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My @Slate piece: This Cohen story previews a smoking gun and a road map for how to find it. These allegations are not just about a hush payment and campaign finance felonies. It's a big step toward establishing bribery and conspiracy against U.S. 1/https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/how-michael-cohens-apparent-russia-payment-might-help-prove-collusion.html …
2/ I put Vekselberg's payments of $500K, starting in Jan. 2017, in the context of the Steele Dossier, the Dec '16 sale of Rosneft, and the Kushner/Flynn contacts with Russians at that time. Vekselberg benefited from Trump sabotaging US sanctions on Russia.https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/03/a-series-of-revelations-about-jared-kushner-have-added-further-credence-to-a-key-claim-of-the-steele-dossier.html …
3/ What's the explanation for a Putin oligarch funneling money to Trump’s lawyer through a fund used to pay hush money to one or more women, just as Trump was benefiting that oligarch? Maybe they have an explanation, but it’s hard to imagine it - or how a jury could be persuaded.
4/ My @Slate editors cut my snarky conclusion, and understandably so. But I'll tweet it: "It also seems obvious that once the Steele Dossier was published, someone savvy like Vekselberg would find a less conspicuous way to pay off Trump associates..."
5/ "...Maybe they were assuming the U.S. works like Russia: once you’re in power, and you’re doing the bidding for those in power, you can get away with open corruption. But Vekselberg was not working with Russians. And he wasn’t working with such sharp Americans, either."
Clarification for “conspiracy against the United States”: it’s the charge Rick Gates pleaded. It includes conspiracy to defraud US in core functions, like elections. H/t @RDEliason See my earlier post:https://shugerblog.com/2018/02/20/mueller-may-now-have-enough-to-charge-collusion-as-criminal-conspiracy/ …
6/ I've heard the following question: "Isn't this money laundering?" The basic answer is that the money must originate from a crime in order for the statute to apply. Those facts are not alleged here, and one wouldn't try to launder money with such a shady transaction...
7/ Updated @Novartis statement: they acknowledge paying Cohen $100K per month for a year. $1.2 million?! For what? This is nuts. SDNY is going to be on this. And we need a new statute criminalizing pay-to-play corruption.https://twitter.com/spiegelpeter/status/994245931368353793?s=21 …
8/ update: @ATT announces that they stink to high heaven, too.https://twitter.com/christinawilkie/status/993983493033086977?s=21 …
And a good number initially bought into the narrative that the Cohen raid was unrelated to Mueller, and then the two cases slam into each other like two large rare earth magnets.
"Slam into each other like two large rare earth magnets" is superb Twitter writing. Love it.
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