Cohen raid documents released. CNN is reading through now.

[mobeau69]

Not much analysis yet.

Cohen paid $580K by Russian-owned company.

I've always wondered why rump threw Cohen under the bus. Seemed like a stupid move. Sounds like maybe he was angry that Cohen was profiting off his connection to rump and rump wasn't getting a cut of the action. That explanation sounds plausible.

[manor321]

1. FBI started listening much earlier than known

I think this is important:

Newly released docs show the FBI was investigating Michael Cohen for nearly a year before agents raided his home and office.

The search warrant shows the federal inquiry into Cohen had been going on since July 2017 — far longer than previously known.

Link to tweet

[jberryhill]

3. But, but, but, that's not possible

It's not possible for the FBI to have been investigating Michael Cohen before the great and glorious Michael Avenatti did, uh, whatever it was he did to make all that happen.

[malaise]

7. Foreign agent for Russia

COLLUFUCKINGSION!!

Campaign Finance fraud!!!

Lock them the fuck up!

[BritVic]

12. Just shows how far ahead of the game Mueller is

...he'd been digging into Cohen's background for months and waited until Trump said "You'll have to ask him" on Air Force One before taking him up on that and raiding his offices.

[blogslut]

2. This LA Times reporter is tweet-threading some of the docs

Link to tweet

[superpatriotman]

4. Someone please explain to me like I'm five

How did .45 commit crimes for years and years in NY without ending up in prison?

[NewJeffCT]

5. White collar crimes are usually much more difficult

to both prosecute and get convictions. They're often complex with a lot of grey area not easily understandable to the lay person.

Plus, he bribed his way out of some investigations as well - the $25,000 to Pam Biondi in Florida, and the donations to Cyrus Vance that made the investigations into Jared & Ivanka go away

[superpatriotman]

6. I don't believe that

I know white collar criminals. He is possibly one of the most prolific. It would seem he has high-level protection.

[JHB]

9. And that difficulty means they eat up resources...

...both money and time for the prosecutor's office, who can then catch flack for having too low a conviction rate. That can pressure prosecutors to either bypass big-ticket cases or cut deals to lesser offenses.

Plus, doG knows how many people connected to Trump cut deals in return for becoming informers about the mob, Russians, etc. Prosecuting too hard may have burned those information sources, at least before we were the ones getting burned.

[mobeau69]

8. Update

Mueller reviewed thousands of Cohen emails from 2015-2018.

20 pages of the Probable Cause section of warrants are completely redacted.

Materials related to campaign finance contributions redacted.

[ScratchCat]

11. The redactions

Almost assuredly mean there are more indictments that have not been unsealed yet, for starters, and certainly that there is a continuing investigation from which they expect indictments.

[mobeau69]

13. Yep.

Cohen was some kind of an operator. He flipped to save his wife.

[underpants]

10. Cohen grew up surrounded by the Russian mob

His nickname was “Tom” as in Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) in The Godfather. Cohen was not one of them by blood but he was one of them. He was the link to Russians buying Trump condos.