116. James Freeman, “CNN and Avenatti,” Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2019.
117. Post Editorial Board, “Avenatti’s Fall Is Only the Latest Sign of Media Anti-Trump Madness,” New York Post, March 25, 2019. See also Amy Taxin, “Avenatti Pleads Not Guilty on Charges of Cheating, Lying,” AP News, April 29, 2019.
118. Brendan Pierson, “Avenatti Pleads Not Guilty to Extorting Nike, Ripping Off Stormy Daniels,” Reuters, May 28, 2019.
119. P. J. Gladnick, “Ted Koppel: Trump’s ‘Not Mistaken’ That Liberal Media Are Blatantly ‘Out to Get Him,’ ” NewsBusters, March 18, 2019.
120. Jill Abramson, Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and Fight for Facts (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2019), 390.
121. Ibid., 387.
122. Ibid., 391.
123. Ibid., 389.
124. Ibid., 387.
125. Elizabeth Drew, “The Inevitability of Impeachment,” New York Times, December 27, 2018.
126. Yoni Applebaum, “Impeach: It’s Time for Congress to Judge the President’s Fitness to Serve,” The Atlantic, March 2019.
127. Paul Sperry, “Trump-Russia 2.0: Dossier-Tied Firm Pitching Journalists Daily on ‘Collusion,’ ” RealClearInvestigations, March 20, 2019.
128. Sean Davis, “Confirmed: Former Feinstein Staffer Raised $50 Million, Hired Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele After 2016 Election,” The Federalist, April 27, 2018.
129. Ibid.
130. Sperry, “Trump-Russia 2.0: Dossier-Tied Firm Pitching Journalists Daily on Collusion.”
131. Aidan McLaughlin, “Lara Logan on Fox News: Media Matters Is the ‘Most Powerful Propaganda Organization in This Country,’ ” Mediaite, April 2, 2019.
132. Ben Smith, “Media Matters’ War Against Fox,” Politico, March 26, 2011.
133. Lara Logan, “Political Bias Is Destroying People’s Faith in Journalism,” New York Post, February 26, 2019.
134. Ken Meyer, “Ex–CBS Star Lara Logan Calls Media ‘Mostly Liberal’ in Scorched Earth Interview: I’m Committing Professional Suicide,” Mediaite, February 18, 2019.
135. Jonathan Chait, “Has Trump Been an Agent for Russia since 1987?,” New York, July 9, 2018.
136. John Brennan, “President Trump’s Claims of No Collusion Are Hogwash,” New York Times, August 16, 2018.
137. Guy Benson, “Brennan: Okay, I Didn’t Necessarily Mean Trump Committed Treason but I ‘Stand Very Much by’ Saying So,” Townhall, August 20, 2018.
138. Ian Schwartz, “Brinkley: Spirit of Trump-Putin Presser ‘Clearly Treasonous,’ Will be a ‘Battle Cry’ for ‘Blue Wave,’ ” RealClearPolitics, July 18, 2018.
139. Constitution of the United States of America, Article III, Section 3; United States Code, 18 U.S.C. § 2381, “Treason.” For an extended discussion of how treason is inapplicable, see Gregg Jarrett, The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump (New York: Broadside Books, 2018), 173–76.
140. Marc Thiessen, “The Trump-Russia Collusion Hall of Shame,” Washington Post, March 29, 2019.
141. ” ‘This Week’ Transcript 5-27-18: Sen. Marco Rubio, Rep. Adam Schiff and Former CIA Director Michael Hayden,” ABC News, May 27, 2018.
142. Ibid.
143. Christina Zhao, “Donald Trump Jr. Will Be Indicted by Mueller, Former Prosecutor Says, and Will Help to Ensnare His Father,” Newsweek, February 2, 2019.
144. Jonathan Turley, “Media Bias Seen in BuzzFeed and AG Nominee Barr News Coverage,” Fox News, January 20, 2019.
145. Ibid.
146. Kyle Drennan, “Chuck Todd Freaks Out over Peter Strzok Firing: ‘Extraordinary and Un-democratic,’ ” NewsBusters, August 14, 2018.
