BREAKING: NBC News confirms that, after being forced to disclose the name in court, Michael Cohen says his third client – after Donald Trump and Elliot Broidy – is Sean Hannity.
— Ali Velshi (@AliVelshi) April 16, 2018
Long time listener, first time caller…
Just reached Sean Hannity to ask if he had any response to being announced as Michael Cohen’s previously unnamed third client. He said he’s in the middle of recording his radio show.
— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) April 16, 2018
Based on the culture of Fox News, Brad Moss’s conjecture seems apt.
Why on earth would @seanhannity need to hire a "fixer" whose specialty seems to be hush agreements for high profile men caught up with younger women?
Why, gee, you know, I just can't think of any reason at all. None. None at all.
I'm stumped.
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) April 16, 2018
Sean Hannity being a client of Michael Cohen’s while also doing a bunch of segments on the raid, etc. without disclosing he’s been a client of Cohen’s is honestly not even cracking the top-3 most professionally/journalistically problematic things Hannity has been doing since 2016
— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24) April 16, 2018
And it’s only 3:00 PM EDT!
Updated at 3:30 PM EDT (h/t germy in comments):
Person familiar w/ says Hannity hires Cohen around time leftwing groups called for boycotts against him last year
— Gabriel Sherman (@gabrielsherman) April 16, 2018
Stay frosty!
Open thread.
Just the Facts
I’m sure Hannity hired Cohen to have a look at a tenancy agreement or do some work on his will.
Totally fucking sure.
This is delicious.
LAO
You know an argument isn’t going well, when the lawyer starts arguing “fairness.”
Roger Moore
In other news, the stock market is up, driven entirely by popcorn sales.
Corner Stone
Judge Kimba bringing the Wood!
Yarrow
I need so much popcorn.
Sean Hannity is a traitor and it’s going to be so great watching his world unravel.
JPL
Hannity probably had Cohen help with a Will. Like will you
schrodingers_cat
I never want to listen to one more fucking lecture from the party of personal responsibility.
Brachiator
HA HA HA HA HA HA!!
Roger Moore
@LAO:
At the very least, aren’t they supposed to talk about “equity” rather than “fairness”?
germy
Jimmy Kimmell’s next monologue should be… interesting.
LAO
dmsilev
Oh my.
LAO
@Roger Moore: Quite frankly I read both Cohen and Trump’s letter briefs on this issue and both emphasized the “appearance of fairness” — which was just plain stupid IMO. I don’t see an equity argument either.
germy
I confess I’m shocked. I completely expected it to be Don jr.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
Nothing short of death will stop them.
laura
I’ve done gone and sprained my schadenfreude!
Also, what a skeezy cabal of greasy, grifty, misogynistic attention whoooers.
germy
A picture is worth a thousand words.
jl
I read that Avenatti recently said he had six new potential clients related to Cohen, and maybe more coming along, but he had not decided whether to take their cases or not.
I have to wonder whether one of them has a Cohen NDA with Hannity, and whether it is as big a mess as the two we know about. And whether it contains more evidence of Cohen committing fraud and extortion with his shadow partner.
I’ve become a fan of Avenatti’s briefs. Even though IANAL, I can actually understand them, and they make sense. Not like some other briefs IANAL me has read over last few weeks.
lowtechcyclist
Man, this hasn’t slowed down since Cohen’s office was raided a week ago. I’m enjoying the hell out of this.
Baud
Every voter who got suckered by these fools should feel a great deal of shame.
Gin & Tonic
@Corner Stone: You’ve been waiting to use that, haven’t you?
Snarki, child of Loki
Okay, okay, so WHICH pr0n star spanked Hannity with a magazine with Trump’s face on the cover?
I mean, there are so many choices!
TenguPhule
Now the eternal question: Sean Hannity: Dead boys or live girls?
TenguPhule
@Baud:
Everyone who voted for those fools has no shame.
germy
So drumpf and shannity shared a fixer.
So hot.
oatler.
@Brachiator: NBC?? Will Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd be there with various Fox contributors to get Both SIdes?
LAO
I can barely type through the tears of laughter:
germy
@TenguPhule: i’m guessing a production assistant on the network.
Just a guess though.
dmsilev
@TenguPhule: Yes.
germy
The folks over at MediaMatters are most likely orgasming right now.
Baud
I’m getting more confident that pizzagate is real, only it’s on the Trump side.
tobie
Will this affect the work of the taint team? I know Cohen and Trump have been trying to prevent the team from reviewing the material seized in the raid. Anyone know if Judge Wood will issue a ruling on this today? (Don’t have a good sense of how fast the wheels of justice turn.)
TenguPhule
Pretty sure there’s enough frostbitten commenters here ready to start burning the place down the next time one of the FP say that. I understand the weather has been pretty bad.
Corner Stone
@Gin & Tonic: I’m not *not* saying I was looking forward to the opportunity.
Yarrow
@Snarki, child of Loki: According to Wikipedia, Sean Hannity is married. Wonder how that’s going to go. But I think Cohen was fixing more than just an affair. Too many Russian connections.
Bruce K
What’s the word for the emotion where you’re caught off guard but after a minute to process it, you realize that it’s not surprising?
After all, Hannity’s spent the last year and a half basically acting as Twitler’s Goebbels, or maybe Lord Haw-Haw. Defending the cheeto like his life depends on it, which, oh, hey, maybe it actually does…
jl
@tobie: Which ‘taint team’? There is a Trumpster taint team, which seems to be getting diplomatically blown out of court today, and a proposed court appointed ‘taint team’.
germy
TenguPhule
@Baud:
And it will be a GOP Papa John’s Franchisee. Because Peak Irony.
