Michael cohen when he was trying to defend Michael Cohens 130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels but Rudy Giuliani is nowhere to be seen or heard trying to defend Michael CohensFinancial Arrangements for the money that was paid to Michael Cohen by giant corporate interests trying to buy access to the president of the United States. Rudy giuliani was willing to say anything when it came to defending Michael Cohen for what Michael Cohen said was using his own money to pay off Stormy Daniels to buy her silence about her sexual relationship with donald trump. Ruud sai Rudy Giuliani said its the kind of thing he did all the time for his clients. That was money that was paid by by his lawyer, the way i would do out of his law firm fund or whatever fund, it doesnt matter, the president reimbursed that. Michael could take care of things like this, like i take care of things like this for my clients. Is it the kind of thing ive settled for celebrities and famous people. Every lawyer that has done that kind of work has. That kind of admission to a disbarable offense was a little much to bear from the giant law firm from which Rudy Giuliani took a leave of absence from to become Donald Trumps defender. The firm announced today that Rudy Giuliani is no longer on a leave of absence because the firm has completely severed its relationship with Rudy Giuliani. And the law firm announced that Rudy Giuliani was not telling the truth about paying off porn stars and other women to buy their silence for celebrity clients with the law firms money. Jill perry, the law firms spokesperson told the new york times, we cannot speak for mr. Giuliani with respect to what was intended by his remarks. Speaking for ourselves, we would not condone payments of the nature alleged to have been made or otherwise without the knowledge and direction of a client. Rudy giuliani issued a written statement about his departure from the firm today, i believe it is in everyones best interests that i make it a permanent resignation. A written statement from Rudy Giuliani. When did Rudy Giuliani become so careful, so reserved issuing a written statement instead of going on fox news and blabbing about it and while hes at it calling Stormy Daniels lawyer, Michael Avenatti, an ambulance chaser. His favorite phrase of last week. Rudy giuliani and donald trump have not dared say the words Michael Avenatti this week after Michael Avenatti revealed the millions of dollars in payments that Michael Cohens llc has received after he used that llc to pay Stormy Daniels 130,000, including the payment of a 500,000 in flow from a company with Strong Family ties and business ties to the russian oligar oligarch, Viktor Vekselberg. That is the payment exposed by Michael Avenatti that has finally brought the Stormy Daniels story together with the russian influence in trump world story. It has been Michael Avenattis most important moment so far, and most startling revelation about Michael Cohen. And Rudy Giuliani has nothing to say about it. Not a word. This week Rudy Giuliani has been silenced, either because the president realizes how much damage Rudy Giuliani does every time he opens his mouth, or Rudy Giuliani and the trump team cannot think of a single thing to say about Michael Cohen pulling in multimillion dollar paychecks by selling access to donald trump, or both. As expected. Were learning more about the big payments to Michael Cohen every day. But President Trumps audience in indiana tonight seems to have heard nothing about it and the speech writers for one of the most corrupt, if not the most corrupt administration in history, actually put these words in the president s teleprompter tonight. Under my administration were fighting against the lobbyists, the special interest, and the corrupt washington politics. One of the special interests that paid over 1 million to Michael Cohen for the first year of the Trump Presidency is now admitting that it was a big mistake. The new ceo of the fa pharmaceutical company, novartis sent an email to his employees today saying we made a mistake entering into this engagement and as a consequence are being criticized by a world that expects more from us. One senior employee speaking on the condition of anonymity said they feel disgusted. Added people are angry and confused because it makes all of us look bad. The daily beast reporting that the payment to Michael Cohen was the largest lobbying effort in made. Their payments to outside lobbying firms averaged under 12,000 a month, less than an eighth of what it paid cohen for the better part of a year in which the company said he did exactly zero work. For that zero work, novartis was paying Michael Cohen 100,000 a month. At t was paying Michael Cohen 50,000 a month and we now know, thanks to the Washington Post, that at t was paying Michael Cohen quote for help on a wide portfolio of issues pending before the federal government, including the companys proposed merger with time warner. At t internal documents show that Michael Cohen was hired to, quote, focus on specific long term