The Donald’s hell week
You can say this for President Donald Trump: When the raids on his attorney Michael Cohen’s house, hotel and office occurred, he knew it was trouble, as his slew of tweets at the time showed.
About four months after Cohen saw FBI agents cart out boxes of documents, he surrendered to the FBI and entered a plea deal in federal court to a total of eight counts, five for tax evasion, one for a false statement to a bank and two related to campaign-finance charges.
Most important, the plea states that Cohen, in committing the campaign-finance violations, acted at the behest of the “candidate.” There is only one candidate. The president of the United States has now been implicated in a federal crime by his longtime lawyer. Take that in.
Trump was right to be panicked back in April, and since then we’ve all learned of more damaging facts that Cohen may substantiate. Cohen is at the intersection of at least three possibly disastrous legal stories.
First, Cohen allegedly was involved in the payment of hush money to silence multiple women with whom Trump allegedly had extra-marital affairs. The political fallout will depend on how many women and the circumstances of those payments. The criminal liability here concerns violation of campaign-finance rules as part of a deliberate attempt to conceal large amounts of money from voters. Blaming Cohen exclusively will be hard for Trump to pull off, given the tape we already have heard. If there is other evidence documenting Trump’s involvement, his legal problem worsens.
Second, Cohen has been Trump’s “fixer” and dealmaker for years. He was at the center of the failed Trump Tower project in Russia and likely would have been privy to other Russia-related transactions, if any, over years. Trump has insisted the special counsel not go into his personal finances. The chances that special counsel Robert Mueller III and his team are doing just that and will continue digging with Cohen as a guide have gone up dramatically.
Third, Cohen may have plenty of other information relating to Trump campaign contacts with Russia and to Trump’s own efforts to conceal them and disable the investigation. Goodness knows what recordings, documents and firsthand recollections he may have.
Cohen matters because he may have critical information relating to all three of these evolving stories. Moreover, he cannot be written off as someone peripherally related to Trump. He cannot be written off as a coffee boy or as someone who went in and out of Trump’s orbit in a matter of weeks.
In short, Cohen’s plea is a crushing blow because he is the first cooperating witness that could implicate Trump directly in all three matters—the women and campaign money, Trump’s business dealings, and the Trump campaign’s Russia connections.
Buckle up. Trump now goes from the frying pan into the fire.