LAO
@tobie: Ah, the tone and tenor of the hearing so far, would indicate that the Judge is unpersuaded by Cohen/Trump arguments. I expect, if she doesn’t rule from the bench, Judge Woods would issue a ruling by the end of the week.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: What was it that someone wrote a couple of week’s ago about what the Trump Doctrine was actually all about?
https://balloon-juice.com/2018/04/06/the-trump-doctrine-and-syria-i-and-by-extension-the-us-will-be-treated-fairly-or-else-runs-into-the-ambiguity-of-a-wicked-national-security-problem/
Gin & Tonic
@germy: Well, duh, easy. Because Fox News has no professional ethics standards whatsoever.
trollhattan
“This is good news for Tucker Carlson.”
Genuinely trying to guess how this could possibly harm Hannity within the Fox universe. “He was just forging a stronger contact with the president” or somesuch will be the official line.
germy
Roger Moore
@LAO:
I reminds me of the old joke:
When the law isn’t on your side, pound on the facts.
When the facts aren’t on your side, pound on the law.
When neither the law nor the facts are on your side, pound on the table.
They’re pounding on the table.
Yarrow
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: If the President doesn’t nominate and have confirmed a US Attorney for the Southern District of New York by close of business on 4 MAY 2018, the chief judge of that district will appoint a permanent US Attorney. The chief judge for the Southern District of New York is Kmba Woods. Also, any other district with an interim US Attorney is going to see the same thing happen.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman: I think you need to revise your thesis in light of Trump’s pullback from sanctions this morning.
JPL
@LAO: That’s not good, but I’m not a lawyer.
Yarrow
Wonder how long Fox will keep Hannity around?
germy
• Hannity says he consulted with Cohen, no big deal.
jl
@germy:
” How has Hannity been allowed to report on Michael Cohen developments without disclosing that he is, per today’s revelations, Cohen’s legal client? ”
In future journalism courses, Fox News wants to be the exemplar reference cesspool?
Ella in New Mexico
@Yarrow: I’m betting any sexual harassment/affair news will be eclipsed by illegal quid-pro-quo payments from a variety of untoward sources to Hannity to be Trump’s official Fox News bulldog.
LAO
@Roger Moore:
They’ll be pounding sand soon enough.
@Adam L Silverman: I can’t imagine who’d be brilliant enough to write such an essay.
@JPL: It’s not good. Really not good.
Mary G
Wow. I did nazi that coming. Not original, but damn.
Wild Cat
Fox. Fox. Fucking Fox and fucking NewsCorp and the NY fucking Post and everything fucking thing else Murdoch has created for the sole purpose of making the lives of anyone not as sadistic and rich as he is miserable.
Ted Kennedy had his number when Rupe the Dupe was trying to be the first fascist twerk to own both a newspaper and a TV network in one city—New York. Kennedy lost his battle. Our media went from two-dimentional to bugshit insane.
So I guess Hannity will have a week off (long planned, right?) to count his millions.
Adam L Silverman
@germy: He hushed up Jr’s affair with O’Day a decade ago.
Yarrow
@Baud: The pizza place part of it may not be true, but we’ll be hearing about the human trafficking and Trump/Republicans at some point. That part is true.
LAO
I can’t believe I have a meeting to go to. Damn it.
jl
@JPL: ” Hannity probably had Cohen help with a Will. Like will you ”
Having some Russian money goons involved in your estate and trust livens up a depressing, tedious and boring area of life.
Elizabelle
There isn’t enough popcorn in the world. Hang on.
Marvelous WaPost ombudsman Margaret Sullivan a few days ago: Trump might survive firing Rosenstein or even Mueller. The reason: Fox News. With a big photo of client #3.
Um, maybe Hannity in the mix changes things a bit. He is toxic on toxic. Take that fucker OUT. I really do not think US democracy can co-exist with Fox News, and with Breitbart. They are poison propaganda; you cannot refute their product with logic or reason, because they are there to serve the lizard brain.
germy
@Adam L Silverman: I literally can’t keep up with these people.
jl
@LAO: Let me know when they get to hours of military parades and patriotic band music.
Yarrow
@Ella in New Mexico: I’m thinking along those lines as well. Along with treason.
daryljfontaine
@Baud: It’s always projection.
Always.
D
MattF
Well, Who Knows? My guess is that we’ve reached a stage where corruption has become endemic. Poor Sean saw all these political movers and shakers getting rich, figured that now he should get his share of the good stuff since he knows all the cool kids. The catch is that one now has to deal with the likes of Cohen. Not as bad as dealing with Manafort, but bad enough. It’s unlikely that Hannity sees it this way… but… Who Knows??
germy
noncarborundum
@TenguPhule:
Por qué no los dos?
Bobby Thomson
LOLOLOL
Rathskeller
I can only imagine the astonishment and anger experienced today by Sean Hannity’s wife. They’ve been married since 1993. I wish her no harm, it’s just that the implication of this discovery is relatively clear.
Origuy
Not linking because I’m at work but search for “sean hannity bunny ranch brothel”.
r€nato
You’d have to go to a San Francisco bathhouse to find a bigger circle jerk than this.
chopper
@jl:
trump’s taint team seems full of some real crack lawyers. no wonder trump is trying to butt in to this proceeding.
