Good morning. Its 11 00 a. M. Eastern, 8 00 a. M. Pacific. I am jose diazbalart. We begin with Breaking News in lower manhattan, and the case is in recess. Farro was a banker that worked with cohen. Earlier this morning the judge found trump in Contempt Of Court fining him 9,000 for nine violations of the partial gag order imposed on him, and threatened to put trump in jail if he continued to violate that order. With us to talk about this, nbc news correspondent, Vaughn Hillyard, and maya wiley, and david marcus, a Criminal Defense Attorney and a professor at the university of miami school of law. Vaughn, get us up to speed as to what comes next. Theres a pause, right . Reporter right, they are currently in the Morning Recess. Gary farro, who was the former First Republic banker that worked with Michael Cohen to set up the Account For The Llc that was operating as the pass through for Michael Cohen to get the Home Equity Line of credit to the attorney for Stormy Daniels, and that took
there s no question in my view the purpose of the formation of that entity was to further shield that payment by scrutiny by not having michael cohen or donald trump s name on it. secondly, the bank account that was set up for the routing of this money, this $130,000 was set up in the name of essential consultants llc. an in connection with that and i think i raised this some time ago on your show. we talked about potential charges that could be brought against michael cohen, depending on his financial activity or the activity that occurred at the bank. and i think i referenced on your show the kyc process, which is know your client. and i think i referenced the fact that when they went to establish this account for the llc, the bank would have asked michael cohen questions about what his purpose was, what the expected transaction flow was, et cetera. and we detail in the report now specific information that michael cohen gave to the bank when this account was opened which has proven
would happen if these bank records were released. additional questions would result, because this doesn t pass the smell test. the government would also have information on this, that if they wanted to make public they could make public, wouldn t they? you re absolutely right. and we have called for the release of the suspicious activity report or reports relating to this account. we wrote a letter to the treasury secretary, we demanded their release, or its release. he did not respond. we have tried to make this a front and center issue without great success. and hopefully at this point now with the release of information, there will be a call for the release of this information, the suspicious activity report or reports relawsuiting to this account so the american people can see exactly what happened here. and whether additional russian money was taken. and in addition, where the money went. did all the money go to michael cohen? did some of it go to the trump organization? did s
elliott broidy. it came out last month that he facilitated a $1.6 million payment to a playboy model that broidy said he got pregnant pz dill tad below, mr. cohen received $785 thouks from mr. elliott broidy that originated from an account in broidy s name at bank of america. michael avenatti joins us tonight. a lot to go over. we reviewed the doms that appear to show the payments you revealed earlier today. we haven t independently verified this em. but the fact that at&t has now come out saying that the documents at least related to at&t are correct, obviously bolsters the authenticity of the documents. i know you re not going to say what your information is based on, but you are obviously very confident in the information that you released earlier. 100%, anderson. 100% confident. we would not have released this
day on this. because no one can figure out the truth, at least from the white house on what happened. according to mr. giuliani, the president s reimbursement scheme of this $130,000, the reimbursement scheme with the retainer invoices didn t start until much after this. do you have any evidence that any of these companies that were giving money into this account were aware that this was the same account used to pay off stormy daniels? because i would imagine any legitimate company or corporation would be very concerned that the money they are paying to this man, michael cohen for whatever services he is allegedly rendering or offering, that it s going to the same account used to do hush agreements. we don t know if they knew or they did not know. but here s what we do know for certain. essential consultants was formed approximately two weeks before the payment to my client of $130,000, okay?