Heres how it came to be. In may of this year, may 22nd, the New York Times had a scoop that they probably only got because they are specifically the New York Times. They sent crack reporters to an otherwise sleepy courthouse in albany, new york, not a Federal Courthouse, a state court, because that day in that state court in new york, a longtime Business Partner of Michael Cohens, A Taxicab Mogul Named Gene Friedman Who everybody called the taxi king, he was in court. He had been facing really serious charges in new york, Tax Evasion Charges in new york more than 5 million and four criminal counts of tax fraud and facing a charge of grand larceny. A big stack of charges involving a large amount of money and potentially a large amount of jail time. The story they uncovered at the courthouse that day, for some reason, friedman had gotten this huge Criminal Liability he was facing winnowed down to almost
nothing. He was able to work out some sort of deal where all of that prison time and all of those felonies just evaporated. Instead of being tried for evading 5 million in taxes, prosecutors let him plead guilty to one count of evading 50,000 worth of taxes. Not 5 million, but 50,000 . Instead of decades in potential prison time the deal he cut with prosecutors got him zero prison time. Thats a deal. People do plea deals all the time in which they offer their testimony for prosecutors in exchange for letting them off the hook and going easier on them. This was like the mother of all plea deals. The amount he offered must have been very very valuable to the government given how sweet the deal was he got from them in return. That happened in late may. Great catch by the New York Times, super intriguing story, a good reminder its good
journalistic practice to hang out at the courthouse and see what happens. Since then we havent known Whats Going On with gene the taxi King Friedman and his sweet plea deal and his potential cooperation with prosecutors. We got a hint from the Wall Street Journal when they reported Gene Friedman and Michael Cohen hadnt just been Business Partners in the Taxi Business, they had shared an accountant. And the Wall Street Journal reported at that same time that that will accountant had been subpoenaed by federal prosecutors. Now we see where that was heading. In this list of charges he pled guilty from you can see where all of that stuff over the last months may have been leading. The tax charges cohen pled guilty to yesterday are in large part the work in the Taxi Business, personal loans, cash transfers, illegal banking
tricks that can be boring to describe if youre looking for a kind of Cops And Robbers story but they can be very easy for prosecutors to prove once theyve got the paperwork to prove it. And if theyre really lucky, if theyve got the testimony of an accountant and a Business Partner to explain whatever documentation they can get from the banks. For obvious reasons, there has been Intense National and political focus on the final two charges Michael Cohen pled guilty to yesterday, the Campaign Finance charges in which he remarkably directly implicated the president of the United States as his criminal coconspirator, the person who directed him to commit those crimes. But all of the other charges that got Michael Cohen into that courtroom in the first place yesterday appear to have derived from the financial case involving him and his Taxi Business, and that case appears to have derived in significant part from that little courthouse
story out of albany. The new York State Attorney general and the new York State Tax Department bringing a big criminal case against cohens partner in the Taxi Business and flipping him like a flapjack in sleepy little state court in albany, new york, three months ago today. The Law Enforcement official who made that happen is somebody you might not know. Her name is Barbara Underwood. You probably remember the previous Attorney General very high profile who was turfed out of office in a very ugly scandal involving allegations of sexual misconduct. His name was Eric Schneiderman and he aggressively pursued a national profile. But when he imploded new york State Lawmakers decided they would have the Solicitor General from the state of new york slide over into his office and become the temporary acting ag. I think they were they were thinking, we need a legal, legal, we need a legal official. Solicitor general, she argues cases. Can she take over for a second . I dont even know if the new york State Lawmakers knew what they had done when they picked Barbara Underwood. I dont know if they understood who this was they were putting in the Attorney Generals Office in their state. She is a bigger deal than any of them. She is freaking impressive, argued 20 cases before the Supreme Court, Magna Cum Laude at harvard, first in her class at georgetown law school. She was a clerk for thurgood marshall, yes, that thurgood marshall. She taught for years at yale law school. Acting Solicitor General of the United States in 2001. That made her the first woman to ever hold the Solicitor General title in this country. Shes been a lead prosecutor in multiple jurisdictions including serving as the chief District Attorney in the Eastern District of new york through a lot of their blockbuster gangland cases. She has an impeccable reputation
and lifelong record and she has nothing to be messed with. Shes totally unassuming. She was 74 years old, when she suddenly became new York State Attorney general, the papers were like, we dont have any pictures of this person. She stepped in that role in the midst of crisis and she did not miss a step. I know what youre thinking, this is fascinating, i have an interesting biographical sketch, of the appointed Attorney General of new york. If it comes up at pub quiz, ill win and cash prizes. Why do i care . How is this around the president possibly being a crook or a Foreign Agent and what were going do about it . There is where that goes. Biggest of big picture here is that scandal surrounding the president , right, different than any other scandal any president has ever faced. The absolutely unprecedented
scandal surrounding this particular president boils down to two main things. The absolutely unprecedented scandal concerning this particular president , number one, russia, when they interfered to sway it in Donald Trumps direction, did donald trump or his campaign conspire with russia to help them do that. Absolutely unprecedented. The other part of it, separate and potentially related is whether scrutiny of this president brought on by the russia investigation or just by the normal scrutiny that comes with being president will end up turning up business and financial dealings including during the campaign that could represent serious Criminal Liability for this president and for his campaign and even potentially for his family. Thats the two sides of the unprecedented nature of the scandal that will surrounds this president. The russia scandal and the worries about his business and financial scandal. That brings us back to Barbara Underwood. A month after she flipped gene the taxi King Friedman securing