GregB
Hannity! Let the good times roll.
Corner Stone
The awfully bad lawyering going on by Team Cohen is just stunning. I mean, we knew he was below mediocre, but damn. Hire a competent lawyer to represent you.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: That thesis has nothing to do with Russia per se. And his actions actually make sense of it given yesterday’s WaPo story where he felt taken advantage of – not treated fairly – by his own staff and by our European allies in regard to the response to the Skirpal poisonings.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-a-reluctant-hawk-has-battled-his-top-aides-on-russia-and-lost/2018/04/15/a91e850a-3f1b-11e8-974f-aacd97698cef_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.413a32dd59d2
Much more at the link.
Yarrow
@Corner Stone: Competent lawyers won’t sign on to represent him. It’s not worth it.
Brachiator
@LAO:
It is so …. amazing … revealing … typical (by now) … to see once again how Trump values loyalty over competence, and how this just bites him in the ass.
psycholinguist
I’m surprised nobody I’ve seen has noted that Avanatti is a seasoned political opps researcher, working for a time for none other than Rohm Emanuel. He’s very aware of where the soft spots are, and he’s ruthless. Good thing he appears to be on the good side.
jl
I guess could be both sexy time hush money and corrupt Russian goon money. Why not both?
Or, could be some sketchy trust.for a tax scam, in which case, Hannity probably owes his house to the IRS.
Hard to see how this turns out well for Hannity, if a Trumpster was his lawyer.
chopper
@Corner Stone:
to be fair, no amount of lawyering is going to get cohen out of this pile of shit he’s crawled into. desperate hail-marys are all they got.
this is just fucking fantastic to watch. i just wish there was a split screen of trump flipping out while the judge talks.
Yarrow
@jl: It really could be any or all of the things you mentioned. Or something else we haven’t thought of! Hannity is slimy and not all that bright. No wonder he hired Cohen.
Gin & Tonic
@GregB: Schindler keeps saying that there are recordings of Hannity talking to Russian intelligence.
Roger Moore
@Adam L Silverman:
How does Trump’s team manage to be so bad at this stuff? Is there really something bad enough in his temporary appointees’ closets that he doesn’t think the Republican-led Senate would approve them, or is his team just so incompetent they don’t realize there’s a time limit on temporary appointments?
jl
@psycholinguist: He’s been posting his briefs and whatever public legal writing things he submits to the court via twitter. I’ve been reading them to figure out what is going on.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: Is a puzzlement!
MomSense
Recent call from kid.
Kid: Sean fucking Hannity!
Me: Unbefuckinglievable
Kid: JFC of course it’s Sean Fucking Hannity.
Me: What do you think he did?
Kid: Sexual harassment? Raping kids? Money laundering.
Me: can you believe how far we’ve fallen? All of those things seem totally plausible.
trollhattan
How does this reveal hurt Hannity? If he worked at a legit news organization it would be bad, but so long as he gets his viewship he’s earning Fox money and, therefore, a witch! OTOH Bill’O is gone, so anything’s possible. Prime Time Tucker will be our reward, however.
chopper
@germy:
yeah, that’s why he hired a guy who’s specialty is paying off mistresses. riiiiiight
Yarrow
@Gin & Tonic: He’s been saying that for about a year. Interesting development today.
Elizabelle
In news of actual journalism outlets, not fake shit news: The FTF NYTimes won 3 Pulitzers,The WaPost won 2.
WaPost:
The FTF NY Times: sounds like they’re sharing the Harvey Weinstein [related] Award with The New Yorker, and the Russia interference with the WaPost. The Grey Lady needed helpers this year. No Pulitzer for Hillary emails wall to wall, no sirree.
Congratulations.
And Fuck the Fucking NY Times, for enabling the Russian interference before the election, [the better to investigate it after] and for pulling Sharon Waxman off a Harvey Weinstein sexual misconduct story in the early 2000s. I have always found them kind of hypocritical to be leading the charge against misogyny against women now, since they have a rather awful record in the much larger picture.
FlipYrWhig
@chopper: That’s some fine analysis, chopper. Trumplings are easy to wreck but you really rectum.
MattF
@MomSense: I’d go with money laundering. It’s the standard entry-level mode of criminality for these guys.
trnc
As of right now, there is still nothing up on the Fox News front page about Hannity being named, so I guess they’re still haggling over severance pay.
Mary G
O/T: Megan Twohey, Jodi Kantor, Ronan Farrow, FTFNYT, and New Yorker all awarded Pulitzers for public service for the Harvey Weinstein/MeToo stories.
ETA: Elizabelle got there first!
Mandalay
@trollhattan:
That sounds right in the short term – they’ll rally around and give him a boost. But in the long term it depends on what shenanigans Hannity was up to.
Adam L Silverman
@germy: I promised my Mom I’d draw her a chart.
chris
Sean Hannity and Debbie Schlussell had a little dustup last year. there may have been lawyers involved.
tobie
@germy: They’re going with the line that Hannity hired Cohen to defend him preemptively against left-wing groups? How? This makes no sense. Was he anticipating filing slander, libel or defamation charges? Or was he hoping Cohen would threaten these groups, in which case Cohen would be acting like a fixer not a lawyer.
Jeffro
@germy: WIN
JohnO
@trollhattan:
I’ll bet that there are a good number of FOX and Sean viewers who might be a little bit embarrassed and offended that Hannity didn’t at least disclose this as he was doing his nightly and public foam-at-the-mouth thing.
