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Michael Cohen; To Flip Or Not To Flip?...that is the question

Ever since the raid of Michael Cohen's home, office and hotel room weeks ago, he has become the focus of a very interesting investigation.  This investigation took on a life of its own, as Robert Mueller isn't handling it directly.  It was referred to the Southern District of NY to be handled, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein signed off on the FBI raid of Cohen's residence, office and hotel room that started the process.

As time goes on, however, there seems to be some interconnectivity between the new Cohen investigation and the Mueller Probe.  Just yesterday, new documentation regarding payments made to the shell corporation Michael Cohen created to route the Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Clifford) payment of $130,000 through came to light. 

Coming out yesterday in the news was the documentation mentioned above, which details payments made to the same shell company, Essential Consultants LLC., that Michael Cohen created to conduct the transaction with Stormy Daniels, but these payments came after the election in November of 2016, and continued on for months. 

Cohen allegedly utilized the shell company to pay money to adult-film star Stormy Daniels over an alleged affair with the president in 2006.  The company, according to New York Times, also was used for a series of business transactions and around 4.5 Million Dollars ran through it from November of 2016 until January of 2018. 

Part of that money were payments totaling around 500 Thousand Dollars that were made to the shell company by an investment firm called Columbus Nova in 2017, the Times reported.  One of that firm's biggest clients is a company ran by Russian Oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, who happens to be the cousin of the individual who owns Columbus Nova. 

The question comes up at this point, "Why would a Russian Oligarch need to provide 500 Thousand Dollars to an outside lawyer of the President of the United States?"  This is also an Oligarch who is now under sanctions due to potential involvement in election meddling.  This is the same Oligarch who was questioned at an airport this year by members of Robert Mueller's Special Counsel team investigating alleged Russian Collusion in the Presidential Election. 

An attorney for the Columbus Nova firm says that the money was a consulting fee and was unconnected to Vekselberg, the Times reported. 

Here is the problem with that statement.  Michael Cohen, an individual who seemed to be devoted to the service of one major individual, Donald Trump, all of a sudden after Trump was elected began receiving payments from multiple sources for so-called "consulting fees", and those payments were also funneled through the same shell corporation used to pay off Stormy Daniels. 

Overnight, Michael Cohen went from Trump's lawyer to one of the most sought after consultants in the nation.  That just doesn't add up in my book folks.  Reuters reported that South Korea's Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd. (KAI) claims it paid $150,000 for consulting services on accounting matters to a firm set up by Michael Cohen.  The arrangement came as the company was competing to sell trainer jets to the U.S. Air Force in an auction potentially worth up to 16 Billion Dollars.

Stormy Daniels' lawyer, Michael Avenatti, also detailed other transactions he said were suspicious, including deposits from drug giant Novartis and AT&T.  Both Novartis and AT&T have come out and confirmed they paid Cohen's company, Essential Consultants.  Novartis stated that the Special Counsel had inquired about the arrangement in November.  AT&T said their payments were for insights into the Trump Administration. 

But with all of these payments, the most interesting are the 8 transactions between January and August of 2017, totaling half a million dollars, from U.S. based Columbus Nova, which is allegedly controlled by Russian Oligarch Viktor Vekselberg and his cousin Andrew Intrater.

If we look at all of the information that keeps coming out of this investigation into Cohen, it all seems to be getting closer and closer to Trump himself.  If we speculate and look at the actions Trump has taken over the past couple of weeks, as the investigation seems to have been ramping up, Trump has hired Rudy Giuliani to seemingly go out and muddy the waters even more.

We are at a point where there is no distinction between fact and lie.  So many lies have been told you can't even notice a fact when one is presented, which doesn't happen often in this Administration.  In my opinion, however, this investigation into Cohen is going to be a damming thing for the president in the long run, as it seems to be very effectively moving forward, and also seems to be getting closer to Trump.  I think once they sort through all of the seized documents taken during the raid of Michael Cohen's home, office and hotel room, there is most certainly going to be some rock solid evidence linking the actions Cohen has taken and transactions he has made to the President himself.  That is just the logical conclusion at this point. 

In fact, if the facts are so simple as Trump says so often, why can he not present the nation with those facts?

Never have I ever seen a Presidency that creates a new scandal every day, but it feels as though every day since Trump took the helm that something else is coming out in the news.  He stands and denounces all media that prints stories about him or verbalizes stories about him that don't paint him in a positive light as "Fake News".  He only appreciates Fox News, an organization that has bent over backwards since Trump took office to make him look like the greatest President in history.  Sean Hannity is one of the worst offenders of the bunch. 

This whole thing is going to come to a head over the next few months, and mark my words, "It is not going to look good for Donald Trump in the end."  I am sure that by the time the facts come out and the information from the raid is presented, Michael Cohen is going to sing like a canary and flip in a second to save his own future.  We shall see.

Dunk
 

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