Trump decries 'flipping'by his former attorney
‘It almost ought to be illegal,’ president says in interview.
President WASHINGTON —
Donald Trump said he was not surprised that his onetime lawyer and fixer cooperated with prosecutors in exchange for a lesser punishment “It’s called ‘flip-
— ping,’ and it almost ought to be illegal,” he said.
Trump said the years in prison facing his longtime attorney, Michael Cohen, for bank fraud were too daunt- ing, and “in all fairness to him, most people are going to do that.”
“I know all about flipping. For 30, 40 years I have been watching flippers,” Trump said Wednesday during an interview with “Fox & Friends” that aired Thursday.
Then Trump referred to Cohen’s case. “But if you can say something bad about Donald Trump and you will go down to two years or three years, which is the deal he made, in all fairness to him, most people are going to do that. And I have seen it many times. I have had many friends involved in this stuff.”
The president’s professed experience with “flippers” illustrates his views on law and loyalty and helps to explain his opposing reactions to two men who are guilty of defrauding the federal government.
The president’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who was just convicted of tax and bank fraud, was “brave,” because he chose to go to trial instead of cooperating with the government. And Cohen, who was once so loyal to the pres- ident that he said he would take a bullet for him, was a bad lawyer who broke under pressure, in Trump’s view.
“It’s called flipping, and it almost ought to be ille- gal,” Trump said of Cohen’s deal with the government. And the campaign finance crimes Cohen pleaded guilty to are “tiny ones,” or “not even crimes,” according to Trump.
It was the latest swipe at the U.S. justice system, which the president has previously disparaged and scolded for being unfair, most notably in continuing the investigation into Russia’s interfer- ence in the 2016 election and whether Moscow was coordinating with any Trump campaign aides.
In the predawn hours Thursday, the president tweeted, “NO COLLUSION — RIGGED WITCH HUNT!”
Flipping, or striking a plea bargain with prosecutors, is one of the most commonly used tactics in the federal justice system.
Matt Axelrod, a former federal prosecutor who is currently practicing as a white collar defense attorney at Linklaters Law Firm, called it a “fundamental building block” of federal prosecu- tions.
“Prosecutors use cooperators to work their way up the organizational hierar- chy,” Axelrod said. “With- out cooperators, prosecu- tors are often left with a case against just the worker bees, not the bosses.”