Cohen on Trump Hush Money, Moscow Plans and Wikileaks

Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney and “fixer” Michael Cohen testified Wednesday before Congress about hush payments to alleged former lovers of the president and a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, and said Trump knew in advance about a WikiLeaks document dump that damaged his opponent Hillary Clinton.

Here is where Cohen and his former boss stand on the three key issues:

In April 2018, reporters asked Trump on board Air Force One if he knew about $130,000 in payments made before the 2016 election to former porn actress Stormy Daniels, to keep her quiet about an alleged affair.

Trump denied any knowledge of the payments, and suggested reporters ask Cohen — then still his lawyer — about it. Trump later changed his account, admitting he reimbursed Cohen for the payments but that they were a “private transaction” unrelated to his campaign.

Cohen was sentenced in December to three years in jail for crimes that included violating campaign finance laws via the hush payments made to Daniels and a former Playboy model. Testifying to the House Oversight Committee Wednesday, Cohen submitted a copy of a check issued from Trump’s personal account — after he took office  — “to reimburse me for the hush money payments I made to cover up his affair with an adult film star and prevent damage to his campaign.”

“The President of the United States thus wrote a personal check for the payment of hush money as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws,” Cohen stated. Cohen said the reimbursements were deliberately spread out over 12 months to make them “look like a retainer.”

Cohen has also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress when he previously claimed negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow had ended in January of 2016. He later admitted they continued into June 2016, after Trump had become the Republican White House nominee.  “To be clear: Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it,” Cohen told Wednesday’s hearing. Cohen asserted that personal lawyers for Trump reviewed his testimony to Congress in which he lied about the deal.

Trump has repeatedly argued Russia had no sway over him because he had no business dealings there, as he seeks to deflect suggestions his campaign colluded with Russian meddling in the 2016 election.  After Cohen changed his story, Trump acknowledged his right-hand man had pursued a deal with the Russians well into 2016, but insisted there was nothing wrong with seeking business opportunities while running for office.

Court filings have since revealed that negotiations continued even longer than Cohen had admitted, through October or even November 2016.

Cohen testified Wednesday that Trump knew in advance — and welcomed the news — that WikiLeaks planned to release a trove of sensitive emails hacked from Democratic Party computers by Russian agents.

Cohen said that in July 2016 he heard a phone conversation in which Roger Stone, another long-term associate of the president charged with lying to Congress and witness tampering, had told Trump that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had promised the document dump. According to Cohen, Trump answered “to the effect of ‘wouldn’t that be great.'”

Cohen also said he believed Trump had prior knowledge of a June 2016 meeting between his son Donald Jr, campaign officials and a Russian lawyer peddling “dirt” on Clinton. This was based on him seeing Donald Jr inform his father, at around that time, “The meeting is all set.”

“Mr. Trump had frequently told me and others that his son Don Jr. had the worst judgment of anyone in the world,” Cohen said — adding that “Don Jr. would never set up any meeting of any significance alone and certainly not without checking with his father.” Trump has denied any knowledge of the Trump Tower meeting, or that he discussed the WikiLeaks release with Stone.

source: usa.inquirer.net

Top US bank sets up BPO in the Philippines

Despite moves by US President Barack Obama and the United States Congress to discourage outsourcing, one of the biggest US banks has decided to locate some of its non-core business support activities in the Philippines.

Wells Fargo & Co., the second largest US bank in deposits, home mortgage servicing and debit cards with $1.3 trillion in assets, is setting up a business support center in Manila as the country’s booming business process outsourcing (BPO) industry is projected to produce more than 120,000 new jobs this year.

Company officials did not disclose the value of the investment neither the number of BPO workers the operations would employ.

“We selected the Philippines to be part of Wells Fargo’s international footprint based on the country’s reputation for strong customer service, a large English-speaking population and a cultural affinity to the United States,” said David Caldwell, managing director of Wells Fargo Philippines Solutions, the local subsidiary of the US banking giant.

