COHEN BOMBSHELL - WHITAKER TOO LATE TO SAVE TRUMP

The POTUS with his customary lack of subtlety believed he had put into place his antidote to “that Russia thing” by firing his Attorney General and replacing him with a hack legal nonentity whose only qualifications were that he agreed that the Russia probe was a “witch hunt” and “crooked Hillary” should be behind bars. The new nominee, filled the shoes of a consiglieri that Trump, like every mob boss, always appoints to cover his back. The trouble was that Mathew Whitaker’s appointment was far too little too late. The dye had already been caste.

Following Trump’s submission of answers to the Special Counsel’s interrogatory questions, the latter let loose with a series of revelations. First he showed some of his hand by directly linking Roger Stone, a long time ally of the President’s, and his side kick, Jerome Corsi, to Wikileaks and the Russian hacked documents. (There is evidence that Stone and Trump were in constant contact in the campaign). Then followed the thunderbolt with the Cohen plea and submissions that Trump was involved in business negotiations with Russia and Putin’s office during the Presidential election. In addition the simultaneous raids of Deutsche Bank, that financed Trump to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars and laundered money from a Russian bank run by a Putin oligarch could not have been just be a coincidence.

What has to terrify Trump and his family was not what was in the court documents of the court proceedings but what Mueller had to back the assertions up. Trump’s lame rejoiner that Cohen is a liar and that even he did negotiate it wasn’t a crime, is just not going to cut it. Also there are the indictments at least of Stone and Corsi to follow as well as the family members that have not yet been interviewed which is customary with targets. 

Finally, Trump faces the fact that the House of Representatives is now in control of the Democrats that have promised to investigate Trump, his administration and business interests. Then there are all the legal challenges that Trump and his organization face at the moment. Just too many moving parts even for this unparalleled operator. 

WHITAKER FOLLOWS A LINE OF TOUGH CUSTOMERS

Trump’s first consiglieri was the notorious sidekick to Joe McCarthy, that iconic distorter of reality and ruiner of lives and careers by asserting guilt by association, Roy Cohn. Then came the tough Michael Cohen who from early on had connections with fringes of the law. Maybe Michael learned from his near namesake Cohn, who when he needed a favor from Trump, was rejected. Cohn summed up his former boss in a few words, “Donald pisses ice water”. Michael, in spite of his public protestations of loyalty, “I would take a bullet for Trump” must have seen the Geico ad and took insurance instead. There were tapes and troves of documents so when it hit the fan and Trump had already dumped him, as now he was President, our boy from Long Island New York had his Damascus moment and decided to come clean for family and country. 

Cohen’s successor, Whitaker, who is just a half-baked fraud artist, is out of his league and if he has any sense he would bail out now before he obstructs justice and joins the close on forty indictments that have emanated from  Mueller’s “witch hunt”. 

Apparently Whitaker was informed as to what was going to transpire in the Southern District of New York’s Federal Court. Understandably he did nothing about it.

DONALD TRUMP VERSUS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Donald J. Trump who with videotaped interviews and campaign appearances backed by a slew of non stop tweets followed by a succession of actions is already guilty of obstruction of justice. Unlike with Nixon the Special Counsel does not need to subpoena the smoking gun tapes Trump produces the evidence in plain sight. He has made it quite clear that he wanted to stop the Mueller investigation because of the Russian thing. In case there is any doubt of his intent and that his words and actions were his First Amendment expressions, the WhiteHouse Counsel McGahn, who was interviewed by Mueller’s team for ever, stopped him from firing Mueller by threatening to resign if he did. 

It is also salutary to be reminded that one of the articles of impeachment of Richard Nixon was lying to the American people.  Trump has executed close on five thousand “lies” in less than six hundred days.

 The Donald is now being swamped with evidence of “collusion” with Russia. “No collusion” he defiantly screams and angrily tweets in capitols. He is right in a way the legal term is conspiracy. If the revelation of the Trump Tower meeting was the beginning of the end the Cohen plea and revelations herald the end. And then there is so much in between. From now on it is rapidly downhill. 

The grudging implicit concession that Trump has now made to reality is that Russia hacked the election. The latter in spite of publicly belittling his whole intelligence establishment that he believed Putin, “who strongly denied” that Russia was involved.  Sarah Sanders, his intrepid Press Secretary, announced that the POTUS had not colluded. No longer is she denying that there was "no collusion", period, rather that Trump hadn’t. 

So Trump holds his breath while he awaits whether or not the second shoe will drop. This will be along the lines that he was involved in a conspiracy with a foreign country in order to subvert the democratic process in the United States of America and that he had a business motive to conspire with the Russians to become President.

