Danielle McLaughlin
Donald Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen found his way into the news again this week, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that at Trump’s behest, Cohen paid an IT consultant to rig a handful of online polls in his boss’s favour.
One poll in 2014 ranked the country’s top business leaders. The other, in 2015, ranked Republican candidates for president. Then a private citizen, Trump ostensibly wanted to boost his profile.
The story verges on parody. Cohen paid the consultant with cash stuffed into Walmart bags. He threw in a pair of mixed martial arts gloves for good measure.
Trump fared badly in both polls. Nobody believes online polls anyway. This was the ‘‘online polling version’’ of Trump’s fake Time magazine covers. And about as effective.
That said, the poll-rigging is another data point in a continuum of bad faith behaviour by the now-president. Racist rental practices in the 1970s; stiffing contractors at his Atlantic City casinos; Trump University; the Stormy Daniels fiasco; and this week, news on presidential impropriety.
Trump reportedly tried to confiscate his translator’s notes in order to keep the content of conversations with Vladimir Putin secret from senior national security advisers. Also, after meeting with Putin in July 2017, the president called David Sanger of the New York Times to convince him that Russia really didn’t meddle in the 2016 general election.
Finally, and most explosively, is Buzzfeed’s reporting that Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress about the Moscow Trump Tower Project. If it’s true – and yesterday Robert Mueller’s office was saying Buzzfeed’s ‘‘characterisation of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony’’ was ‘‘not accurate’’ – then the President suborned perjury – persuaded someon to commit such an offence – and obstructed justice while in office. Which is a federal crime.
Buried in the Journal story was a delightful factoid that Cohen paid the same consultant to start and run a Twitter handle entitled @WomenForCohen, to boost his own profile.
The handle describes itself as ‘‘Women who love and support Michael Cohen. Strong, pit bull (sic), sex symbol, no nonsense, business oriented, and ready to make a difference’’. The profile has gained just over 1000 followers since May 2016, and is still live.
It’s a hilarious stream of superlatives, variously characterising Cohen as ‘‘sexy as hell’’, ‘‘Very Alpha’’, ‘‘snazzy’’, and a ‘‘handsome’’ man who ‘‘love[s]’’ his country. It appears Cohen and his consultants had determined that these were the qualities that supportive women would identify in him.
The characteristics defining ‘‘masculinity’’ in @WomenForCohen stand in stark contrast to the latest Gillette commercial, which has replaced after 30 years its catchline ‘‘the best a man can get’’ with the far more PC but less poetic ‘‘the best a man can be’’. This week, a furore broke out in the US, with conservative commentators bashing the company for playing identity politics.
Focused on questioning the ‘‘boys will be boys’’ mentality in the age of #MeToo, the ad suggests that boys learn to be men by watching adults’ behaviour. And that raising men who don’t bully, and who treat women equally, starts with modelling that behaviour to them.
Although critics like the curmudgeonly Piers Morgan slammed Gillette for ‘‘virtue signalling’’, it is hard to argue with the message that grown-ups have to lead by example if their kids are to grow up with a value system and moral compass.
Which leads us back to the president. Despite his protestations over these past years that he has nothing to do with Russia, evidence is emerging that Trump continued to negotiate the building of a Trump Tower in Moscow well into 2016, and that in order to cover his Russian contacts up, he directed people to lie about it.
Cohen has admitted doing just that. But there are likely other people in Trump world, including – perhaps – his son Donald Trump Jr., who may also have perjured themselves to cover up Russia contacts.
Learning by example, indeed. Makes me think Gillette has it spot on.
Danielle McLaughlin is the Sunday Star-Times’ US correspondent. She is a lawyer, author, and political and legal commentator, appearing frequently on US and New Zealand TV and radio. She is also an ambassador for #ChampionWomen, whose aim is to encourage respectful, diverse, and thoughtful conversations. Follow Danielle on Twitter at @MsDMcLaughlin.