The new investment is also good news for property developer Megaworld Corp. on whose McKinley Hill Cyberpark project will rise a new building to serve the outsourcing needs of the US banking giant.

“Our location in McKinley Hill gives us a strong foothold as we are among our peers in the industry,” Caldwell said.

Wells Fargo joins other high-profile BPO locators at the 14-hectare McKinley Hill Cyberpark, including Accenture, HP and Thomson Reuters.

Wells Fargo Philippines Solutions already occupies two floors of buildings 8 and 10 Upper McKinley Road, and it will also lease a campus-type building currently being constructed in McKinley Hill Cyberpark.

PH reputation enhanced

The US bank’s launch of an in-house business support center here was welcomed by labor leader and former Sen. Ernesto Herrera, saying it has reinforced the Philippines’ reputation as “an exceptional global hub for labor-intensive and information technology-enabled outsourcing services.”

“We are counting on Wells Fargo’s new center to help provide gainful employment to our college-educated, fluent English-speaking professionals, many of whom remain idle,” said Herrera.

Variety of functions

He said Wells Fargo’s new Philippine center deals with a variety of functions, including customer service and back office support.

Herrera, who is locked in a struggle for leadership of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), said his labor group’s new members include VOICE, a labor federation of contact center employees.

According to Herrera, the country’s booming BPO industry, which fully employs some 630,000 Filipinos, produced $11 billion in revenues in 2011.

The Business Processing Association of the Philippines sees industry revenues jumping 18 percent to $13 billion this year, he said.

Based on the projected incremental revenues of $2 billion, Herrera said the industry could create around 126,000 new jobs this year.

Worries over US bill

According to Herrera, Wells Fargo’s decision to shift more jobs offshore comes amid worries in the Philippines over an anti-outsourcing bill in the US Congress.

Herrera said the proposed US Call Center and Consumer Protection Act, introduced by New York Rep. Tim Bishop, would require the US Department of Labor to track firms that shift contact center jobs overseas. Those firms would be ineligible for any direct or indirect US federal loans or loan guarantees for five years.

Boost for cyberpark

The bill would also require contact center staff to disclose their location to US consumers, who would be given the right to be routed to a US-based call hub upon request, Herrera said.

However, Herrera said he does not expect the US Congress to pass the bill, which he said is being opposed by US corporations that are benefiting from outsourcing.

Megaworld said the entry of Wells Fargo was a big boost to the McKinley Hill Cyberpark, which is on a rapid expansion mode, with the ongoing construction of the four-tower Science Hub beside the Venice Piazza commercial and retail area.

As an IT park accredited by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority, McKinley Hill Cyberpark offers locators income tax holidays and other perks, including the duty-free importation of office equipment.

“We are proud that one of the United States’ top four banks, Wells Fargo, has chosen McKinley Hill Cyberpark to set up their new Philippine service center,” said Jericho Go, Megaworld’s first vice president for business development.

“This move highlights the attractiveness of the Philippines as an investment destination and its human resource capabilities,” Go said.

One of US Big 4

Founded in 1929, the San Francisco, California-based Wells Fargo is one of the so-called Big 4 US banks regarded as “too big to fail” at the height of the 2008 global financial crisis. The three others are Bank of America, Citigroup and JP Morgan.

JP Morgan and Citigroup have long existing in-house back offices in Manila through JP Morgan Chase Bank N.A. Philippine Customer Care Center and Citigroup Business Process Solutions Pte. Ltd.

Bigger franchise

Although Bank of America does not yet have in-house back offices here, Herrera said the Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender is known to have outsourced some of its customer support activities to an independent BPO provider with extensive Philippine operations.

Wells Fargo is emerging from the 2008 financial crisis with a bigger franchise, after it acquired rival banking giant Wachovia Corp., which had been weakened by mounting bad loans, Herrera said.

A highly diversified financial services company with more than 80 different business lines, Wells Fargo has 6,335 branches, 12,094 ATMs, 70 million customers and 264,000 employees, he said.

source: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/159323/top-us-bank-sets-up-bpo-in-the-philippines