1/10/19: Mark your calendars. Set your alarm. Schedule a day of vacation. Shit’s about to get real.
Donald Trump’s former fixer and longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, has agreed to testify voluntarily, under oath, before the House Oversight Committee. Cohen, who will appear on February 7, has already pled guilty to lying to Congress in a previous session. He will return knowing he’s headed to jail in March.
Here we should briefly note: If this were North Korea under
Kim Jong-un or Iraq under Saddam or Russia under Putin, Cohen would be dead.
This might explain why President Trump is always eager to praise authoritarian rulers. You figure he’s
jealous of the powers they possess.
What does Trump have to fear if his former fixer spills six cans of beans? First, Cohen has tapes of conversations (a lawyer may legally tape a client without consent in the State of New York). Second, we know investigators in the Southern District of New York seized hundreds of thousands of pages of documents in raids on Cohen’s home, office, and safe deposit box. Third, Cohen knows where the financial bodies are buried. He can testify about hush money payments during the 2016 campaign and how Trump wanted those payments made, about the secret company they set up, and the documents filled with pseudonyms they used.
____________________
Trump
didn’t come forward to correct his fixer.
____________________
Even more damaging, we know Cohen lied about efforts to pursue a mega-million-dollar deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. When collusion was nothing more than a glimmer in James Comey’s eye, Cohen had already started lying, insisting negotiations for a Moscow deal ended in January 2016.
Trump didn’t come forward to correct his fixer – when it
would have been easy. He insisted he had no dealings in Russia. He wouldn’t
think of having such dealings because – well – that would be a conflict of interest for a person running for president.
(You can have fun and go back and listen to the “Fake News” story from CNN, which we now
know was accurate and non-fake). Today we find that Cohen and the president’s
current lawyer, Horndog Rudy, agree. Negotiations were continuing right up till Election Day and the payoff could
have been huge. Cohen once predicted the deal could be worth “hundreds of
millions” for Mr. Trump.
So: What potential torpedoes can Cohen put through the hull of the U.S.S. Trump?
Cohen admits he lied to Congress. Trump surrogates will be going all out, claiming we can’t believe Cohen, because he’s an admitted liar. But what if Cohen can prove he lied to Congress because Trump ordered him to? That’s a torpedo to the boiler room, right there.
Cohen has hinted that he knows about a planning meeting, prior to the secret Trump Tower New York meeting with Russians, and that Candidate Trump knew all about that earlier meeting. If he can prove that Trump lied again that’s a torpedo that blows off the ship’s rudder.
Cohen can sink the U.S.S. Trump once and for all, with a shot to the bow, if he reveals tax evasion by Candidate Trump.
How scared is the president? This week we learn that the White House has hired 17 new lawyers to guard Mr. Trump.
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