Will Cohen Flip?
Many of President Trump’s friends are said to be worried that his personal attorney-fixer-bagman Michael Cohen will turn on him and cooperate with the feds in order to avoid jail time.
It’s a legitimate worry considering that loyalty is a one-way street in Turmpville.
Cohen has been under criminal investigation and surveillance by the FBI and federal prosecutors for several months, which means they’re reading his emails and listening to his phone calls.
Cohen is expected to be indicted, according to numerous media reports. The Feds will try to flip him, telling him he can avoid jail time if he cooperates, but he has a “get out of jail free” card that Trump flashed loud and clear last week when he pardoned convicted liar and leaker Scooter Libby, former Vice President Dick Cheney’s faithful retainer.
Cohen was at the center of payoffs to a porn star and Playboy model who had sexual affairs with Trump shortly after his third wife Melania gave birth to their son Baron. Both lawyer and client claim Trump knew nothing about the arrangements, but more details are likely to come out since Cohen dropped his lawsuit against former Playmate model Karen McDougal.
Trump denies the affairs and the payoffs, however opinion polls consistently show more people believe the accounts of the playmate and the porn star than of the president of the United States.
Meanwhile, the White House is trying to distance itself from Cohen, reports Politico, with White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders dismissively telling reporters that Trump has many lawyers.
Trump is having trouble hiring lawyers to work on his Mueller investigation
The lawyers Trump is most worried about are working for Robert Mueller in the special counsel’s investigation. Many claim conflicts of interest with other clients, but the buzz around Washington is they don’t want to be tainted defending Trump and, maybe more accurately, he has a longstanding reputation as a deadbeat who brags about stiffing people he owes money to.
That may help explain former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s announcement Thursday that he is joining Trump’s legal team to “negotiate an end” to the Mueller probe.
It’s no secret that Trump has repeatedly expressed a desire to fire Mueller, so a bipartisan group of senators are pushing legislation to protect the special counsel as well as Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Bipartisan sponsors of the Special Council Independence and Integrity Act include Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.).
But Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told Fox News that the legislation is unnecessary and he won’t permit it to come to the floor.
“I’m the one who decides what we take to the floor. That’s my responsibility as the majority leader. And we will not be having this on the floor of the Senate,” McConnell (R-Ky.) told Fox News’s Neil Cavuto, the Washington Post reported
McConnell has said it would be futile to pass such a bill because Trump would only veto it, but that doesn’t lessen the importance of a vote by the majority of the Congress telling the president not to fire Mueller. Better to speak up now rather than when it is too late. Worse, McConnell is telling Trump he doesn’t have to worry about Congress getting in his way.
Could it be one reason McConnell is so determined to help Trump keep his job because he wants his wife, Elaine Chao, the secretary of transportation, to keep hers?