his cooperation with prosecutors in exchange for leanience in the charges against him which looks like it led to the guilty pleas from Michael Cohen yesterday, just one month after she flipped Gene Friedman, Barbara Underwood filed an civil lawsuit, this lawsuit on behalf of the people of new york against President Trumps charitable foundation. You can see at the top, the people of the state of new york by barbara d. Underwood is, Attorney General of the state of new york against donald j. Trump, donald trump jr. , ivanka trump, eric f. Trump and the donald j. Trump foundation. For more than a decade the donald j. Trump foundation has operated in persistent violation of state and federal law. This pattern of illegal conduct by the foundation and its Board Members includes improper extensive political activity repeated and willful selfdealing transactions and failure to follow basic fike pu
but added specific evidence, including dropping pictures of some of it right into the text of the lawsuit. She put in stuff like this handwritten note. See that on the right side of your screen there. Handwritten on donald j. Trumps stationary, his signature all caps style written with a sharpie to alan w. , the money guy at the Trump Organization. apparently was listed as the treasurer of the Trump Foundation for a decade without even knowing he was listed as such until he was deposes by underwoods investigators and he was like im what now . Im the treasurer how long . Nobody told me. Theres this note in the lawsuit. Allen w. , 100,000 payment to fisher house. It says, what for . Settlement of flag issue in palm beach. Okay, signed d. Donald trumps private club, maralago in palm beach had been sued for violating local zoning restrictions having to do
with is flagpole. When that got settled, and trump had to pay money to settle that lawsuit, trump said pay that out of the charity funds. Thats not coming out of my pocket. You cannot use your charity for that. Barbara underwood caught him doing it and filed this blistering lawsuit with lots of evidence including literally embedded in the text of the lawsuit, a civil lawsuit she brings in new york state but she forwards all this evidence she gathered to the irs for them to investigate as potential criminal tax matter and to the federal Election Commission for them to investigate it as a potential set of criminal Campaign Finance violations. She ccs it to the Public Integrity division at the u. S. Justice department. And within new york state, the state Tax Department starts investigating that evidence as well as laid out by Barbara Underwood to see if in addition to the civil lawsuit there should be a State Criminal Referral against the trump
Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. Their counsel and not directly with the person. In new york state, Barbara Underwood and the Tax Department division in the state, theyre the one whos brought these devastating charges against Gene Friedman, the taxi king, threatening him with decades in prison, 5 million in tax evasion, multiple felonies. They put that pressure on him squeezed him, flipped him. It appears that Cooperation Deal probably led to the charges Michael Cohen just pled to. Boom. Now the same dynamic duo, new York Attorney general Barbara Underwood and the Tax Divisioning in new york state they are now investigating the Trump Foundation, trumps supposed charity for a potential criminal referral. We know they have a ton of evidence because Barbara Underwood laid it out in her civil case. That is the origin of the subpoena for Michael Cohen today. According to the daily news, he responded to that will subpoena immediately by personally
calling back the Tax Department to the point where the Tax Department didnt even know how to deal with it. Were assuming you have a lawyer, sir . No, you want to come right in . Okay. Do you want us to fix you a sandwich or anything . Youre right outside . All right. Michael cohen pled guilty to eight felonies yesterday. Hes out on bail today. That thing that started yesterday at almost exactly the same moment Trumps Campaign chairman was being convicted of eight felonies, trumps personal lawyer, Michael Cohen pleads guilty to eight felonies and personally implicates the president in the criminal behavior to which he himself is pleading guilty. That all started yesterday. But cohen is still out on bail. Apparently its still unfolding today. In this lawsuit brought by the new York Attorney general, brought against trumps foundation, trump himself, ivanka, don junior and eric are all named in that case. In the lawsuit, underwood
accuses them of abdicating all responsibility for insuring that the foundations assets were used in compliance with the law. If that case is going to become a Criminal Matter and thats in process here, if its a criminal case and not just a civil lawsuit by the state of new york, that could end up being a serious matter for not just trumps charity and the president himself but also for his three eldest children. We should also note because its a state case, there wont be any way to pardon people out of jeopardy in that case. You can only pardon someone if youre president for federal crimes but there are also serious allegations about the Trump Campaign in this same lawsuit. In 2016 the board knowingly permitted the foundation to be coopted by mr. Trumps president ial campaign. His Political Committee extensively directed and coordinated the foundations activities. Michael cohen made what is described as an illegal payoff to Stormy Daniels to keep from telling about an alleged affair with donald trump. Prosecutors allege they filed around this plea donald trump directed him to do that, but then also Michael Cohen there after, got paid back for having put out that money in that illegal payoff. As prosecutors tell the story, it was the Trump Organization used as the entity to pay cohen back. On or about february 14, 2017, the day after mike flynn was fired just in case youre counting, on or about february 14, 2017, Michael Cohen, the defendant sent an executive of the company, executivetive, the first of his monthly invoices requesting pursuant to a Retainer Agreement Payment for Services Rendered for the months of january and February 2017. It listed 35,000 for each of
those two months. Executive one forwarded the invoice to executive 2 the same day by email and it was approved. Executive 1 forwarded it to another employee of the company stating, quote, please pay from the trust, post to legal expenses. Put retainer for the months of january and February 2017 in the description. The company in question is the Trump Organization, Trump Business. Who are Executive One and executive 2 . We dont know. But that notation that the money to cohen, paying him back forty legal payoff during the campaign, that should be paid from the trust, well, the trust in this case is that supposedly independent entity that President Donald Trump signed over all his Business Interests to after he was sworn in as president. Thats the en