ETA: The spectrum of Stupid runs on a continuum towards infinity, so there have to be SOME FOX viewers who say, “I’m not THAT stupid.”
trnc
@Origuy: I have a feeling Bunny Ranchers would be at least a couple of rungs up the ladder for Hannity.
Adam L Silverman
@Origuy: Here you go:
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/arts/television/30watc.html
Elizabelle
And Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer for Music. That’s cool.
efgoldman
@LAO:
But you’re apparently a for really lawyer
Adam L Silverman
@Roger Moore: The current interim appointee in the Southern District of NY would be easily confirmable by the current Senate. Likely confirmable even by a Democratic majority Senate.
El Caganer
You smug libtards are laughing now but just you wait until one of your talk show guys needs help getting a NYC taxi medallion.
jl
@tobie: Either that is a BS lie that will be inoperative and clumsily buried shortly, or Cohen was funneling some Russian or other dubious money to Hannity for political work. IMHO.
West of the Rockies
Smirks O’Hannity must be dyspeptic… Let us savor.
Elizabelle
@Mary G: Quite all right. Very interested in Pulitzers for non-fake news. Got to say, I did not recognize any of the non-news winners, except Kendrick Lamar.
Source: NPR roundup
zhena gogolia
DAMMIT I NEED TO GET SOME WORK DONE! and the popcorn popper’s broken
hueyplong
Fox chryon:. Sean Hannity (D-NY)
GregB
@Gin & Tonic:
At this rate, I assume there is video of Hannity with Ronald Reagan’s chimp.
Brachiator
@Corner Stone:
A competent attorney won’t work for Trump. Also, he doesn’t seem willing to pay them. Even though he is the goddam president now, he does not seem able to change his longstanding habits. This would make for an interesting psychological study if the freaking fate of the nation did not hang in the balance!
BroD
Who is this “Hannity” person?
raven
@Mary G:I stolt it!
Corner Stone
@trollhattan:
I can imagine nothing that would kill Fox News faster than 5 hours of Prime Time Tucker.
Roger Moore
@Adam L Silverman:
So why in hell haven’t they even tried to get him confirmed? What is wrong with these people?
efgoldman
@germy:
Poor germy – or poor Garance. You’re old enough to remember when there were rules in broadcasting.
Roger Moore
@BroD:
He’s the guy who went for the coffee. Nobody paid any attention to anything he said. Nobody in the Trump camp would even recognize him if they saw his picture.
zhena gogolia
@jl:
“Swan Lake” will be the big tell.
Ridnik Chrome
@chris:
I can’t decide which of those two people is worse. If ever there was an occasion to root for injuries, that would be it.
Cheryl Rofer
A lot of the Trump stuff is horrifying, but every once in a while, one of the revelations is hilarious.
bemused
Well, this news just perked up my mood! Puzzled pets are wondering why I am giggling so much.
jl
@Roger Moore: This is my IANAL semi-informed guess, but I think the Trumpsters have been working on a scheme to have as few confirmed officials as possible, so Trump can sneak in whatever corrupt acting something or other head whenever the chance comes up. I think that is true for administrative positions, I don’t know if can work the courts, though. Not that it can’t wouldn’t stop the Trupsters from trying it anyway.
Cheryl Rofer
Apparently Hannity is now saying that Cohen wasn’t his lawyer. That would mean that their communications weren’t privileged.
Oops
Cheryl Rofer
Spanky
CNN:
efgoldman
@Wild Cat:
I loved Teddy. He was my senator for his whole career, But he did an awful lot toward relaxing broadcast ownership restrictions. He probably didn’t anticipate the NewsCorps and Sinclairs of the world, but he facilitated them.
bemused
Yes, indeedee. As Ali Velshi and everyone else wants to know, what problem did Hannity want Cohen to make go away?
zhena gogolia
@Cheryl Rofer:
Earlier today when I saw that a judge ordered that they disclose who the third person was, I assumed it would be somebody like Nunberg or Lewandowski. But this is hilarious.
Axe Diesel Palin
Bloomberg reported that former NY governor Eliot Spitzer was at the hearing.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-16/trump-worlds-collide-as-cohen-meets-stormy-daniels-in-n-y-court
Everyone seems to forget that it was Roger Stone and his buddies who brought down Spitzer.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gop-operative-roger-stone-helped-bring-eliot-spitzer-article-1.286248
I suspect Spitzer is cheering on the demise of his enemies
LAO
@Cheryl Rofer: which totally fucks over Cohen. This is a goddamn delight!
rikyrah
it WOULD be irresponsible of us not to speculate, don’t ya know?
jl
@Cheryl Rofer: @Spanky: But from their briefs, someone officially represented to DOJ and the court that Cohen was the lawyer for this third party (who would be Hannity, right?) And asserted right to the privilege. So, if that was a lie, then that seems kind of very irregular and maybe a very naughty bad thing to do to a court. And someone might be in big trouble for that alone?
If that is the case, the judge will get grumpy about it, right?
Their complete chaos bodes well, perhaps.
psycholinguist
Hannity on radio show saying odd mix of stuff:
1. I never paid Cohen, never got a bill, etc. no money for services ever changed hands
2. When they talked, he asked specifically “attorney-client privilege?” Cohen – “Yes”
3. No “third-party” was ever subject of discussions with Cohen – he really, really wants to say he never paid off a porn star, but he can’t bring himself to say it.