planning initiatives as well as the immediate issue of Corporate Tax reform and advise the company on matters before the federal communications commission. Michael avenatti was met once again with terrified silence today by Rudy Giuliani and donald trump when he tweeted a copy of an email that appears to be an email sent by Michael Cohen two days after the fbi raided Michael Cohens home, office, and hotel room, in his first tweet about this today, Michael Avenatti said, on april 9th, the fbi raided mr. Cohens home, office and hotel room. Within 48 hours, mr. Cohen sent the below email to mr. Davidson. Why . They had no ongoing legal matter at the time. Was it part of an attempt by mr. Cohen to obstruct justice or worse . Attached to the tweet was an email from Michael Cohen to keith davidson, who was Stormy Daniels lawyer at the time she negotiated the con few den tshlty agreement with donald trump. The email said i lost all my contacts as i had to get a new phone. Send me a new phone. Also why did anthony back out on abc to do the story. Let me know how you want to communicate. Signed michael d. Cohen, esquire, personal attorney to president donald j. Trump. Michael avenatti in another tweet pointed out, mr. Giuliani claimed that mr. Cohen is no longer mr. Trumps lawyer as of when . Because as of april 11, 2018, this year, he was still his lawyer as evidenced by the email i just posted. See also mr. Trumps comments on air force one that same month. Michael avenatti has not revealed how he obtained an email from Michael Cohen to attorney keith davidson. Joining our discussion now, harry litman, tim obrien, and jennifer rogers, former federal prosecutor. She is now executive director for the center of advancement of integrity at columbia law school. That signature block on Michael Cohens email is fascinating because this is the new phone he had to get after the fbi seized all of his phones, more than a dozen of thechl apparem apparen. So he had to deliberately type onto there after the fbi raid, personal attorney to donald trump. Whats your reading of that . Its also the title he was very unabashed about using apparently around the world and certainly around the u. S. In order to drum up business. Everyone is saying pay to play, same old, same old. But it isnt. Because one of the things he was doing, its ironic, the same time hes out thing himself, he was selling a certain kind of anonymity. Thats the reason he wasnt registered as a lobbyist. So the companies were not simply buying access, they were buying quiet access. And it seems that thats how a company like novartis could slip into agreeing to pay him 1 million before they had even met him. There was something extra going on beside normal pay to play. Jennifer, is there a legal point . Is there something the Bar Association would be interested in a lawyer who, after the fbi raid, in this case Michael Cohen, on his new phone types in there personal attorney to donald j. Trump . If if that isnt true, if thats something someone has decided to type in there to impress people when its no longer true, are there any legal, ethical implications to that . I think the Bar Association will be interested in a lot of what Michael Cohen has been doing. Im not sure this is at the top of the list. If trump ended their relationship, then yes, you cant represent youre the lawyer anymore. But everything Michael Cohen was doing, acting as an unregistered lobbyist, paying Stormy Daniels without the clients permission, there are all sorts of things that the Bar Association, i think, is going to end his career over. You are our Michael Cohen, donald trump psychiatrist in effect. You dealt with both of them, you know them both. You ended up getting sued by them over your book about donald trump, which you won that case. Is it just as innocent as Michael Cohen has no identity of his own without those words, personal attorney to donald trump . I wouldnt use the word innocent. Way too strong a word for those guys. But its an explanation. Donald trump, you know, during the campaign, during the transition and for most of his business career, has been surrounded by people who have tried today hitch their star to his wagon. Michael cohen is the latest in a long line of those kind of people. The email he sent to davidson didnt have trump tower address on it, it was his own address at 30 rock. Thats also true. The address he used was the 30 fro rock address, which was the office that was raided and the day it was raided, that law firm said hes no longer here. So even the address is false in the email. This is one after trump was elected until the point in time hes sending that email has been shunned by trump largely. He didnt get a job in washington, he was iced out during the transition, it wounded him. Trump didnt again reach out to him via twitter until after his office got raided because trump was worried about him flipping on him, i think. All of this thing about personal attorney to trump is trying to get money. I think all the details from Michael Avenatti, i think its a guy saying i can get you