On August 25th, in a little seen post, Kossack triumph110 asked this question:
Did Trump Blackmail Falwell to endorse him in 2016?
So I just read an interesting article from People Magazine. It states that Falwell in 2016 was set to endorse Ted Cruz for President, and even let Cruz use Liberty Universities basketball court to launch his Presidential campaign. So why then would Falwell all of a sudden do a 180 and endorse a pu@@y grabbing Trump? Did Michael Cohen, the fixer, have anything to do with it?
Many of us had assumed that he’d been blackmailed, and now the picture is becoming clear about how that all happened.
In that People Magazine article, published the same day, Falwell whines that he’s been set up because it’s an election year, and that his “political ties” made him a target.
Jerry Falwell Jr. — Ousted Amid Sex Scandal — Says He Was 'Targeted' Over Trump Ties
But Falwell told The Washington Post that it was his political ties that had drawn attention rather than, as the Post noted, behavior such as an eyebrow-raising social media post earlier this summer that had put him increasingly at odds with the Liberty community.
He’s not entirely wrong, though not in the way one might expect.
It certainly was his political ties that got got him into trouble. I would argue that it was that which caught the attention of candidate Donald Trump. Falwell had huge political ties. But Trump had something on Falwell, and he blackmailed him to furnish his public endorsement in the 2016 election in order to capture the “evangelical vote.”
As this drama surrounding Falwell has unfolded, i’ve felt that the bigger picture was being left out of the story. People had some of it:
In March, in a call with actor and frequent Trump critic Tom Arnold, Cohen was recorded saying he helped the Falwells try to stop the release of "a bunch of photographs, personal photographs," Reuters reported.
"These are photos between husband and wife," Cohen, 54, said on the call with Arnold, adding as a punchline "the evangelicals are kinkier than Tom Arnold."
Details of what the photos contain have never been independently corroborated. While Cohen did not identify the "guy" who had them, he talked of a "pool boy," according to the Times.
But there’s a lot more to it than that, and it is delicious.
Falwell himself telegraphed his own comeuppance by seeking out a safe outlet at The Washington Times to reveal his wife’s long-term affair with a younger man. Which — believe me — he had absolutely nothing to do with! The moment i saw that story, i knew that there was much more to come out. I’d already known about the Pool Boy thing but this bizarre revelation was a bit on the nose.
It seems that, like Josh Marshall, i can spot a limited hangout when i see one. The very next day, it turned out that it indeed was a bid to get ahead of a breaking story about how he ‘likes to watch’.
Business partner of Falwells says affair with evangelical power couple spanned seven years
In a claim likely to intensify the controversy surrounding one of the most influential figures in the American Christian conservative movement, a business partner of Jerry Falwell Jr has come forward to say he had a years-long sexual relationship involving Falwell’s wife and the evangelical leader.
Giancarlo Granda says he was 20 when he met Jerry and Becki Falwell while working as a pool attendant at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel in March 2012. Starting that month and continuing into 2018, Granda told Reuters that the relationship involved him having sex with Becki Falwell while Jerry Falwell looked on.
So, the Falwells’ tryst with the Pool Boy was the subject of the blackmail that won Trump the evangelicals?
Yes, and no. It’s a bit more complicated. We need to back up, to May 2018 and this Buzzfeed story by Aram Rostom
Jerry Falwell Jr. And A Young Pool Attendant Launched A Business That Sparked A Bitter Dispute
Trump’s fixer Michael Cohen helped arrange Falwell’s pivotal endorsement of Donald Trump, the first by a major evangelical.
Influential evangelical leader and Donald Trump backer Jerry Falwell Jr. went into business with a young pool attendant he and his wife met while staying at a luxury hotel in Miami Beach, according to a lawsuit filed in Miami-Dade County.
The suit, which has not been previously reported, was brought by a father and son who claim that after they helped conceive of the business, the pool attendant and Falwell wrongly cut them out of it. The suit says that while Falwell Jr. and his wife were guests at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach in 2012, they developed a “friendly relationship” with the pool attendant, Giancarlo Granda; flew Granda in a private jet; and eventually backed him in a business venture, setting up a hostel that offers low-cost dorm-style nightly accommodations to visitors. The pool attendant, according to public records databases, was 21 when he met the Falwells.
