This episode is brought to you by Hule. Between work deadlines and just living life, it can

be hard to prioritize healthy eating. What if you could have a meal in 30 seconds? Hule

is a convenient, nutritious meal in a shake. Just add water and you get a meal of 40g of

protein per serve, 400 calories and 26 vitamins and minerals. Visit Hule.com forward slash Spotify

to find out more.

The following content contains some explicit language that might not be suitable for children

or Mormons.

It's Wednesday, May 9, 2018 from Slated to the Gestime Mike Pascar. A note on the organization

of information. I hooked you with that one, huh? But I think we can all admit it's very

hard to know and to understand what Michael Cohen's LLC, Essential Consulting, actually did.

Didn't seem like consulting, but perhaps understanding the nature of the business is in fact

essential to untangling how Trump used or was used by Russian interests. But notice how I said

untangling. As a news creator, leaning on atmospheric nefariousness or the whiff of malfeasance,

it may make me feel like I don't know, Raymond Chandler over here. But as a news consumer,

it is frustrating. This week in the Times ran a huge story with this graph near the top.

New York Times review of thousands of pages of public records and interviews with bankers,

lawyers and businessmen who have interacted with Mr. Cohen reveal the degree to which he has

often operated in the backwaters of the financial and legal worlds. The back, that's not a real thing.

That's not to say that the guy's on the up and up, but is the water brackish because Cohen is

dirty or just because we can't see it. The title of that story was How Michael Cohen, Trump's fixer,

built a shadowy business empire, shadowy backwaters. You're this kind of phrasing from CNN.

We're learning more about this new twist, a dramatic twist in the Mueller investigation machine.

...