Michael Cohen reportedly breaks his silence, takes shot at Rudy Giuliani – ThinkProgress

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Rudy Giuliani, as part of a media blitz that began Wednesday night, has created a new narrative around the payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels from Trump’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen.

Giuliani claims that Trump, over the course of 2017, repaid Cohen for the $130,000 he sent to Stormy Daniels in 2016 as part of a hush money agreement struck just before the election. And yet Giuliani also claims Trump just found out that he reimbursed Cohen for the money a few days ago. It was Giuliani himself, according to this new narrative, who informed Trump.

Giuliani said he made @realDonaldTrump aware of paperwork that showed payments were actually reimbursements for Stormy. Trump replied: ‘Oh my goodness, I guess that's what it was for,’” Giuliani said.

— Kristen Welker (@kwelkernbc) May 4, 2018

This story is hard to believe. Michael Cohen himself, according to someone who spoke to Cohen directly, says not to believe it.

Donny Deutsch, an advertising executive who has known Cohen and Trump for years, revealed on MSNBC that he had a conversation with Cohen on Thursday. According to Deutsch, in that conversation Cohen said that the narrative Giuliani had constructed around the Stormy Daniels payment was false.

“I spoke with Michael Cohen yesterday, and his [comment] about Giuliani was that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He also said that, ‘Look, there are two people that know exactly what happened — myself and the president, and you’ll be hearing my side of the story,’” Deutsch said.

Deutsch described Cohen as “very frustrated” with Giuliani’s attempt to spin the facts.

Cohen is currently the target of a federal investigation in the Southern District of New York. His office, home, and hotel room were raided by the FBI on April 9. Based on the threshold of evidence needed to get authorization for such a raid, Cohen is in grave risk of being indicted.

There is reportedly concern among the Trump camp that Cohen will “flip” — provide damaging information about Trump to prosecutors in exchange for more lenient treatment. Cohen’s conversation with Deutsch yesterday, as reported, is unlikely to alleviate these fears.

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Classy Madsen takes control as Bears bowling injuries tot up | Cricket

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Wayne Madsen on the attack for Derbyshire © Getty Images

Warwickshire 32 for 1 trail Derbyshire 318 (Madsen 144, Brookes 4-63, Patel 4-94) by 286 runs
Scorecard

Wayne Madsen unfurled a century of high skill and courage as Warwickshire and Derbyshire swapped blows on an engrossing opening day of their Specsavers County Championship match at Edgbaston.

In a clash of Division Two's early-season front-runners, Derbyshire chose to bat and made 318, to which Warwickshire replied with 32 for 1 by the close.

The visitors' linchpin was Madsen who steered his side away from early trouble with a classy 144 from 203 balls, his 27th first-class century. It was completed despite a painful blow on the head from a Henry Brookes bouncer when the batsman had 82. After a seven-minutes-and-20-seconds delay for treatment, Madsen carried on with resolve undiminished to at least partially vindicate Derbyshire captain Billy Godleman's decision to bat first.

At 84 for 4 and 209 for 6, that decision looked dubious, but Madsen led determined resistance against a Warwickshire side which suffered another injury blow to its seam-bowling department during the day. Already without Olly Stone and Keith Barker, the Bears lost Ryan Sidebottom who suffered a side-strain midway through his tenth over in mid-afternoon.

Having chosen to bat, Derbyshire did so unevenly in the first session. Ben Slater looked set to continue his vibrant early-season form when he moved crisply to 16 but he top-edged a pull at Chris Wright to mid-on.

Warwickshire captain Jeetan Patel then took two wickets in his first 13 balls. Luis Reece offered a return catch then Alex Hughes top-edged a sweep and was brilliantly caught by Will Rhodes running back from square leg.

When Henry Brookes hit Godleman's leg-stump, Derbyshire were 84 for 4 and needed some shoring up. Madsen, dropped on 13 and 87, obliged with valuable support from Gary Wilson and Matt Critchley. After Wilson edged Wright to slip, Critchley batted positively until he fell lbw to Patel who soon collected his fourth wicket when Hardus Viljoen nicked behind.