The three parties — the Falwells, the Pool Boy, and Jesus Fernandez Sr & Jr — had gone in together on a business venture involving some kind of hostel. (I know — ick) Things apparently went south for the father and son, who claimed they’d been ripped off, and subsequently sued. This lawsuit was what first brought the Falwell’s relationship with the Pool Boy to light.
There was something else mentioned in the article which also foreshadows where we are today.
The relationship between Cohen and Falwell Jr. has not been previously reported, but the two have been acquainted since 2012, according to a source with direct knowledge of Falwell’s decision to endorse Trump. The source, a high-ranking official at Liberty University, said that Falwell Jr. occasionally visited Cohen’s office in New York City but that there was no business relationship between the two men.
According to a separate source with knowledge of Trump’s campaign, Cohen was so confident in Falwell Jr.’s support that he and Trump assured others, even before Trump announced his candidacy, that Falwell Jr. would issue an endorsement.
Who the hell is Giancarlo Granda, the Pool Boy, and why are the Falwells being so generous with him? Miami Herald, June 19 2019:
How cut-rate SoBe hostel launched Jerry Falwell Jr. ‘pool boy’ saga, naked picture hunt
The relationship between the Falwells and Granda forms the backdrop of an improbable Miami story that is causing political ripples beyond South Florida. It involves a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, the “pool boy” as he is described in the lawsuit, the comedian Tom Arnold, Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s now imprisoned political fixer, naked photographs — and a Miami father and son who say they were defrauded in a real estate deal then forced to change their names due to “threats.”
If we’re to believe that, it seems that Falwell was playing hardball. But he’s hardly an intimidating figure. Perhaps he hired someone.
Cohen brushes off Arnold’s attempt to link the photos to Granda, saying the images appear to have been swiped from Jerry Falwell’s phone, and describes some of his other famous Republican clients having had private photos become public after being “hacked.”
And, perhaps someone else had hired their own professionals. Ones that Jeff Bezos might recognise. What’s going on here?
I’d initially assumed that the Pool Boy had been the one threatening to reveal the photos. But it doesn’t seem to be that way at all. Although Granda and the Falwells appear to have had a falling out, it doesn’t seem that he is the culprit.
Arnold keeps trying to get Cohen to elaborate. “You definitely brought the Falwells ... I mean you did the deal with the pool boy.”
“Tom, you’re wrong about that,” Cohen replied. “That’s not what it was about. That ... I, spoke to, the pool boy or whatever he is — that story is not accurate.”
If i had to guess, i’d suggest that Fernandez Sr, being aware of the Falwells’ private lifestyle — there is the suggestion that Fernandez Jr, who was Granda’s friend, may have learned some of the salacious details of that relationship — hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on them.
This is speculation but it fits the scenario that seems to be revealed across several reports about this.
Think your mobile device is secure? If you’re famous, rich, or influential it may not be against someone with a professional interest in getting into it. That is the reality of spooks these days. The haunting of America continues apace, as Jeff Bezos has learned quite sharply.
Most of us wondered, at the time, whether Falwell had been blackmailed. I was certain of it, though not because i was privy to any of what i’m quoting here. I knew because kompromat has been Donald Trump’s stock in trade for decades. Remember the Pecker Dossier?1
COHEN: … funding. Yes. Um, and it’s all the stuff.
TRUMP: Yeah, I was thinking about that.
COHEN: All the stuff.
Did you know that Donald Trump would often arrange to have himself gossiped about in the tabloids? Anything to get his name in print, always with a photo. He did it so much that it became transactional. He also provided lots and lots of dirt on others, and this relationship allowed him to have some control over which stories about him were printed. The really bad stuff — maybe illegal stuff — could be kept on the down-low. Catch & kill.
But Donald must have always known that those killed stories never really disappeared, but had been locked away.
