Cohen, Trump’s ex-fixer, deserves more prison time
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Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, is a lucky man. He’s only going to prison for three years. He deserved a lot more.
At his sentencing hearing, Cohen tried to paint himself as a victim. He was just an honest lawyer who made the mistake of going to work for the wrong man. Baloney!
Cohen knew what he was doing. He knew Trump had a sleazy reputation. He went to work for him anyway, and then stayed 12 years, proudly serving as Trump’s “fixer,” doing his dirty work in both his business and personal life.
As early as 2011, Cohen bragged: “They say I’m Mr. Trump’s pit bull, that I’m his right-hand man . ... What I am is a loyal employee. I like the man. A lot.”
Seven years later, once Trump was in the White House, Cohen told reporters: “I will do anything to protect Mr. Trump. I’m the guy who would take a bullet for the president. I’d never walk away.”
Bet on it.
Cohen would still be defending Donald Trump if the feds had not caught him red-handed.
In August, he pleaded guilty to eight criminal counts, including tax fraud, making false statements to a bank and breaking campaign finance laws with two illegal payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. He then announced he would cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller and the U.S. attorney of Southern New York.
In late November, Cohen also admitted to lying to Congress about his, and Donald Trump’s, personal involvement in negotiations with Kremlin officials about construction of a new Trump Tower in Moscow.
On Wednesday, a federal judge lowered the boom, rejecting Cohen’s claim of victimhood, accusing him of “a veritable smorgasbord of fraudulent conduct,” sentencing him to three years in federal prison, starting March 6, and ordering him to pay more than $2 million in fines.
In case you’re keeping score, Cohen’s the fourth person in the ongoing investigations of President Trump to be sentenced to prison, joining Richard Pineda, George Papadopoulos and Alex van der Zwaan. And he’s the seventh to plead guilty.
But — and this is an important “but” — Cohen’s the first to plead guilty to a charge directly related to Trump.
The real significance of the prosecution’s case is not what it says about Cohen, but what it says about his boss.
Yes, it was Cohen who arranged two payments —
$130,000 in hush money to Stormy Daniels, $150,000 to Karen McDougal not to talk about their affairs with Trump, which, because they were made to help Trump’s campaign and not reported to election officials, were illegal — but, according to the U.S. attorney, Cohen was ordered to make those payments by “Individual Number 1,” namely Donald Trump.
Which means, by law, that Donald Trump is as guilty as Michael Cohen.
Don’t take it from me. Take it from Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano, who told radio talk show host Tom Shillue this week: “If you hire me to shoot somebody, and I shoot them, under the law, you are as liable as if you pulled the trigger.”
Not only that, federal prosecutors also announced last week that they struck a non-prosecution agreement with American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer, which funneled the money to McDougal. Even though he’d earlier denied it, as part of the agreement, AMI Chairman David Pecker now admits he agreed to pay off McDougal in coordination with Cohen and the Trump campaign for the express purpose of preventing her claim of an affair from surfacing during the 2016 campaign.
Another former Trump ally abandons the sinking ship.
All of which adds up to ominous news for President Trump, who has now joined ranks with Richard Nixon.
Like Nixon, according to federal prosecutors, Trump is an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the commission of at least two crimes. Were he not president of the United States, he, too, would have been charged and might even be facing prison time today.
And that raises the most important question of all, which nobody else is asking, so I will. If Donald Trump is guilty, if he won the White House as a result of committing illegal acts, does that make his entire presidency illegitimate?
Just asking.
Tribune Content Agency