Hamidullah Qadri edged Brooks to second slip but then it was the turn of Duanne Olivier (40, 72 balls) to dig in alongside Madsen. The ninth-wicket pair added 67 in 16 overs before Brooks bowled Madsen and Mark Footitt in five balls. Eighteen-year-old Brooks finished with a career-best 4 for 63 and Patel 4 for 94.

Warwickshire were left with 12 awkward overs batting as the floodlights fought the increasing gloom and lost Dominic Sibley who fell to an exceptional catch by Critchley at fourth slip off Olivier.

©
ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

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Iyer takes on the wristspinners, as planned

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On the day Gautam Gambhir announced his resignation as Delhi Daredevils captain, he did so sitting next to coach Ricky Ponting and CEO Hemant Dua. Only when Gambhir said he had endorsed Shreyas Iyer as captain as his last call of duty did you realise that Iyer had quietly slipped into the press conference room. Dua called him up to the dais, and Iyer spoke the routine stuff about being thankful to the team management and owners, and to Gambhir.

Sharing the space with Gambhir and Ponting, two guys known for speaking a million words a minute and imposing themselves on any situation, Iyer was a quiet counterpoint. On the field in his first match as captain, though, Iyer hogged the limelight. He scored the highest score for man captaining his first match in the IPL, he became only the third Indian batsman to hit 10 or more sixes in an IPL innings, and ended up with the Man-of-the-Match award, only the second man to do so on captaincy debut in the IPL.

As Iyer revealed later, he always wanted to impose. The first call was to get the better of the wristspinners and Sunil Narine. Iyer said he wanted to be a little watchful against Narine, but he was clear in his mind he was not going to let the other two Indian spinners call the shots. He was 7 off 9 when Kuldeep was called back, and he welcomed the left-arm wristspinner with a slog-swept six. Two overs later, Chawla came back for another spell, and his first ball was sent into the second tier right behind him.

"Playing Kuldeep Yadav and Piyush Chawla wasn't that difficult for me because I have played them in domestic circuit as well," Iyer said matter-of-factly. "But Sunil Narine I had prepared for. Majority of his deliveries nowadays is offspin. I was prepared for it. I wouldn't say I picked him properly but I did execute [against] him the way I wanted to. Yeah, he is that kind of bowler who could change the game. Back-to-back wickets could have put us in trouble."

Shreyas Iyer lofts one over the covers BCCI

When asked if attacking the wristspinner is the way to go, Iyer said he was waiting to do exactly that in this match. "Depends, batsman to batsman," Iyer said. "If he feels he can back his instinct and can go after the bowler, and if he feels he can easily clear the boundary... I was feeling that at that time. I waited for them to come on to bowl. Because the way I started was really slow. I just waited for them, and took them on."

All told, Iyer took 29 off the 14 balls of spin dished up to him. The knockout blow, though, was reserved for the last over, bowled by fresh Under-19 graduate Shivam Mavi, who has impressed observers with his pace and inswing. Here, though, Mavi began the last over around the wicket, and Iyer immediately knew he was going to try yorkers, which also meant lower margins of error.

"It [that last over] was really important, especially on this [batting-friendly] wicket," Iyer said. "I hadn't played him before. So it was important. I knew he was going to try something. He was going to try yorkers. I was ready for the half-volleys. And hit straight. Luckily I could execute properly. I was timing the ball really well, so you know the last over was really important in terms of setting up the total."

You would have expected Iyer to have had a tough call to make even before going out to the toss for the first time. He had to take a call on Gambhir's place in the side. Luckily, he said, the call was made by Gambhir himself, which opened up a place for Colin Munro, who provided them with just the start they needed.

Daredevils now have two wins, which barely lifts them from the bottom of the table. Iyer knows there is a lot of work to do.

"It is a really satisfying win," he said. "Saying this, we need to continue the momentum and not get complacent at any point of time. We will obviously cherish this victory but looking forward we need to follow the process we have been following for the last few days. Practice has been amazing."

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