@Unabashed Liberal
While brilliant on a grifting level, this is beyond snake on the 'low' and reality tv level. It's absolutely unbelievable. Worse, though, is that people have actually "donated". My god.

I heard Lanny hedge/evade on that point in a interview earlier today. I'll check out the Meet The Press Daily (MTP Daily) transcript for today's show, over the weekend, and post it next week. That's pretty big, considering the fact that like DT, Cohen's told quite a few contradictory stories about the Daniels payment, etc.

Considering that they (Davis & Cohen) didn't even wait 24 hours before establishing a GoFundMe legal fund page, seems like they could argue that Cohen likely fabricated this claim, in order to curry favor with Dems/Clinton 'followers' and Anti-Trumpers--for fundraising purposes.

Just watch. If former FBI SA Andrew McCabe was able to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, no telling what Dems will throw at Cohen in order to sink DT.

BTW, Lanny is actually taking the opportunity to shill for Cohen's legal fund on Cable News--he did it with Wolf Blitzer this afternoon (Situation Room).

Blue Onyx

"Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong."
~~W. R. Purche

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg

lies in the activities of out-of power US and Russian oligarchs who have a mutual interest in tearing down both heads of state.

It's always about projection with the neo- crowd: of whatever they accuse, they do themselves.

Well then .... and look at who else works with Lanny.

Confirmed: Lanny Davis is the primary lobbyist for the Putin-tied oligarch. Unreal.
cc: Robert Mueller pic.twitter.com/A9oZZYoTlh

— Jordan Schachtel (@JordanSchachtel) August 22, 2018

@WoodsDweller

Bill Binny is sticking to his thumb drive leak statement. Here he is last week with Jimmy -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHZXVWUxxDU 12 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFQYWBZjNfc 8 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS3WR9Qlgvg (5 min)

I think it is the first clip where they review why it was a leak rather than hack. I hypothesize it is one of the reasons they seek to silence Julian before he spills the beans. Since Seth is dead you would think he would just tell people. I always wondered why he delayed the release of the $hill's emails till right before the convention instead of early enough to have discouraged her nomination.

As to your Awan hypothesis - I suspect he was working with the CIA and the ISS to spy on congress. That's how he gets away with only a slapped hand.

... anybody want to hear it?

OK. We start with the DNC emails.
DNC emails copied to thumb drive
That was just the first link that came up. This was a year ago.

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, or VIPS, said there was an insider leak that occurred thanks to someone with access to a DNC computer.
...
The crux of their argument is that the data taken from the DNC was transferred to a USB stick, meaning that someone would have had to have direct access to the committee’s computers.

They claim the data was transferred at a rate that was far too fast for an internet connection.

This didn't get much traction at the time, other people called BS and maybe it is. Still, I'm intrigued by the possibility.

Next, Imwan Awan.
Awan arrested
That report dated 25 July, 21 days before the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity report.

I thought that was shady at the time, and I think I wrote some comments about it. I thought then, and still think, that Awan was the guy that stole the emails, then they passed through several hands before Wikileaks got them. Once it became known that it was an inside job, his Clinton protection was gone and he smashed his hard drives and made a run for it. He didn't make it out of the country.

What does Fox have to say?
Ex-Dem IT aide Imran Awan avoids jail time

... sentenced Awan to three months of supervised release plus time served ... also did not impose a fine ... Federal guidelines recommended a sentence of zero to six months in jail, followed by two to five years of supervised release.

Got off easy. Plea deal? The reports don't seem to say that (or maybe I missed it).

Here's the juicy part that came out today:
Another Major Bombshell Buried in Michael Cohen's Felony Charges

But in addition to the payouts to the women, there was another large sum for which Cohen was later reimbursed, according to the court documents:
The $50,000 represented a claimed payment for "tech services," which in fact related to work COHEN had solicited from a technology company during and in connection with the campaign.
The document gives no more information about this payment, but the language suggests investigators may know more details about it — including the technology company in question — that they have not yet revealed.
...
But why would they use the same method to pay for a technology company's services during the campaign? As long as the services were above board, this would be a legitimate campaign expense.

Why indeed.

EDIT:
Lanny Davis on Rachel Maddow last night

Lanny Davis, attorney for former Donald Trump attorney Michael Cohen, tells Rachel Maddow that Cohen has knowledge that should be of interest to Robert Mueller and he is happy to tell Mueller what he knows about the "possibility of a conspiracy to collude and corrupt the American democracy system in the 2016 election" and also what Trump knew about computer hacking.

So now my glorious theory...

The "technology company" was Awen's.

Cohen has more tapes. He leaked the one with Trump talking about the hush money deal. Why would he leak his best stuff first, people wondered at the time? Because it wasn't his best stuff.
Trump conspired with Cohen to hire Awen to steal the emails, which passed through several hands before reaching Wikileaks. Cohen has Trump on tape. His plea deal is pleading guilty in return for getting little or no jail time when this all comes out. Awen got a plea deal in return for future cooperation on this upcoming case.

Maybe not true, but would make a great novel at least.