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Shots fired! #teamMerchan

@GottaLaff. NFL. Based on this thread, #Costello seems absolutely venal.

In earlier testimony, #MichaelCohen made #RobertCostello (#Giuliani ally & lawyer who offered services to Cohen in 2018 when he was under investigation) sound as if he were an intermediary for #Trump, trying to keep Cohen #loyal. #Blanche is trying to complicate the relationship, asking if Costello told Cohen he had the option to cooperate w/ #law enforcement.

Reporting is #Costello’s role was convoluted, but Cohen did accept some legal advice from him at that time.

#Costello came to despise #MichaelCohen & testified before a grand jury last yr in hopes of undercutting Cohen’s credibility. The grand jury nonetheless indicted #Trump.

Cohen testifies, w/emails on the screen, that Costello continued a fierce pressure campaign to keep Cohen loyal. Cohen says he understood Costello to be telling him not to cooperate w/ #law enforcement after the FBI raid.

The message from the then president of the United States was “stay in the fold, don’t flip, don’t speak.”

Prosecutors can argue that if #Trump knew about the false records & did not stop them, as #MichaelCohen says, then he aided the #crime.

The synchronization of the Trump tweets & Robert #Costello's outreach to Cohen helps to reinforce the idea that Trump was no longer communicating w/ Cohen directly, but he was still trying to make sure that his embattled fixer was under his thumb.

#MichaelCohen just testified that the #Costello emails came in perfect synchrony w/ the #Trump tweets is support of Cohen.

The NYTimes wrote an article in 2019 about the awkward role Robert Costello served here. He had intended to be Cohen’s lawyer, & spent countless hours on the phone w/him, but was never formally retained.

#criminal #law #TrumpTrial
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/us/politics/michael-cohen-trump.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

The emails from #Costello go a long way toward supporting #MichaelCohen’s description of their meeting. Cohen said that Costello recommended he hire him because his relationship w/ #RudyGiuliani would help him access to #Trump.

In 1 email, Costello tells Cohen that his relationship w/ #Giuliani could be useful to him. In a 2nd, he talks about a “back channel” for communication. In a 3rd, the not-so-subtle msg: “Sleep well tonight, you have friends in high places.”

#MichaelCohen testifies that #Costello told him not to reach out to Trump directly. So while Costello & #Giuliani formed a link between #Trump & Cohen, they also acted as a buffer, which may have grated on Cohen, particularly given that he used to report to Trump directly — & loved it.

Prosecution shows an email from Costello to Cohen from April 2018, in which Costello informs Cohen that Giuliani has just joined the Trump legal team.

#MichaelCohen says he was told #Costello had worked for #Giuliani at #SDNY. By this time, Giuliani was about to become a lawyer for #Trump on the #Mueller investigation. Cohen testifies that Costello told him this would be a way to have a “backchannel” to #Trump.

In the middle of this Costello backchannel between Cohen & Trump, Cohen says, was Rudy Giuliani. [no bueno]

“For the past many months & even years, Defendants have dedicated an extraordinary amount of time & energy toward looking for, #hacking into, #tampering with, #manipulating, copying, #disseminating, & generally obsessing over data that they were given that was taken or #stolen,” the #lawsuit charges. It alleges that the duo’s actions violated the federal #ComputerFraudAndAbuseAct.