LEGAL/MICHAEL COHEN/TRUMP PEOPLE: “Michael Cohen served loyally as Donald Trump’s right-hand man for more than a decade, taking care of anything and everything the New York real estate baron needed to get done. On November 8, 2016, Cohen’s stock suddenly soared: He was now the personal attorney to the President-elect of the United States, with unique understanding of a man that everyone was scrambling to get access to. Cohen quickly got to work. According to multiple people familiar with Cohen’s conduct following the election, he aggressively pitched himself to potential clients, reminding them of his proximity to the most powerful man in the world. Those efforts landed Cohen lucrative consulting deals. New reporting this week revealed that in the months following the 2016 election, Cohen received hundreds of thousands of dollars from powerful entities based in and outside of the United States…While Cohen has not been accused of any wrongdoing, these new revelations raise serious questions about whether a man in Trump’s inner circle had engaged in influence peddling and could spell legal trouble for Cohen, who is already in hot water. He is currently under criminal investigation related to his business dealings, and federal officials raided his home, office and hotel room last month to seize thousands of pages of documents and records.”
–MJ Lee, Javier De Diego, Sarah Westwood, Marshall Cohen, Gloria Borger, Sara Murray and Dana Bash, “Inside Michael Cohen’s aggressive pitch promising access to Trump,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, May 10, 2018 8:21 am