Live from Music Row, Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed national political correspondent for One America News, Neil W. McCabe to the newsmaker line to explain his latest tweet indicating how a non-prosecution agreement with the National Enquirer set the groundwork for Trump’s indictment.
Leahy: On the newsmaker line right now with One American News Network, our good friend Neil W. McCabe. Neil, last night after the indictment and the arraignment of former president Donald Trump on 34 trumped-up charges that he falsified business records to commit a crime, except they didn’t identify what that crime was.
You tweeted the following: Alvin Bragg using evidence production from the Justice Department’s 2018 non-prosecution agreement with the National Enquirer teed up former President Trump. Tell us what you mean by that.
McCabe: Michael, it’s very simple. (Scoffs) In 2018, Michael Cohen flipped on Trump. The main reason for that is that the FBI said, if you don’t cooperate and help us get Trump, we will go after your wife because she misrepresented the value of taxi medallions on a loan application, and her business partner had already flipped and agreed to cooperate. So Cohen had no choice.
They had to come up with something. Cohen’s sort of stock and trade was fixing problems, making problems go away, illegal, embarrassing, whatever. One of the things that the National Enquirer would do, in cooperation with Cohen is they would buy the rights to someone’s story, and then instead of publishing the story, they would just kill it so that once you signed off the rights to your story, you can’t tell it anymore.
So people took their money and then these stories went away. The Justice Department went to the National Enquirer and who knows what they had on the National Enquirer. The bottom line is that the National Enquirer and its owner David Becker agreed to produce all of these records and correspondence that they had with Cohen and the Trump organization in exchange for a non-prosecution agreement.
And so all of these boxes went to the Justice Department and then nothing happened. There was no prosecution by the Justice Department. Lo and behold, this indictment is unsealed yesterday. And count after count, you see the initials, AMI. American Media Incorporated, the parent company, the National Enquirer. And so what they did was they took all of these boxes that were at the Justice Department that somehow ended up on the desk of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
This then explains why House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan wanted Bragg to testify and why Jordan said I wanna know what federal resources were used to get this Bragg indictment.
Leahy: So let me ask you this, Neil. You say, AMI. Were there exhibits to the indictment where that was included?
McCabe: Basically it refers to documents and evidence. In the indictment itself, it refers to evidence or actions by AMI, which presumably are in an exhibit somewhere else.
Leahy: The indictment references AMI?
McCabe: Yes, absolutely.
Leahy: Okay, so that was your clue right there. How did these documents in the possession of the Department of Justice end up in the possession of Alvin Bragg?
McCabe: Listen, these mysteries. I think they just sent over a U-Haul truck. They did this stuff all the time. How did all of the records that belonged to the presidential transition of Trump were then given to the GSA for storage? How did they end up with Mueller? Gee, I don’t know. These things happen.
Leahy: About the indictment here, they reference that these were payments and invoices entered that began in February of 2017. Trump had already been elected, right? Allegedly the “payoff” from Cohen to Stormy Daniels, NDA happened prior to the 2016 election.
McCabe: So in effect what Cohen did, if we take that narrative, there are so many different narratives that Cohen has put out, but let’s just talk about the main Cohen narrative that he paid Stormy Daniels, and he was reimbursed by padding invoices.
And so he was billing the Trump organization for legal work that he actually didn’t do. It was actually reimbursement. And so Trump is indicted basically on the word of a lawyer who basically was falsifying invoices. What Bragg is saying is, Cohen falsified invoices to hide a bribe or a payment, and we’re gonna get the guy he stole the money from. In effect, Cohen stole the money from Trump and the Trump organization because he was billing them for work he did not do.
And at the same time, you also have Stormy Daniels extorting or blackmailing someone. I think that’s a crime. So now we’re going after the guy who did the payoff. It’s an interesting convolution of legal theories and felonies and misdemeanors.
And of course, the only reason any of these bookkeeping entries are a crime if you were to walk with Bragg on this it’s like when you put in your checkbook, club fees reimbursement, or whatever your notation is in your checkbook, right?
When you write in a checkbook, your wife looks through your checkbook, and you see a notation for new tires, right? A lot of guys don’t write in their checkbook, payoff to mistress. (Leahy laughs)
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
– – –
Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Alvin Bragg” by Manhattan DA.
