Growing evidence of traitor & crook
Behind the hype and circus-like atmosphere surrounding Michael Cohen’s testimony before Congress, there are actually some important pieces of evidence that have now been added to a growing mountain of evidence that Trump participated in a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy with Russian operatives to influence the 2016 presidential election.
In addition to all of the evidence supporting the special counsel’s indictment of Roger Stone, we now have Cohen’s sworn corroborating testimony that, in July 2016, just days before the Democratic convention, Cohen was in Trump’s office when Stone informed Trump on the speakerphone “that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign.” Cohen further testified that Trump responded: “Wouldn’t that be great.”
Trump’s gleeful enthusiasm upon receiving word from Stone that Russia and WikiLeaks were about to unleash another data dump on the Clinton campaign echoes the email that Don Jr. sent prior to the infamous June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting with Russian operatives offering “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. “I love it!” exclaimed Don Jr.
In other words, as of July 2016, Trump well knew that WikiLeaks was, for all intents and purposes, an arm and agent of President Vladimir Putin and Russian intelligence, and nevertheless encouraged and welcomed the criminal interference in the U.S. elections by the Russians and their front organization.
Cohen’s testimony thus adds further clarity to the inescapable conclusion that Trump was closely coordinating the efforts of numerous campaign operatives — including Stone, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Carter Page, George Papadopolous and Don Jr. — to give aid and comfort to a foreign adversary and enemy of the United States that was intent on attacking our democratic and electoral processes during the 2016 election, and succeeded in achieving that objective with Trump’s help beyond its wildest imagination. Steve Bannon and others close to Trump have already weighed in with the opinion that there was “zero” chance of Trump not knowing about the highlevel June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower arranged by Don Jr., so Cohen’s additional evidence suggesting that Don Jr. gave his dad progress reports regarding the planning for this meeting has the distinct ring of truth about it.
Cohen’s testimony is also valuable in that it provides further evidence of Trump’s direct participation and direction of Cohen’s campaign finance law violations. In particular, the reimbursement checks that Trump gave to Cohen in 2017 while Trump was a sitting President provides further evidence that Trump — who is the “Individual 1” described in the Cohen indictment — is as guilty as Cohen in violating the campaign finance laws. When Trump urged Cohen to use his own equity line of credit to pay hush money to the two women that Trump wished to silence, at least until after the 2016 election was over, his clear intention was to influence the election without publicly reporting the payments as campaign contributions.
In other words, Cohen’s testimony and evidence adds to the increasingly clear portrait of a sitting President who is both a criminal and a traitor. The major question that remains is what are we going to do about it. Are we going to give a free pass to a President whose campaign conspired with a foreign hostile power to throw a presidential election his way, then used the Oval Office to give reimbursement checks to his personal fixer after he violated federal campaign finance laws?