To our lawyers: are 1. and 2. compatible?
Elizabelle
RE Hannity. I look forward to the NY Daily News cover tomorrow. They have to be salivating.
MattF
@Spanky: So, then, (according to Fox) the only reason it’s big news is that Cohen made it into big news. Very lawyerly.
Yarrow
@Cheryl Rofer: Hilarious.
germy
Shep Smith is reporting it on Fox
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7bFDCMaCKE
“sigh… so, moving on…”
Wild Cat
@efgoldman: Interesting. When I was a young man, this [Kennedy vs. Murdoch] was presented in liberal NYC media as Ted vs. The Bad Guys. Thanks for some historical clarification.
beef
I think Cohen’s specialty is structuring money flows. Paying off mistresses is just one application of the more general skill set.
The Moar You Know
@Yarrow: Christ, he is a moron. That part of the screen is called a “chyron”. I’ve never worked in TV and I know that. How can he not?
WaterGirl
@Baud:
How dare you talk about my entire extended family like that? (minus one)
Oh, wait, that’s exactly how I feel about them. Never mind.
rikyrah
@Adam L Silverman:
Yep…..
And, I still don’t think the guy in the job now is ready for the questions that should come his way, like..
” What exactly did you and President discuss when he met with you PERSONALLY about this job?”
Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
And I know Lamar more for his contributions to the Black Panther soundtrack. Still, cool news.
Ah. I knew about “Prairie Fires,” but had not read it.
Mary G
sukabi
@germy: I think Drumpf has the “family plan” with Cohen, so Jr. is included with client #1.
efgoldman
@Roger Moore:
Hmmm.
Decimate your knowledgeable staff….
Laser like focus on your personal troubles, to the exclusion of all else….
Leave major decision-making positions at DOJ and the personnel administration unfilled….
Why yes, Occam says they couldn’t find the bathroom without a seeing eye dog.
brendancalling
Now I want to know the details. Was he fucking a prostitute behind his wife’s back? Male or female? How old?
Or was he on Trump’s payroll the whole time, hidden behind a Delaware LLC?
Another question: has Sean run afoul of journalistic ethics?
lowtechcyclist
@LAO:
Is that like when the Soviet state media used to play classical music when shit was going down?
Amir Khalid
@Roger Moore:
Easy. Trump hires only the very best incompetent sycophants.
WaterGirl
@Adam L Silverman: Shhhhh!
Litlebritdifrnt
My husband nearly jumped out of his seat when I saw the twitter feed about Hannity and screamed at the top of my lungs “oh my fu**ing God”. He asked me to explain and I said “later after you have watched NCIS cause it is going to take a while”. This is delicious, right now we have Cohen saying he represented Hannity and Hannity saying he never paid him, at this point Cohen is totally and utterly fu**ed. If he was representing someone pro bono then there had to be some other compensation, who was paying Cohen, Fox News, Russia, Trump, who? I cannot believe how delicious this is getting.
jl
@lowtechcyclist: Fox News is more like a small family run banana republic. I think they play hours of military parades and patriotic band music when some species of fell horde is approaching the palace gates.
germy
MediaMatters:
“Hannity reportedly hired Cohen to go after us“
Cheryl Rofer
@lowtechcyclist: Was the music “Swan Lake”?
PPCLI
@Baud: Oh my God! Hannity killed Seth Rich!
And Vince Foster too!
trollhattan
@lowtechcyclist:
Twenty Quatloos to the broadcast engineer if he plays “The Internationale.”
Elizabelle
@Mary G: Bonfire of the Hannities. LOL.
I hope it’s Russian money related. Not just the usual Fox sexual assault escapades. That is so — yesterday, last year, year before at that network. Almost de rigeur.
Amir Khalid
@LAO:
Did Hannity also fuck himself over? Depending on what his dealings with Cohen were about, that seems a real possibility.
jl
@Amir Khalid: Combination of no case and bad lawyers is not a good thing, I guess.
Brachiator
@Baud:
They don’t. They support Trump and don’t think that any of these “attacks” matter. As far as they are concerned, he has done nothing wrong, has never made a bad decision and is simply being pestered by unworthies who will not let him do whatever it is they think he is doing.
jl
@Elizabelle: I think the cover story that it was lawyer work to defend against lefty persecution points in that direction. But, they are in such chaos they may just be saying random shit, so who knows?
Cheryl Rofer
Damn, I have work I want to do, and I just can’t stop laughing.
Radiumgirl
@brendancalling: I can answer question No. 3 — yes, he ran afoul of journalism ethics. At a minimum he should have disclosed the relationship w/Cohen. At real news operations you get fired for crap like that. At Fox, who knows?
The Moar You Know
@Cheryl Rofer: Goddamn, where do you have to go in America to find people this fucking stupid?
Corner Stone
@beef:
Pretty sure his “specialty” is so sloppy that it’s going to land him in the federal pen for a few decades. And the payoffs – he had to lie to a bank to take out a HELOC to get the cash for the Stormy payoff.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: I still want an explanation of their ‘Donald Trump is not being investigated” story.
Corner Stone
Hannity seems really dumb right now. Much more so than usual. He is in deep shit.