147. Ibid.
148. Ibid.
149. Byron York, “How Did Peter Strzok’s Notorious Text Stay Hidden So Long?,” Washington Examiner, June 20, 2018.
150. Rich Noyes, “FIZZLE: Nets Gave Whopping 2,284 Minutes to Russia Probe,” NewsBusters, March 25, 2019.
151. Caleb Howe, “MSNBC Stunned by Intel Committee News: ‘Trump Will Claim Vindication . . . and He’ll Be Partially Right,’ ” Mediaite, February 12, 2019.
152. Thomas Lifson, “Senior National Correspondent Predicts ‘Reckoning for Progressives, Democrats . . . and Media’ if Mueller Finds No Russia Collusion,” American Thinker, March 11, 2019.
153. Joshua Caplan, “Politico: Top Democrats ‘Certain’ Mueller Report ‘Will Be a Dud,’ ” Breitbart, March 22, 2019.
154. Matt Taibbi, “Taibbi: As the Mueller Probe Ends, New Russiagate Myths Begin,” Rolling Stone, March 25, 2019.
155. Keith Griffith, “How Pundits Reacted to Conclusion of Mueller Probe: Hannity Celebrates End of ‘Witch Hunt’ While Maddow Foresees Further Investigations,” Daily Mail, March 23, 2019.
156. Michael Goodwin, “The New York Times Owes Americans a Big, Fat Apology,” New York Post, March 25, 2019.
157. Paul Mirengoff, “Mueller Report ‘Opens Media Outlets to Mockery,’ ” Power Line, March 25, 2019.
158. David Brooks, “We’ve All Just Made Fools of Ourselves—Again,” New York Times, March 25, 2019.
159. Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump (New York: Twelve, 2018).
160. Charles Hurt, “List of Trusted Journalistic Sources Shrinks in Post–Mueller Report World,” Washington Times, March 27, 2019.
161. Chuck Ross, “MSNBC Panel Admits Mueller Report ‘Undercuts Almost Everything’ in Steele Dossier,” Daily Caller, March 26, 2019.
162. David Corn, “Trump Aided and Abetted Russia’s Attack. That Was Treachery. Full Stop,” Mother Jones, March 24, 2019.
163. Joshua Caplan, “John Dean: Mueller Probe Conclusion Doesn’t Resolve Whether Trump Russian Agent,” Breitbart, March 22, 2019.
164. Sean Davis, “A Catastrophic Media Failure,” Wall Street Journal, March 26, 2019.
165. Ronn Blitzer, “4 Revelations from Ex–Trump Lawyer’s Eye Opening Interview About Mueller Probe,” Law & Crime, April 4, 2019.
166. Ibid.
167. Howard Kurtz, “How the Media’s Distorted Judgment Kept Hyping the Mueller Probe,” Fox News, March 26, 2019.
168. Ibid.
169. Lee Smith, “System Fail: The Mueller Report Is an Unmitigated Disaster for the American Press and the ‘Expert’ Class That It Promotes,” Tablet, March 27, 2019.
170. Kurtz, “How the Media’s Distorted Judgment Kept Hyping the Mueller Probe.”
171. Scott Johnson, “John Brennan: From Spittle to Flop Sweat,” Power Line, March 30, 2019.
172. Thomas Lifson, “John Brennan Denies Blame for Calling Trump a ‘Traitor,’ Says ‘I Received Bad Information,’ ” American Thinker, March 26, 2019.
173. Jason Beale, “In Lester Holt Interview, James Comey Proves He Can’t Handle the Russian Hoax’s Collapse,” The Federalist, March 28, 2019. Jason Beale is a pseudonym for “a retired U.S. Army interrogator and strategic debriefer with 30 years experience in military and intelligence interrogation and human intelligence collection operations.”
174. Ibid.
175. Tommy Christopher, “Jake Tapper Defends CNN’s Mueller Probe Coverage to Mike Mulvaney: ‘I Don’t Know Anybody Who Got Anything Wrong,’ ” Mediaite, March 31, 2019.
176. John Nolte, “Death Spiral Continues as CNN Loses One-Third of Primetime Audience,” Breitbart, June 12, 2019; A. J. Katz, “Basic Cable Ranker: Week of June 3, 2019,” TVNewser, June 11, 2019.
