Did the FBI Leak Cohen Financials to a Porn Star?

In another one of those headlines that would have seemed utterly implausible a year or two ago, the lawyer of porn star Stormy Daniels has accused Trump's lawyer of receiving payments from a Russian oligarch. The reports from the different outlets vary considerably. Let's take a look.

From The Hill: 

Stormy Daniels’s attorney Michael Avenatti said Tuesday that President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen received $500,000 in the months after the 2016 election from a company run by a Russian oligarch with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

That's a damning accusation. And, you must admit, very troubling if you're a fan of Trump, or have long ridiculed the Russian collusion conspiracy theory. If a "Putin-tied" company is sending Trump's lawyer huge sums of money, that certainly indicates collusion to me.

From Fox News:

That's a headline of a different color. Which is it, is the firm "Putin-tied" or "Cohen-linked"? And was Cohen paid by Russians, or was the ambiguously aligned firm paid by Russians? The article begins:

A firm linked to a Russian oligarch made payments totaling more than $1 million to Michael Cohen, the personal attorney of President Trump, according to a report out Tuesday.

Fox News can't decide - between it's headline and first sentence - whether the firm is linked to Cohen or to Russians. It certainly raises the question of what it means to be linked to a firm.

Of that money, payments totaling approximately $500,000 were made by investment firm Columbus Nova in 2017, The Times reported. One of that firm’s biggest clients is a company helmed by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. Vekselberg reportedly was questioned at an airport this year by members of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team investigating alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election.

The story shifts again. So Cohen was paid by an investment company, of which a Russian oligarch happens to be a client. It reminds us of the assertion by the media - believed by Comey, apparently - that conservatives had initiated Hillary's Dossier, since a right-leaning business had also happened to do business at Fusion GPS.

An attorney for the company said the money was for a consulting fee and was unconnected to Vekselberg, The Times reported.

The essence of a conspiracy theorist is someone who ignores plausible scenarios in preference of another less-plausible but more sinister scenario. In this case, the plausible scenario is that Cohen provided consultation to the company, a Russian happens to be a customer, and that is it. The more sinister scenario is that Columbus Nova is laundering bribe money from Vladimir Putin to Donald Trump. It's less plausible, but possible. Is it worth investigating? Sure. And worth determining whether such transactions are typical or if something uncouth is going on here. But read the headlines: Cohen paid by Putin-tied company. They've completely circumvented the plausible scenario and asserted sinister headline as if it was fact. This is disingenuous reporting by both outlets, who seem most interested in shocking headlines.

From  CNN:

In a memo posted online Tuesday afternoon, Avenatti alleged that Cohen received the following payments after the 2016 election: approximately half-a-million dollars from a company linked to Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian oligarch with close ties to the Kremlin; nearly $400,000 from pharmaceutical giant Novartis; $150,000 from Korea Aerospace Industries and $200,000 from telecommunications conglomerate AT&T.

So as it turns out, Cohen took payment from a number of firms. An investment firm, a pharmaceutical company, an aerospace manufacturer, and a telcomm. A fitting headline might have been: Trump lawyer's firm paid as consultant for big businesses. Kinda bland, in this news environment. But it shouldn't be. It's perfectly reasonable to report on this and research whether it is a scandal for the president's retained law firm to be hired as a consultant, or to be suspicious of the transactions. But CNN preferred to run with the headline: Stormy Daniels' lawyer: US company linked to Russian oligarch paid $500,000 to Cohen. Outrageous headline, with the reality buried between the lines in the article. No wonder so many are misinformed. They see the headlines skimming social media, mostly, then assume the headline is correct and that a lawyer has evidence of Trump receiving payments from Russians. Since it confirms their worldview, they adopt it as true, and will continue to believe it to be true.

CNN has reviewed documents that appear to show these payments. CNN has not independently authenticated the documents.

The pressing questions is how does Stormy Daniels' lawyer have Michael Cohen's bank records? There are lawsuits filed, but my understanding is none have gone to discovery yet. Our first suspicion has to be that they were leaked to him from the FBI. While it's hard to imagine the lawyer would come forward with the documents if they weren't legally obtained, it fits with our model that the raids were primarily intended to gain data to generate leaks damaging to Trump (and also to intimidate his people.) But why would they leak through a porn star's lawyer and not directly to the media? I'd suspect it's to keep the Stormy aspect alive. Most American's don't really care whether or not Trump paid hush money to a hooker he may have slept with. Still, the media likes to sell sex whenever it can, and leaking through a porn star's lawyer helps keep that aspect alive. Conjecture, but at this point the most plausible scenario is that documents were obtained from the leaky FBI operation.

CNN also recently reported that the Russian oligarch in question, whose cousin runs Columbus Nova, was interrogated earlier this year by Mueller after landing in a US airport. So the timeline goes in this order:

• Cohen paid for services rendered (or takes receipt of bribes)
• FBI discovers transaction
• FBI interrogates Russian oligarch
• FBI raids Cohen's office
• FBI leaks financial information to Stormy Daniels' lawyer

The FBI knew of the transaction before the raid on Cohen's office. We can be quite certain that the transaction was the justification for the raid. But they don't leak until now. Why not leak the report around the time of the raid? The FBI caught a ton of flak for a possible violation of client-attorney privilege, which would have been avoided by media coverage of possible infractions by Cohen. It makes me suspect that they already had illegitimate financial data on Cohen, and the raid was to justify their possession of it. That's my own conspiracy theory, I suppose, but we'll know what to pay attention to as the Stormy lawyer attempts to explain his possession of the Cohen financials.