Dec 28, 2021 · When former president Donald Trump decided to sue three reporters The New York Times and his niece Mary L. Trump over a 2018 story on his tax returns, he didn't turn to a big-name media lawyer. Instead, he is being represented by the Bedminster, New Jersey-based Alina Habba, managing partner of Habba Madiao & Associates (via The Washington Post ). Habba …
WHEN HISTORY TELLS THE story of President Trump’s impeachment trial, Jay Sekulow will be mentioned as a supporting actor in the drama. It’s a predictable turn of events for a man who has made a lucrative career of being at the center of major constitutional and political controversies, and who has spent years positioning himself to be influential ...
To despise the natural bonds and legitimate pleasures of home is to contract a taste for excesses, a restlessness of heart, and fluctuating desires. Agitated by the tumultuous passions that frequently disturb his dwelling, the European is galled by the obedience which the legislative powers of the state exact.
Jews for Jesus, he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that religious activity should be understood as free speech, and therefore evaluated under the same under constitutional framework. The Court was sympathetic to this approach, ruling unanimously for Sekulow in 1987.
The ACLJ’s defense of religious freedom for Christians has generally not applied to other religious traditions. With his role at the ACLJ solidified, in the 2000s Sekulow began to connect more explicitly with Republican Party politics.
Sekulow’s resources grew as well: He is responsible for a budget approaching $50 million, including revenue from Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism (CASE), which he founded purportedly to support different Christian ministries, including the ACLJ.
It was, in many respects, a match made in heaven. A Messianic Jew who converted in college, Sekulow pioneered an effective strategy in defending religious freedom. In Board of Airport Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles v.
Among them was one of Trump’s personal attorneys, Jay Sekulow. It was a career-defining moment for Sekulow, who forcefully made the case against removing the president from office, saying, ...
Cooper, a founding member of the Washington law firm Cooper & Kirk who once clerked for late Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist, had been under consideration to be the next solicitor general but withdrew his name after Sessions’ contentious confirmation hearings.
Futerfas made his name as a defense attorney by successfully representing mobsters in New York City. He later expanded to defending corporate and white collar crimes, and more recently cyber crimes. In 2016, he defended a Russian man who was convicted in the U.S. of creating computer malware. Federal Election Commission records filed last month show Trump's re-election campaign began paying Futerfas' law firm more than a week before the June 2016 meeting became public.
Prior to joining NBCNews.com, Rafferty was a campaign reporter covering the 2012 presidential election. Rafferty was on the road for both the Republican primaries and general election, providing content for both the web and television. Rafferty began at NBC News through a fellowship at "Meet The Press.".
Richard Cullen: The vice president hired outside legal counsel about a month after Trump hired his own private lawyer to deal with the Russia probe. Cullen worked for President George W. Bush during the 2000 Florida recount and has represented GOP Majority Leader Tom Delay as well as Tiger Woods ex-wife, Elin Nordegren, during the couple’s divorce.
Jay Sekulow: Sekulow is a lawyer with his own radio show and has largely been the public face for Trump’s legal team. He is the chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a Pat Robertson founded group meant to be the conservative answer to the American Civil Liberties Union.
His hiring comes amid reports the president is growing frustrated with Kasowitz, who remains in New York and commutes to Washington.
Cohen was given a written proposal in a sealed envelope that he delivered to then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn in early February. On April 3, 2017, Cohen was appointed as one of three national deputy finance chairmen of the Republican National Committee, along with Elliott Broidy and Louis DeJoy.
Cohen joined the Trump Organization in fall of 2006. Trump hired him in part because he was already an admirer of Trump, having read Trump's Art of the Deal twice. He had purchased several Trump properties and convinced his own parents and in-laws, as well as a business partner, to buy condominiums in Trump World Tower. Cohen aided Trump in his struggle with the condominium board at the Trump World Tower, which led Trump to obtain control of the board. Cohen became a close confidant to Trump, maintaining an office near Trump at Trump Tower.
On August 22, 2018, it was announced that the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance had subpoenaed Cohen in connection with its investigation into whether the Donald J. Trump Foundation had violated New York tax laws. This investigation is separate from the New York Attorney General 's lawsuit alleging that the foundation and its directors violated state and federal laws about the operation of charities.
