees and costs" related in part to special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe. Cohen argues in New York state Supreme Court that the Trump Organization, where Cohen worked for roughly a decade as an executive vice president and special counsel to Trump, had a "contractual agreement" to compensate Cohen and "to pay attorneys' fees and costs" incurred through his work "with and on behalf of" company officials.

Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen was grilled by congressional investigators for eight hours Wednesday as part of the House Intelligence Committee’s sweeping probe of the president’s finances and links to Russia. In his second day over the past two weeks providing closed-door testimony, Cohen offered lawmakers new documents, including some that reportedly showed his prior false statements about a proposal to build a Trump property in Moscow were edited before he delivered them to Congress. Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) described the interview as “enormously productive” in brief remarks Wednesday evening, but declined to offer specifics about what Cohen told...

President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort will be sentenced by a U.S. judge in Virginia on Thursday for bank and tax fraud. The fraud was uncovered during Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's role in the 2016 election. Manafort could face what effectively would be a life sentence in prison for the eight charges the veteran Republican political consultant was convicted of by a jury in Alexandria last August.

President Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, considered seeking a presidential pardon last year, it was revealed Wednesday. Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, told The Post that his client did entertain the possibility of a pardon as part of a joint defense agreement Cohen had with the president after Cohen’s Manhattan office was raided in April 2018. “During that time period, he directed his attorney to explore possibilities of a pardon at one point with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, as well as other lawyers advising President Trump,” Davis said in a statement.

Michael Cohen, who did his best to smear Donald Trump last week, may well have been doing so in revenge. Last summer it was revealed that Cohen was under investigation for tax fraud. Federal authorities are analyzing whether Cohen failed to report all of the income from his taxi-medallion business, which included "hundreds of thousands of dollars received in cash and other payments over the last five years," according to the Journal. Investigators are also probing whether any bank employees improperly extended loans to Cohen without adequate documentation, and whether Cohen made false statements or misrepresentations on loan applications. In particular, federal...