Was this an effort by Cohen and his lawyer to deceive Judge Otero's court?

[pnwmom]

The Notice of motion to compel arbitration

asks for an order compelling Stephanie Clifford to arbitrate the agreement she entered into with Essential Consultants.

The motion makes no mention of Trump (or DD) being a part of the agreement. But now Giiuliani says he was.

Was this a deliberate effort to mislead the court?

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4429475-Compel-Arbitration.html

[unblock]

1. Click the link, the motion lists Donnie on the front page as a defendant

[pnwmom]

2. No, that was just a reference to the original lawsuit name (Stephanie v. Trump and EC.)

But the motion came back only acknowledging an agreement between Stephanie and EC.

And this was happening during a period of time when they were arguing that DT hadn't known about the agreement.

[jberryhill]

4. I've linked the actual memorandum below

Trump is in the caption because it was filed with him as a defendant. The only thing his lawyers have done in this case is filed a 'me too' joinder endorsing Cohen's motions.

In a nutshell, Cohen is arguing that the contract entitles Essential Consultants to compel arbitration. That Cliffords was paid the 130k is not in dispute in the proceeding, so the question of where Cohen got the money doesn't factor in this litigation.

[jberryhill]

3. First, link to the actual argument

That's just the notice of motion. The memorandum for that motion, spelling out Cohen's position, is this document:

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.704250/gov.uscourts.cacd.704250.20.1.pdf

Where the payment came from is not relevant to the issues in this contract lawsuit. Whether it constituted some form of financial hanky panky relative to campaign finance laws, etc., doesn't have any bearing on the position Cohen has taken in the litigation.

Cohen's position is that the contract was formed between two parties:

1. Essential Consultants "and/or" Trump, and

2. Daniels

The "and/or" is pretty much a drafting trainwreck, but Cohen's argument basically reduces to saying that the "and/or" rendered them interchangeable, and that Trump was what amounts to a third party beneficiary of the contract.

Neither party disputes that Daniels got paid the $130k. For the purpose of her seeking to rescind the contract, where the $130k came from doesn't matter.

In other words, for the purpose of this action (which has no bearing on the proceedings involving Cohen in NY), it doesn't matter if Cohen got that money from Trump, paid it himself, robbed a bank, sold crack, or found it in the sofa cushions.

Maybe an example would illustrate that point:

I jointly own a house with my friend. You and I agree that I will pay you $10 today to paint the house next Wednesday, and if you don't paint it you will owe me $1000 in arbitration. I pay you the $10. Wednesday comes and goes, and you don't paint my house. I bring an arbitration and get a $1000 award. You then sue to invalidate the contract.

Question: What difference does it make whether the $10 was paid by me or whether I got reimbursed for it by my friend?

The answer is that it doesn't matter.

Again, Daniels is not disputing that she received $130k in relation to the document that the parties are disputing. Cohen's position is that the "and/or" renders the constituents of the first party to be interchangeable for the purpose of the contract. Daniels' position is that it doesn't, because certain clauses of the contract (none of which, however, are alleged to have been breached) would require specific performance by Trump.

It is further Cohen's position the issue of what the "and/or" itself means should itself be arbitrated.

Nowhere in the motion or the memorandum does Cohen make any statement about where the money came from, because the payment to Daniels is not in dispute in this litigation. The bottom line is that it doesn't matter where the money came from, if Cohen got paid back, or whatever, for the purpose of this litigation. Whether or not the financial arrangements between Trump and Cohen cause other problems for them is not relevant to the question before this court in this motion which is whether Cohen can enforce arbitration of the contract.