THE CIRCUMSTANTIAL AND OTHER EVIDENCE OF A CONSPIRACY BETWEEN TRUMP AND HIS CAMPAIGN WITH AN ADVERSiRIAL FOREIGN POWER TO IMPACT THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

• The 2016 Presidential election took place in a circumstance that Russian economy was severely compromised as a result of sanctions put into place by the Obama administration. 
• Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent, was seen by Russia as a candidate that would continue this strangulating policy.
• Donald Trump, by contrast, as he indicated in the Presidential campaign, was very supportive of Vladimir Putin and for cooperation with Russia. At the same time he stated that he had no business interests with Russia.
• Throughout the presidential campaign and in the transition period members of the Trump team had contact with the Russians and sanctions relief was discussed. This included discussions with Wikileaks who strategically dumped the Russian hacked e mails when Trump was under heavy pressure with the Access Hollywood tapes.
• The only change the Trump team insisted on in the Republican Policy Election Platform was that the strong sanctions against Russia would be scaled down.
• During the Presidential campaign Trump pursued his largest monetary prize, a Trump Tower in Moscow. It was even mooted that Putin would be given the $50 million penthouse. Several books have detailed Trump’s long business relationship with Russians. These books include The House of Trump and The House of Putin and Russian Roulette.
• It is incontrovertible that Russia intervened in the Presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. It has been even alleged by former CIA Director John Brennon that the Russian sophisticated hacking, propaganda to target audiences and the Wikileaks release of e mails was directly responsible for Trump’s minority victory.  Trump's ascendancy to the Presidency was effected  only by a total of seventy thousand votes in three states.
• In the campaign Trump made public appeals for assistance from Russia.
• Following his election Trump made it quite clear that he didn’t want the Intelligence finding that Russia had intervened in the election pursued. To this end he pressured then fired FBI Director Comey and admitted both on American TV and to the Russian Ambassador that this was in order to terminate the investigation. 
• In the Mueller probe, which was instigated by his Deputy Attorney General, there have been indictments that have proved that the Russians did the hacking, that there was Trump campaign contact with the Russians during the elections and sanctions were discussed and that Trump had a conflict of interest in that he desired to erect an apartment building in Moscow. 
• Mueller has several cooperating witnesses, either under indictment or not, that have appeared before him and or the Grand Jury. These include, Trump's campaign manager and his deputy, his national security advisor, his chief advisor, (Bannon), the Chief Finance Officer of the Trump Organization, his former lawyer, his American/Russian business partner, Felix Sater who worked with Cohen on the Trump Tower Moscow deal, the WhiteHouse Counsel, as well as a host of other characters. 
• There is a fear in the Republican camp that however broadly Trump’s  lawyers answered Mueller’s questions they could have exposed him to perjury in the light of the developments. 

THE IMMEDIATE REPUBLICAN RESPONSE

The Republicans were generally stunned into silence but the results of the midterms with its rejection of Trumpism had already had had its impact. The Republican Senate, which due to the circumstances of the election had suffered no damage, revolted against the POTUS. Sixteen Republican Senators voted with the Democrats to withdraw support for the Saudi Arabian genocidal war in Yemen. One of the motivations for this vote was articulated by Trump lapdog, Senator Lindsey Graham, who maintained that he “was pissed” at Trump’s obsequious acceptance that the Saudi Price was not involved in the murder of Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.

The nearest the body politic could learn what Trump’s supporters believed was on Fox News. In general the channel trumpeted their fearless leader’s mantra - Cohen was a liar trying to save his own skin. Once again it was their conservative judicial correspondent, Judge Napolitano, who brought them down to earth. Cohen, the Judge explained lied to help the President which leads one to ask why? Also Fox and Friends were educated to the fact that Mueller would have corroboratory evidence and that there was more to follow.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

Mathew Whitaker whom Trump appointed to end the Russian investigation seems to be paralyzed in inaction. Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, up to time of going into print. is still in control of the Mueller probe.

The ball is in the Republican Congressional legislators court. They need to get on the right side of history to avoid further damage to what is left of their brand. 

There are still revelations to come that will rock the nation. For example how much money did Russia launder during the campaign to Trump interests? 

The Democrats have control of the House and all the investigatory powers necessary to publicly investigate Trump up the ying yang. 

At the end of the day one cannot imagine that Trump is going to be able to see his term out. At the same time The Donald is not going to fade away and die. Maybe he will go ballistic and fire Mueller himself! If not now perhaps when he indicts one of the kinderle.