Michael Cohen's Business Partner Agrees to Cooperate as Part of Plea Deal

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: New York Times

A significant business partner of Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer, has quietly agreed to cooperate with the government as a potential witness, a development that could be used as leverage to pressure Mr. Cohen to work with the special counsel examining Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Under the agreement, the partner, Evgeny A. Freidman, a Russian immigrant who is known as the Taxi King, will avoid jail time, and will assist government prosecutors in state or federal investigations, according to a person briefed on the matter.

Mr. Cohen’s conduct was initially examined by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating the 2016 election that led to Mr. Trump’s victory, and then referred to the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan. Last month, federal agents carried out search warrants at Mr. Cohen’s home, his office and a hotel room where he was staying, seeking documents related to his business associates and accountants.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers have been resigned to the strong possibility that the investigation of Mr. Cohen’s businesses could lead him to cooperate with federal prosecutors.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/nyregion/michael-cohen-trump-taxi-cooperation.html

[DeminPennswoods]

1. Ruh-Roh

nt

[Wellstone ruled]

2. Another one bites the dust!

Hope he gets 24/7 protection.

[Achilleaze]

3. Flip the freaking flop

meanwhile, Dirty Donny* and his cloddish Krewe of republican Kronies are drenched in flop sweat.

* aka republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief

[BigmanPigman]

4. Wow, this guy had a good reason to make a plea.

Tons of felony charges and many years in jail and millions to pay in restitution to the state for tax evasion and grand larceny if he didn't cooperate.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. Yeah he was one of the

Russian taxi mob guys.

[BigmanPigman]

8. Isn't it strange that Russian mob names

are Cohen and Freidman? You would naturally assume they would be Russian names...go figure. I guess this is the New York wing of the Russian mob family.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. That's apparently an "anglicized" version of the name

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Freidman

Above link lists it as "Евгений Наумович Фридман" in Russian.

[BigmanPigman]

14. HA! That is amusing.

Ivanka needs to be anglicised too...it sounds too "Russian". Perhaps Carol or Gloria.

[BumRushDaShow]

16. LOL

I expect her name came from her mother (Ivana), who is Czech.

[Igel]

18. Reasonable.

Evgenii is equivalent to "Eugene."

The most common hypocoristic is Zhenya, parallel to "Gene."

As for "Fridman," it's "Friedman." Otherwise "Frid" would sound like the beginning of "fritters" in most Americans' dialect.

[BumRushDaShow]

19. "Otherwise 'Frid' would sound like the beginning of 'fritters'"

You just made me think of this guy -



(Jonathan Frid)

[XRubicon]

5. State charges... LOL!

No pardons on state charges!

Next up Cohen.

[mpcamb]

20. Get the money and fines back first . Start there before talk of jail time.

[PearliePoo2]

7. Highly significant! This puts Cohen a LOT closer to flipping himself!

These are State charges and trump can't pardon him!
Gee Donnie, hope you're sweating bullets, you treasonous p.o.s.

[notdarkyet]

17. Cohen is going to flip. Trump is acting like he doesn't know him and is ignoring him. Going to

Piss off cohen. If he’s doing tons of time, he is gonna take trump down with him. Trumps bad attitude is going to be his undoing.

[Honeycombe8]

9. A really good class of business partner, there, Cohen. They flip in a second.

All Mueller had to do was say "pretty please."

This is going to be interesting.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. This wasn't even Mueller's work

It was the SDNY!

[OldManTarHeel]

10. The thumbscrews are tightening . .

Do the time . . or tell the rhyme.

C'mon Michael . . . come clean and save your ass.

[pecosbob]

13. This is all about using the taxi licenses for money laundering

[BumRushDaShow]

15. I think that is why Friedman is cooperating

because of his own money-laundering in the past. But he may be able to provide specific info regarding the time period around the election (i.e., whether he was a conduit for various slush funds).