177. Janita Kan, “ ‘What Wrong Facts Did We Put Out?’: Chris Cuomo Defends Liberal Media for Mueller Coverage,” The Epoch Times, March 27, 2019.
178. Joshua Caplan, “Jeff Zucker: No Regrets on CNN’s Russia Hoax Coverage, ‘We Are Not Investigators,’ ” Breitbart, March 26, 2019.
179. Jeremy Diamond and Kevin Liptak, “Trump Moves to Weaponize Mueller Findings,” CNN, March 27, 2019.
180. Pardes Seleh, “MSNBC’s Katy Tur: It Doesn’t Matter if There Was No
Collusion, Mueller Already Has ‘Quite a Bit’ on Trump,” Mediaite, March 21, 2019.
181. Bob Bauer, “Trump’s Shamelessness Was Outside Mueller’s Jurisdiction,” New York Times, March 25, 2019.
182. Paul Mirengoff, “Less Than Full Disclosure from the New York Times,” Power Line, March 26, 2019.
183. Mirengoff, “Mueller Report ‘Opens Media Outlets to Mockery.’ ”
184. Ibid.
185. Josh Feldman, “Glenn Greenwald Rips MSNBC to Tucker Carlson: They Fed People ‘Total Disinformation’ and Exploited Fears on Russia,” Mediaite, March 25, 2019.
186. Mirengoff, “Mueller Report ‘Opens Media Outlets to Mockery.’ ”
187. Matt Taibbi, “It’s Official: Russiagate Is This Generation’s WMD,” RealClearPolitics, March 23, 2019
188. Sharyl Attkisson, “Apologies to President Trump,” The Hill, March 25, 2019.
189. Tim Murtaugh, Director of Communications, Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., memorandum to Television Producers re “Credibility of Certain Guests,” March 25, 2019, https://www.scribd.com/document/403100260/March-25-2019-Tim-Murtaugh-Trump-Campaign-Memo-to-TV-Producers.
190. James Freeman, “Schiff and the Media,” Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2019.
191. Malcolm Nance, The Plot to Destroy Democracy: How Putin and His Spies Are Undermining America and Disarming the West (New York: Hachette Books, 2018).
192. David Greene, “Media Outlets Became a Target After Mueller Probe Results Surfaced,” NPR, March 24, 2019.
193. Sohrab Ahmari, “And the Winner of the Post’s Mueller Madness Bracket Is . . . ,” New York Post, March 27, 2019.
194. Caleb Howe, “The Press Doesn’t Learn Things, Unless Those Things Are About How Great They Are,” Mediaite, March 27, 2019.
195. Ibid.
196. Brian Flood, “Evening Newscasts Increased ‘Impeachment’ Talk Following Mueller Report, Study Says,” Fox News, June 4, 2019.
197. Brian Flood, “New York Times Needs to ‘Look in the Mirror’ if It Thinks MSNBC, CNN Are Too Partisan, Critics Say,” Fox News, May 31, 2019.
198. Brian Flood, “Rachel Maddow’s Credibility and Ratings at Low Ebb Following Mueller Findings, Critics Say,” Fox News, June 3, 2019.
199. John Nolte, “Russia Hoax Queen Rachel Maddow’s Ratings Crash to Trump-Era Low,” Breitbart, June 4, 2019.
200. Flood, “Rachel Maddow’s Credibility and Ratings at Low Ebb Following Mueller Findings, Critics Say.”
201. Ibid.
202. Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., “Can the Media Survive Mueller?,” Wall Street Journal, April 17, 2019.
203. Sean Illing, “Did the Media Botch the Russia Story? A Conversation with Matt Taibbi,” Vox, April 1, 2019.
204. Matt Taibbi, “As the Mueller Probe Ends, New Russiagate Myths Begin,” Rolling Stone, March 26, 2019.
Chapter 7: Crooked Cohen Cops a Plea
1. Associated Press, “Michael Cohen Pleads Guilty to Lying to Congress,” Politico, November 29, 2018; Justin Wise, “Cohen Pleads Guilty for Misstatements to Congress About Contacts with Russians,” The Hill, November 29, 2018.