access. As we know in the case of novartis, they were a month in the relationship until novartis realized they couldnt deliver, but they kept paying because they couldnt legally end the contract, but they stopped working with him, because he didnt have that much access to donald trump. The most interesting payment is the one with nova, with Viktor Vekselber vekselberg. Thats the one lurking in the background. That goes to the heart and soul of what Robert Mueller is investigating. Whether there were quid pro quos to people in the Trump Administration for money and whether donald trump knew about that. We have learned through Michael Avenattis revelation of these payments and a lot of the great reporting by the Washington Post and others following up, a bunch of information about these payments to Michael Cohen, which obviously special prosecutor Robert Mueller has known for quite a while. This is a revelation again of how far ahead of us he is. What do you see as the special prosecutors main points of interests of what we have publicly learned this week . When he finds out about this, even though they dont unless theres been some act in quid pro quo by an office holder, the fact that cohen is going around basically being a grifter doesnt necessarily sound as a federal crime. There are things that might have been fraudulent and violation of election law in the Stormy Daniels thing and that might be insighted his interest. But if youre a prosecutor and you find this mess with an llc, what is going on that hes doing the 130,000 payment but also the repository for the 4 million, theres some reason to think that based on the contract with Stormy Daniels, which has some anomalous passages that it was sort of used in other places, i think for mueller, what he wants to know, basically, is every dollar that went into essential llc and every dollar that came out and what kind of financial crimes could those describe, its a little hard to say. As tim says, theres probably mischief of an International Nature but its enough to get your antenna buzzing as the prosecutor. And jennifer, mueller new all of this, and more, obviously, including where the money went, before the referral of this information was made to the Southern District of new york, before he basically handed over this file and everything he found out about it and sent it up here to new york. Thats right. Were hearing that at t and novartis spoke to muellers team in november. It was probably sometime between november and january when the case went to sdny. Im wondering if one of these might be flatout wire fraud here. We dont know what representations Michael Cohen made to these companies and theyd be reluctant to admit they were victims of fraud, theyre Public Companies after all, but this could be a flatout fraud case, he could have been defrauding them for this money. So the elements of fraud could be Michael Cohen promises at t or one of these other companies, i can do x, and it turns out he could not do x thats right. And that would be it . He lies to them. It cant be just puffery, im so great and it turns out he cant deliver like a real lobbyist would do. But he has to promise them things factually untrue and he takes their money. That could be whats going on here, whether or not that becomes a case or not, i dont know that these quote, unquote victims will want to play the victims in this scenario. That might be whats going on here as hes trying to get this money in his account. Tim, for example, Michael Cohen to at t, just as a hypothetical, dont worry i can get trump to go along with the merger. I can get your multibillion dollar merger passed. Does that sound like something Michael Cohen would say. He can help you navigate obamacare and drug price policies or air force contracts. Some reporting that came out tonight we know, in fact, at t specifically wanted help with its takeover of time warner, it came out in documents they got. It had to dawn on them quickly that Michael Cohen new nothing about tell communications, antidrug pricing, or air force contracts. The strange thing is in the moment that donald trump got elected, k street got erupted because no one had a relationship with him. So all of these firms were scrambling to find someone they thought did. It boggles the imagination that they thought Michael Cohen would be the guy who could deliver these things. Novartis, as tim is saying, theyre saying we couldnt terminate the contract. They could have if he was doing nothing, thats obviously cause. So he has the perfect victims in the sense because the corporations dont want egg on their face. One of the Companies Said we were afraid to end the contract because we were afraid of the president s anger if we ended a contract with his friend . Exactly p p this is what were talking about. This is where you might look to crimes associated with that. People are thinking of quid pro quo bribery, thats not what we have. And you could probably throw threats in there if it was based on a specific comment. Michael cohen, i have his threats memorized that have been revealed pub