Cheryl Rofer
@The Moar You Know: The Trump Organization
West of the Rockies
@Roger Moore:
He’s just a cub reporter, a fresh-faced kid, a promising tyke. Let’s go easy on the poor lil’ guy…
Yarrow
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Absolutely. The person most fucked in this situation is Michael Cohen. Which is why, despite his longstanding professed adoration of Trump, I think he’ll flip. He really doesn’t have a lot of other options. He’s got a family. He seems to care about his kids. Will he put Trump over them?
Corner Stone
@PPCLI:
I wonder if the Rich family lawsuit can get Hannity into a deposition. And then? And then and then and then?!
germy
@Elizabelle: I think hannity got nervous when MediaMatters started pressuring advertisers to leave his show. He called cohen the fixer to find dirt on the folks who run MediaMatters in hopes of making them go away.
Cheryl Rofer
And the next tweet is “I am really at a loss whether to believe Cohen less or Hannity less.”
zhena gogolia
@lowtechcyclist:
That’s what I’m sayin — when he starts up “Swan Lake,” it’s all over!
germy
@West of the Rockies:
He’s new at this. Cut him some slack, for god’s sake.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
America is a very corrupt country. The question is can we clean it up?
jl
@The Moar You Know: We need a post on whether or not one or more of the briefs said that the Trumpsters represented to the DOJ, and also represented to the court that this third client of Cohen was a real official legal client who deserved complete anonymity to protect privilege.
That seems to me to be lying in an official document submitted to the court, and might be a bad thing to do. Are the Trumpster lawyers so incompetent, dumb, and desperate that they would try a scam like that on the court, or is Hannity lying?
Any BJ lawyers know what is going on with that? I assume a rather grumpy judge will have something to say about it sooner or later. But I’ll probably miss it, since I can’t devote all my time to watching this train wreck.
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore: Donald Trump picked him, so that should be good enough, thinks Donald Trump. Process is for LOSERS.
Yarrow
@Corner Stone: Hannity is a traitor. He now knows he’s been discovered. He’s got to be terrified.
Cheryl Rofer
Ugh. I’m gonna try to get back to work.
Washburn
@Just the Facts:
I thought for sure that it was because Hannity wanted to get a NYC taxi medallion so he can lock the doors and harangue unwitting tourists.
Kind of like cash cab, but with more screaming and smarm.
chris
LOL
The Moar You Know
@psycholinguist: Not a lawyer, BUT:
#1 has one emphasis. Money. Which is not germane. The question is, was Mr. Cohen providing legal services or advice to Mr. Hannity? The question of payment is irrelevant. The answer is certainly “yes”.
If so, attorney-client privilege applies.
For SOME REASON, Hannity does not want it known he engaged Cohen’s services. I’ll leave the “why” of that as a question for the reader to ponder.
WaterGirl
@Axe Diesel Palin: “If you sit by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will come floating by.”
Washburn
@Yarrow:
Yeah, his body language as he walked to the cigar summit last week and into Court this morning just yelled: DEFEAT.
Bonnie
Maybe Hannity’s wife needs to be talking to people with info on her husband.
different-church-lady
@Baud:
Most voters who got suckered by these fools are incapable of feeling shame in the first place.
efgoldman
@brendancalling:
If there were any in Rupertworld
jl
@The Moar You Know: thanks, that clarifies things… a little. Not that perfect clarity is possible in the middle of a train wreck, before the last tank car has exploded.
chopper
@Cheryl Rofer:
so…cohen’s team just lied in court?
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Preet looks pretty smart for not being willing to meet with Trump once Trump was actually president.
germy
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
I have suspected that for quite a while.
Corner Stone
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
I alone can fix it!
germy
scenario:
sukabi
@Washburn: his body language @ his cigar summit screamed submissive. Dude was meeting his mob bosses and didn’t have good news. Looked like he was trying to bs his way out of a bathing accident.
Adding the only way Cohen comes out of this relatively ok is if he’s been wearing a wire for the last month or two…one provided by the feds, not his own.
different-church-lady
@germy: No. Just… no.
Mandalay
@chopper:
They may have, but if they did it wasn’t on the basis of that tweet which wasn’t directly quoting anything that Cohen or Hannity actually said (especially the bit about “retraining” a lawyer).
WaterGirl
@Cheryl Rofer:
That was wroth a laugh out loud! I don’t know if that’s a real game, but I hope it is. Either way, it gets the point across.
Okay, I googled, it is real. I wonder if sales will skyrocket.
jl
@sukabi: I agree. Seemed more like a public show of defiance, like mobsters do. But his expression and body language was more like the chump who got nicked, and the others were telling him how he was going to handle his downfall so that the bigwigs didn’t get hurt too much.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Corner Stone: I hope someone can. The complete failure of law enforcement and the judicial system is what we are seeing. Most of these motherfuckers should have been in the stony lonesome a long time ago. I just saw where some poor black man just got out of jail after seven years – his crime, two joints in his pants pocket. There needs to be a reckoning on these sons of bitches.
chopper
@germy:
(shudder)
Kelly
@Adam L Silverman:
OMG! I had no idea it worked this way. Just the sort of thing that could slip thru the chaos of this Administration.
efgoldman
@WaterGirl:
Ta-daa
Washburn
@sukabi:
Almost SAD!
Almost.
West of the Rockies
@Corner Stone:
Is that you, Baud?
Baud! 2020
chopper
@Mandalay:
well, hannity himself said “Michael Cohen has never represented me in any matter. “
Corner Stone
@WaterGirl:
You…never played….Hungry Hungry Hippos…?? My God.
germy
He’ll never pull his ads. He makes pillows and he’s got… a philosophy.
chopper
sounds like cohen was working pro bozo.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Mary G
@Elizabelle: @Elizabelle: @Brachiator: I didn’t know this:
Even more impressive.