2. Jennifer Mercieca, “Michael Cohen’s Verbal Somersault, ‘I Lied, but I’m Not a Liar,’ Translated by a Rhetoric Expert,” The Conversation, February 27, 2019.
3. “Robert Khuzami Statement on Michael Cohen Case,” C-SPAN, August 21, 2018.
4. Nicole Hong and Rebecca Davis O’Brien, “Special Counsel’s Michael Cohen Probe Dates to 2017, New Documents Show,” Wall Street Journal, March 19, 2019.
5. Ibid.
6. Geoff Earle, “How Did Cheryl Mills Get Immunity if She Was Also Acting as Clinton’s Lawyer? GOP Lodges Formal Complaint with D.C. Bar,” Daily Mail, October 3, 2016.
7. Hong and O’Brien, “Special Counsel’s Michael Cohen Probe Dates to 2017, New Documents Show.”
8. Jim Mustian and Larry Neumeister, “Records Show FBI Was Probing Michael Cohen Long Before Raid,” Associated Press, as published in the Chicago Tribune, March 19, 2019.
9. “These Are the Lawyers on Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel Team,” CBS News, September 20, 2017. See also Matt Zapotosky, “Trump Said Mueller’s Team Has ‘13 Hardened Democrats.’ Here Are the Facts,” Washington Post, March 18, 2018.
10. Ken Bensinger, Miriam Elder, and Mark Schoofs, “These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties to Russia,” BuzzFeed, January 10, 2017; “Company Intelligence Report 2016/080,” December 13, 2016, https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984-Trump-Intelligence-Allegations.html, page 34. See also Adam Mill, “How the Cohen-Prague Story Helped Expose the Collusion Hoax,” American Greatness, April 16, 2019. Adam Mill is a pen name. He works in Kansas City, Missouri, as an attorney specializing in labor and employment and public administration law.
11. “Report: Czech Intelligence Says No Evidence Trump Lawyer Traveled to Prague,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, January 11, 2017.
12. Mill, “How the Cohen-Prague Story Helped Expose the Collusion Hoax.”
13. Matt Apuzzo, “F.B.I. Raids Office of Trump’s Longtime Lawyer Michael Cohen; Trump Calls It ‘Disgraceful,’ ” New York Times, April 9, 2019.
14. Robert S. Mueller, The Mueller Report: The Final Report of the Special Counsel into Donald Trump, Russia, and Collusion as Issued by the Department of Justice (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2019), 69.
15. Nicholas Fandos, “Felix Sater, Trump Associate, Skips House Hearing and Now Faces a Subpoena,” New York Times, June 21, 2019.
16. Johnny Dwyer, “What the Mueller Report Didn’t Say About Felix Sater and the Trump Tower in Moscow,” The Intercept, April 19, 2019.
17. Alberto Luperon, “Federal Judge: Felix Sater Gave the U.S. Government Osama bin Laden’s Phone Number,” Law & Crime, May 16, 2019.
18. United States v. Felix Sater, 98 cr 1101 (ILG). Sater Cooperation Agreement, signed December 10, 1998, https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5972612/Felix-Sater-s-Cooperation-Agreement.pdf.
19. Joseph Tanfani and David S. Cloud, “Trump Associate Led Double Life as FBI Informant—and More, He Says,” Los Angeles Times, March 2, 2017.
20. Jessica Kwong, “Who Is Michael Cohen’s Wife? Laura Shusterman Never Charged Though Prosecutors Had Evidence Implicating Her, Report Says,” Newsweek, December 3, 2018.
21. Michael Rothfield, Alexandra Berzon, and Joe Palazzolo, “ ‘Boss, I Miss You So Much’: The Awkward Exile of Michael Cohen,” Wall Street Journal, April 26, 2018.
22. US v. Michael Cohen, 1:18-cr-00602-WHP, Government’s Sentencing Memorandum, filed December 7, 2018.
23. Jonathan Lemire and Jake Pearson, “How Michael Cohen, Trump’s ‘Image Protector,’ Landed in the President’s Inner Circle,” Business Insider, April 22, 2018.
