On the Avenatti bombshell, there's a couple of interesting points. First, Novartis and AT&T have both confirmed payments to Cohen, with Novartis' being structured in a particularly suspicious manner - as if they were concerned that $100,000 would trigger some sort of flag either internally or with regulatory agencies, so making it 99,980 would somehow skirt that. Both companies obviously had interest in access to Trump - Novartis' CEO dined with Trump not long after the final payment, whilst AT&T has a merger they want approved and net neutrality they wanted axed. Drain the swamp indeed!
The thing that gets my spider senses going, though, is the money funneled from the company that's affiliated with the Russian oligarch. I get the sense that the reporting on this is probably going to be correct that it's a big deal, but not for the reasons they'll think. Let's remember the Cohen investigation got referred to SDNY rather than remaining inside the Special Prosecutor's purview, which would be pretty shocking if there was a link here between Russia and Cohen. But let's also remember that Cohen's been tied in with Russia all his life, and he's pretty much a petty gangster wannabe who's probably money laundering. The Russia link is probably personal. And of course, this might be something useful to get him to flip, especially since he hasn't actually been indicted yet - or at least, one hasn't been unveiled yet.
But I think the real worry for Trump et al is precisely that this was referred to SDNY as not being part of the SC's mandate. If they're investigating Russia's meddling, and they have payments funneled through a company affiliated with the Russian oligarch that's now sanctioned, and those happened this soon after the election, they must be extremely tight about what they consider to be election related. And if they're that tight and they're keeping the Manafort case, my wild speculation is they have another sealed indictment that is going to make everything else look like jaywalking.