Brachiator
@chopper:
Ha! Exactamundo!
Amir Khalid
It just occurred to me that parts of this ever-expanding investigation resemble a physical-comedy sketch where the pratfalls keep on leading to more and bigger pratfalls.
jl
We have to admit that Trump is a master at producing a compelling reality TV show.
We have two compelling story arcs competing front and center today, hide and seek Russia ass-kissing, and the tragicomdey of horrifically bad lawyers in the courtroom.
While pay for play ME foreign policy and seemingly run of the mill government corruption arcs are taking back stage, but increasing the tension in the back of our minds.
Emmy material, iMHO.
germy
Okay, he’s settled on a story. Whew.
Barbara
@The Moar You Know: I have lots of clients that don’t pay and that I represent for free because that’s the deal. So it’s not payment. Normally, if you are a reputable lawyer you send all your clients a retention letter so everybody is on the same page. It’s highly irregular for someone to ask for impromptu “legal advice” on a matter. If that was the extent of it, then it sounds more compatible with Hannity (as he suggested) using Cohen (God knows why) in his capacity as a legal expert not his personal attorney. Asking for privilege would be more of a joke than anything else. If he hired Cohen to work as or hire private investigators, that also doesn’t sound like legal advice, and it’s possible Cohen would have been used to hide where the money to that investigator was actually coming from. Again, unlikely to be ACP, but it would depend on circumstances.
Barbara
@chopper:
Okay, you win the thread!
jl
@germy: IANAL, but consulting with Cohen to fend off lefty persecution of his show involved a real estate deal. Legal stuff sure gets complicated. Can a lawyer please explain?
Edit: I’d hate to think Hannity is reduced to emitting random self-contradictory and dishonest gibberish from minute to minute.
germy
Mary G
@germy: Somebody talked to one of his real lawyers during a commercial break, because no way does Sean know any Latin phrases like “de minimis discussions.”
Yarrow
@germy: Real estate, he says? LOL. He’s going to regret that.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
And what would Cohen do, besides pay off the women Hannity forced himself on?
germy
Yutsano
@jl: Federal tax liens are public documents. One of our esteemed lawyer types could do a Lexis search for one if it exists.
This is not to say dear Sean owes taxes, but ‘twould be irresponsible not to speculate.
germy
@jl:
He’s made a career of it.
feebog
As i understood Judge Woods order on Friday, Cohen’s lawyers were not only to bring a list of his clients but proof of the attorney-client relationship. I don’t know what that would consist of; retainer agreement, contract, cancelled check, porn star video?
brendancalling
@Radiumgirl: it was a rhetorical question. He probably won’t get fired, but he should be.
efgoldman
@Yutsano:
Huh. Odd and interesting, Returns are secret but liens, etc aren’t. What about IRS or DOL subpoenas (I had to answer both in my job)
jl
@feebog: I predict a very very grumpy judge. Seems like that didn’t happen the way one would think it would in an good faith orderly proceeding. But, IANAL, so who knows? Maybe shit like this happens all the time in the court room?
Will judge grumpiness go to 11? Any lawyers here can predict?
Yarrow
The hearing is now over. Did they even get to Stormy Daniels? Remember she was there in the courtroom.
different-church-lady
Looks like I picked the wrong infrastructure week to stop
sniffing glueeating entire sheets of blotter acid in one sitting.jl
@Yarrow: Stormy who?
Barbara
@Yarrow: There was nothing to get to. She was there for the show and to make the show.
jonas
@chopper: Well, like with Trump, the neat thing about Cohen is that he pays for your problems to go away and you don’t even know anything about it! It’s a very convenient arrangement.
raven
@jl:
danielx
But seriously…..Sean Hannity can’t afford to hire better legal talent? Or is he as dirty as Trump?
Hard to believe, but…it’s Hannity.
? Martin
@germy: Man, that pillow guy seriously sets off the ‘don’t get close to my kids’ alarm. I have to turn the channel every time.
Corner Stone
@Barbara: Stormy gave a brief statement and then Avenatti answered 6 or so questions.
Corner Stone
@? Martin:
What? You got a problem with a guy who is always lurking behind your medicine cabinet mirror? And then comes out to fluff your pillow for you?
Cheryl Rofer
? Martin
@danielx:
T,FTFY
Baud
@danielx:
It’s hard to find an attorney who doesn’t know or doesn’t care about the crime fraud exception to attorney client privilege.
Yarrow
@Barbara: I thought that was the case but then I read something else that made it sound like she had a real reason for being there. And then the Hannity news broke and now I can’t remember what it was.
George Spiggott
@WaterGirl:
Hungry Hungry Hippo?
https://dawm7kda6y2v0.cloudfront.net/uploads/2018/02/hannity-white-house-804×450.jpg
Yarrow
@? Martin: Me too. He is really creepy.
@Corner Stone: Not only that, but after you sleep on one of his pillows you end up wearing a blue shirt and a conspicuous chain with a cross, just like him. Those commercials are terrifying. An entire horror movie could be based on them.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
I’ve been busy today and came home not long ago. I am trying to catch up. I think I may have to let some minor scandals go and just move on. Holy crap.
jl
@Baud: Are you a lawyer? Is that comment some kind of advertisement? I guess now that Cohen is too busy with other stuff, there is an opening for Baud 2020! to pad a resume of the modern model attorney working in politics.