24. Ibid.
25. Rothfield, Berzon, and Palazzolo, “ ‘Boss, I Miss You So Much.’ ”
26. Julio Ross, “2016 Michael Cohen Interview Shows He ‘Certainly Hoped’ He’d Be Offered a White House Job,” Mediaite, February 28, 2019.
27. Rothfield, Berzon, and Palazzolo, “ ‘Boss, I Miss You So Much.’ ”
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
30. Rebecca Ballhaus, Peter Nicholas, Michael Rothfield, and Joe Palazzolo, “Michael Cohen’s D.C. Consulting Career: Scattershot, with Mixed Success,” Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2018.
31. Rothfield, Berzon, and Palazzolo, “ ‘Boss, I Miss You So Much.’ ”
32. Ballhaus, Nicholas, Rothfield, and Palazzolo, “Michael Cohen’s D.C. Consulting Career.”
33. Ibid.
34. Tom Winter, Adiel Kaplan, and Rich Schapiro, “Michael Cohen Search Warrants Show Federal Probe Began a Year Earlier than Known,” NBC News, March 19, 2019.
35. Brian Bennett and Haley Sweetland Edwards, “Michael Cohen’s ‘Essential Consultants’ Business Is a Big Problem for Donald Trump,” Time, May 10, 2018.
36. Ballhaus, Nicholas, Rothfield, and Palazzolo, “Michael Cohen’s D.C. Consulting Career.”
37. Jonathan Turley
, “Trump Must Beware the Cohen Trap,” The Hill, April 10, 2018.
38. Ibid.
39. Apuzzo, “F.B.I. Raids Office of Trump’s Longtime Lawyer Michael Cohen.”
40. Ibid.
41. Tom Winter, Adiel Kaplan, and Rich Schapiro, “Michael Cohen Search Warrants Show Federal Probe Began a Year Earlier than Known.”
42. Ibid.
43. Ewan Palmer, “McDougal Alleged 10-Month Affair That Ended in April 2007,” Newsweek, July 26, 2018.
44. Michael Rothfield and Joe Palazzolo, “Trump Lawyer Won Order to Silence Stormy Daniels,” Wall Street Journal, March 7, 2018.
45. Madeline Osburn, “How CNN and MSNBC Made Michael Avenatti a Household Name,” The Federalist, March 28, 2019.
46. Rebecca Ballhaus, Michael Rothfield, and Joe Palazzolo, “Trump’s Former Lawyer Michael Cohen Recorded Conversation About Stormy Daniels Payment with News Anchor,” Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2018.
47. Ibid.
48. Rothfield, Berzon, and Palazzolo, “ ‘Boss, I Miss You So Much.’ ”
49. Ballhaus, Rothfield, and Palazzolo, “Trump’s Former Lawyer Michael Cohen Recorded Conversation About Stormy Daniels Payment with News Anchor.”
50. Glenn Greenwald, “The Lanny Davis Disease and America’s Health Care Debate,” Salon, August 18, 2009.
51. Seth Hettena, “Michael Cohen, Lanny Davis and the Russian Mafia,” Rolling Stone, August 28, 2018.
52. Greenwald, “The Lanny Davis Disease and America’s Health Care Debate.”
53. “Search Hillary Clinton’s Emails,” Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2016.
54. Tom Fitton, “Cohen Testimony Against Trump Unethical—Dems Commit Abuse of Power,” Fox News, February 28, 2019.
55. Ewan Palmer, “Who Is Lanny Davis? Michael Cohen’s Lawyer Is a Washington Insider with a Long List of High-Profile Clients,” Newsweek, July 26, 2018.
56. US v. Michael Cohen, 1:18-cr-00602-WHP, Information.
57. Ibid.
58. Joe Palazzolo, Nicole Hong, Michael Rothfield, Rebecca Davis O’Brien, and Rebecca Ballhaus, “Donald Trump Played Central Role in Hush Payoffs to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal,” Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2018.
59. US v. Michael Cohen, 1:18-cr-00602-WHP, Information.
60. Ibid.
Witch Hunt Page 56