This wasn’t just about covering the Karen McDougal cost. I think that Michael Cohen recorded a conversation with Donald Trump, the context of which was an arrangement with David Pecker, CEO of AMI, to attain possession of all of the material regarding Donald Trump that AMI — and specifically David Pecker — had in its vault. Everything, going back decades.
They sat down with Pecker — who’d been a loyal, and very well-off, stooge for years — to discuss how things had now changed; that Trump was the fucking President of the United States now, and that they knew he had files, and that they felt that it was very important to button that the fuck up.
They needed to convince Pecker that now was the time to clean out that safe of his, lest anything get out.
COHEN: ... you never know where that company — you never know what he’s —
TRUMP: Maybe he gets hit by a truck.
COHEN: Correct. So, I’m all over that. …
That wasn’t a threat; it was practical thinking. That safe was red hot, because others had to know about Pecker’s rumoured Trump stash.
Reuters broke this story on May 7 2019:
Exclusive: Trump fixer Cohen says he helped Falwell handle racy photos
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Months before evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr.’s game-changing presidential endorsement of Donald Trump in 2016, Falwell asked Trump fixer Michael Cohen for a personal favor, Cohen said in a recorded conversation reviewed by Reuters.
This time, the recording was made by Cohen’s pal, actor Tom Arnold. In it, Michael Cohen explains that he had been enlisted by them to handle a delicate situation. To wit, they were being blackmailed by someone who had racy photographs of one or both of them. Knowing that Cohen (and Trump) knew how to deal with these things, they called him in to work out how much money was going to have to change hands to make it go away. Cohen met with a lawyer; they worked out a sum, and the photos were handed over.
But could it really have been so tidy? Falwell may have called in Cohen because he knew how to deal with these things, but — problematically — Michael Cohen knows how to deal with these things. Did Falwell seriously believe that he was in the clear?
That Reuters article contains a gigantic hint at where all this is leading.
The Falwells enlisted Cohen’s help in 2015, according to the source familiar with Cohen’s thinking, the year Trump announced his presidential candidacy. At the time, Cohen was Trump’s confidant and personal lawyer, and he worked for the Trump Organization.
The Falwells wanted to keep “a bunch of photographs, personal photographs” from becoming public, Cohen told Arnold. “I actually have one of the photos,” he said, without going into specifics. “It’s terrible.”
Cohen would later prove successful in another matter involving Falwell, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Cohen helped persuade Falwell to issue his endorsement of Trump’s presidential candidacy at a critical moment, they said: just before the Iowa caucuses. Falwell subsequently barnstormed with Trump and vouched for the candidate’s Christian virtues.
To sum up:
- the Falwells have some kinks
- they opened a hostel (bath?), and cheated one of their partners
- they sent a pro to tell said partner to fuck off
- partner hired his own pro, who filched Jerry’s dirty pics
- the Falwells hired Cohen to mediate the resulting blackmail
- Cohen did as he was asked, took his cut, but also saved something extra for a rainy day
- Cohen (Trump) called in a favour
- Falwell sold out millions of credulous useful idiots
- Cohen burned him, and through him, Trump; because fuck all of those guys
That’s my take. Even before publishing his book, Cohen has been dishing, albeit quietly. Where did that Reuters scoop come from? Chatter.
I know that this was a bit of a ramble. I plan to post more about the Haunting of America, and i may have stuffed a bit too much into this. I wanted to get it up before Maddow’s interview of Cohen. I’m hoping that this will come up.
If i’m correct, kudos to Michael Cohen, a former shitbag’s shitbag, for taking down another shitbag. Cohen maintains that he is friendly with the Falwells, but he appears to have decided that he must come clean, both about some of the bad things that he is done for that monster, but also about the rampant hypocrisy which surrounds him. Falwell’s downfall can hurt the Troll King himself, in his bid to stay out of reach of the Law. Cohen appears to have used his powers for good this time.
1. I’ve since backed away from my guess that the FBI scooped up the Pecker files when they tossed Cohen’s properties. But i stand by my contention that the recording that Cohen leaked was a conversation about Pecker’s Trump stash, not the MacDougall story.