MisterForkbeard
I came back from lunch and THIS is here. Oh. My. God.
I’m going to go through the 238+ comments on this over the rest of the afternoon, but what kind of odds are we giving that Hannity paid Cohen for hushing up affairs and harassment with other Fox News women (and men!) :P
On the other hand, I’ve now been forced to hear the phrase “Sean Hannity Love Child”, which isn’t something I’m going to heal from soon.
Bess
@psycholinguist:
Might it be that Cohen has access to a very wealthy sugar daddy who pays for the problems created by people like Hannity?
Hannity might only have to say something to Cohen like “I had a great date with Little Billy” and then Cohen goes to work buying off Little Billy’s parents. Hannity would have to make no request for help. No money would come from Hannity’s pocket.
But Hannity would be a little bit (more) owned.
sheila in nc
@Adam L Silverman:
Ssshh! For Pete’s sake, don’t let on!
Baud
@jl:
Baud! 2020!: I won’t do a damn thing so you all can rest and recover from the mess we all just went through.
MP
@Amir Khalid: A modern-day remake of The Great Dictator, perhaps.
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
I think if the investigators (federal or state) Ever examine Trump Models, terrible things will be revealed.
Mike in NC
@? Martin: “CBS Sunday Morning” gave the MyPillow guy and extended tongue bath yesterday. He at one point was a drug addict and employs several recovering addicts. He’s also a yuge Trumpster.
jl
@Baud: Got it. I have some problems I need to take care of. I guess you can help.
Yarrow
@MisterForkbeard: Hannity says his “de minimis discussions” with Cohen were just about real estate. LOLOLOLOLOL.
ARoomWithAMoose
@Yarrow: IANAL: Avenatti and Stormy were present in the courtroom because _ANY_ slip-up in public by the counter-signer of the NDA opens up more lines for discovery if their civil suit to invalidate the NDA goes before the court. Any line of questioning answered about the NDA that’s public record further restricts its scope. As this media circus event breaks out, how do you enforce an NDA when _everybody_ knows what is supposed to be hidden by that NDA, and that information was not provided by the NDA signee?
trollhattan
@Barbara:
A damn fine quip! And to piggyback, Cohen’s work for Trump must have been pro boner.
The Moar You Know
@Baud: Sadly, it isn’t. I was dealing with one just a couple of years ago. And the operative term is “doesn’t care”. They all know about it.
Baud
@jl:
Sure. And someday – and that day may never come – I’ll call upon you to do a service for me.
germy
@Mike in NC: He was addicted to crack cocaine and at one point wandered the streets waving money at people offering to buy the drug (his regular dealers had cut him off). And yet, oddly, he’s never seen a day in prison. Coincidentally, he is not a young Black man.
He was never handcuffed while waiting quietly in a Starbucks for a friend.
jl
@Baud: That sounds a little too personal, Baud 2020! I was just looking for a lawyer to help me with some crooked stuff.
Yarrow
@MomSense: Yep. Human trafficking, underage girls. It’s going to be awful.
jl
@Yarrow: I didn’t know something called ‘Trump Models’ ever existed. That was some kind of agency, I guess? I hope not, but you two have a point.
Mnemosyne
@Yarrow:
I finally saw one of those and was like WTF? Creepy as hell.
SFAW
@different-church-lady:
I have some I can spare, if you need some. But, a word of caution: given today’s events, it will be difficult to tell where “reality” ends and the hallucinations begin.
Or so I’ve been told. By a friend. Who doesn’t look anything like me.
SFAW
@trollhattan:
Suggested autocorrect revision
TenguPhule
@SFAW:
Given today’s events, that’s not a minus.
sukabi
@jl: yes, he had a ‘modeling agency’ back in the 80s… Rumors of shady shit with underage foreign girls.
Anotherlurker
@The Moar You Know: As a 35 year veteran of the TV Broadcast Industry, I can tell you that the term, “lower third” is an accepted term for a graphic that appears on the lower third of the screen.
Chyron is the name of a company who manufactured graphics equipment. Although there are a few manufacturers of graphic systems, Chyron is now a sort of generic term for the equipment and the graphics created on the equipment.
BTW, agreeing with Hanity on this, is killing me! //
Kathleen
@brendancalling: The words “journalist” and “ethics” just bolted from my screen screaming.
Bill Arnold
@Elizabelle:
Somewhere (I do not recall the source) I recently read of tactics for weaning non-tech-savvy people from Fox News. Along with the usual “Parental Controls” suggestion, there was an interesting suggestion to change their browser home page to Google News.
Not because it’s great (though it’s not bad especially if one isn’t logged in or is using a private browsing window), but because it’s a genuine mix of news sources and includes sources other than Fox News.
Gerald
Gives a whole new meaning to ” Caught with your pants down!”
Hannity had somebody else give him a hand job?
AND even they don’t want it disclosed!
Tonight …MRS Hannnity will want to do THE interrogation … errrahh … Interview!
No doubt tonight he’ll be screaming “NOT the face … not the face!”
Hummmm … is a planned vacation coming soon?
J R in WV
@jl:
@germy:
The more self-contradictory nonsense Hannity gibbers on air, the better I like it. He is one of the more despicable persons tearing at the roots of America for money out there. Hoping Mr Hannity spends 10 or 20 long years in Florence, Colorado serving his time, At least!