Essential Consultants LLC is a Delaware shell company created by Cohen in October 2016 to facilitate payment of hush money to Stormy Daniels. For many months thereafter, Cohen used the LLC for an array of business activities largely unknown to the public, with at least $4.4 million moving through the LLC between Trump's election to the presidency and January 2018. In May 2018, Stormy Daniels' lawyer Michael Avenatti posted a seven-page report to Twitter detailing what he said were financial transactions involving Essential Consultants and Cohen. Avenatti did not reveal the source of his information, which was later largely confirmed by The New York Times and other publications. The data showed that hundreds of thousands of dollars were given to Cohen, via Essential Consultants, from Fortune 500 firms such as Novartis and AT&T, which had business before the Trump administration. It was also revealed that Essential Consultants had received at least $500,000 from a New York-based investment firm called Columbus Nova, which is linked to a Russian oligarch. The firm's largest client is a company controlled by Viktor Vekselberg, a Ukrainian-born Russian oligarch. Vekselberg is a business partner of Soviet-born billionaire and major Republican Party donor, Leonard Blavatnik. A spokesperson for Columbus Nova said that the payment was a consulting fee that had nothing to do with Vekselberg.
On November 29, 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to the Senate Intelligence Committee and House Intelligence Committee in 2017 regarding the proposed Trump Tower Moscow deal that he spearheaded in 2015 and 2016. Cohen had told Congress that the deal ceased in January 2016 when it actually ended in June 2016, and that he had not received a response about the deal from the office of a senior Russian official when he actually had. Cohen said that he had given the false testimony in order to be consistent with Trump's "repeated disavowals of commercial and political ties between himself and Russia" and out of loyalty to Trump. Cohen received a two-month sentence, to be served concurrently with his three-year sentence for tax fraud, for the false testimony.
Trump employed Cohen until May 2018, a year after the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections began. The investigation led Cohen to plead guilty on August 21, 2018, to eight counts including campaign finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud.
A few days after the raid, McClatchy reported that the Mueller investigation was in possession of evidence that Cohen traveled to Prague in August or September 2016. If true, the report bolsters similar claims in 3 of 17 reports from the Trump–Russia dossier.
Michael Dean Cohen (born August 25, 1966) is an American disbarred lawyer who served as an attorney for U.S. president Donald Trump from 2006 to 2018. Cohen was a vice-president of the Trump Organization, and the personal counsel to Trump, and was often described by media as Trump's "fixer". He served as co-president of Trump Entertainment and was a board member of the Eric Trump F…
Cohen was raised in the town of Lawrence on Long Island, New York. His mother was a nurse, and his father, a Holocaust survivor, was a surgeon. Cohen is Ashkenazi Jewish. He attended Woodmere Academy and received his BA from American University in 1988 and his JD from Thomas M. Cooley Law School in 1991.
Cohen began practicing personal injury law in New York in 1992, working for Melvyn Estrin in Manhattan. As of 2003, Cohen was an attorney in private practice and CEO of MLA Cruises, Inc., and of the Atlantic Casino.
In 2006, Cohen was a partner at the law firm Phillips, Nizer, Benjamin, Krim & Ballon. He practiced law at the firm for about a year before joining The Trump …
As of April 2018, Cohen was under federal criminal investigation by the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY).
On April 9, 2018, the FBI raided Cohen's office at the law firm of Squire Patton Boggs, as well as his home and his hotel room in the Loews Regency Hotel in New York City, pursuant to a federal search warrant. The warrant was obtaine…
On August 22, 2018, it was announced that the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance had subpoenaed Cohen in connection with its investigation into whether the Donald J. Trump Foundation had violated New York tax laws. This investigation is separate from the New York Attorney General's lawsuit alleging that the foundation and its directors violated state and federal laws about the operation of charities.
On August 22, 2018, it was announced that the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance had subpoenaed Cohen in connection with its investigation into whether the Donald J. Trump Foundation had violated New York tax laws. This investigation is separate from the New York Attorney General's lawsuit alleging that the foundation and its directors violated state and federal laws about the operation of charities.
On January 10, 2019, Cohen agreed to testify publicly before the House Oversight Committee to give a "full and credible account" of his work on behalf of Trump. On January 12, Fox News contributor and legal analyst Jeanine Pirrotook a 20-minute, on-air phone call from Trump in which he claimed Cohen had fabricated stories to reduce the length of his expected sentence. Trump suggested that investigations should instead focus on Cohen's father-in-law, saying "that's the o…
Cohen's memoir on Donald Trump, Disloyal: A Memoir, was released in September 2020. In the foreword, Cohen characterizes Trump as "a cheat, a mobster, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man."
Cohen married Ukrainian-born Laura Shusterman in 1994. Laura Shusterman's father, Fima Shusterman, left Soviet Ukraine for New York in 1975. They have a daughter, Samantha, and a son, Jake. Cohen's father-in-law was the person who introduced him to Trump, according to a Trump biographer.
Cohen has been friends with Felix Sater since childhood. Sater is a convicted felon and real estat…