TRUMP: COHEN ADVANCES THE MUELLER NARRATIVE

While Donald Trump, the President of the United States of America was on the other side of the planet lauding and declaring his love for his newest best friend, Kim Jong Un, who was in fact a cruel brutal dictator guilty of mass murder and public executions, the House Oversight Committee, was recalling that Trump had threatened their witness, Michael Cohen, and his family thereby imperiling their safety. Cohen was interspersing this public hearing between two closed door meetings with the Intelligence Committees of both the Senate and the House.

Trump was left impotent as his former sycophantic ‘fixer’ was now in a position to help bring him down  - a situation that his newest best friend would allegedly resolve simply by killing Cohen - a risk, according to Oversight Chairman Cummings that Cohen now faced, in prison, since Trump had tweeted that he was a "rat which in mob terms is code for a snitch. 

The central message from the House Oversight Committee’s hearing was the fact that Donald Trump’s dire legal jeopardy was increased by his former confidant and lawyer. Cohen’s evidence was yet another nail in the Trump coffin which Mueller is so carefully crafting with the assistance of the Southern New York Attorney General’s Office. Jay H. Ell believes that everything that Cohen revealed in the dramatic hearing can be corroborated by the Federal prosecutors. Cohen was obviously carefully prepped for his public appearance. 

Overhanging the Trump Presidency is still the fact that to this day he has never acknowledged the most fundamental issue of this whole sordid episode, namely that Russia attacked American democracy. The POTUS’S only emphatic statement on the subject is his backing of Putin’s “strong” denial of Russia’s culpability at their joint press conference, following his one on one meeting with the Russian Premier, in Helsinki. 

THE DRAMA SURROUNDING COHEN’S TESTIMONY

The juxtaposition of the Trump and Cohen encounters was not lost on the witness who reported that the POTUS had confessed to him that he had dodged the draft in the Vietnam war and, ironically he had now returned to that country via Airforce One. Nor could the fact that the media was covering Cohen wall to wall and not the President, the world’s most famous reality star, have passed unnoticed by Trump. He will be furious when he learns that every TV in the WhiteHouse was full blast on the Congress hearing where his Administration was learning of the strong case the prosecutors must have on Trump and his close family.  

Cohen’s compelling and convincing character assassination of his former Boss as a racist, conman and a cheat was characterized by his respectful answers, studied understatement and admissions of what he had no knowledge off, thereby lending credibility to his testimony. What underscored Cohen’s reliability was the fact that he had everything to lose if he lied, the consequence being that he could increase his prison sentence. 

What every observer noted was that no GOP legislator questioned that Trump was responsible for any of the alleged criminal and anti social actions rather they simply attacked, sometimes childishly, Cohen as a convicted liar. What the GOP Trump apologists forgot was that several of Cohen’s lies were at Trump’s behest. Their behavior stood in stark contrast to the Republicans in the bipartisan Watergate hearings which was epitomized by Howard Baker, the Senate Republican Minority leader, who summarized Nixon’s possible culpability in a phrase, “What did the President know and when did he know it”. 

The Republican assault was skillfully parried by an ashamed Cohen who accepted his guilt and the resultant punishment. He then offered the Republican Congressmen some gratuitous advice informing them that he did, for ten years, what they were doing, namely blindly defending Trump, and that the outcome if they continued would be that they would land in the same mess that he was now in.

COHEN'S TESTIMONY OF TRUMP'S COLLUSION, THEREBY ADVANCING THE MUELLER MANDATE

As Jay H. Ell argued in his last blog, (TRUMP: THE ANATOMY OF SAVING THE REPUBLIC), that Mueller is slowly but surely leaking his report. The latest release being what he allowed Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer and “fixer” to relay to Congress. Ostensibly Cohen was not allowed to speak directly about the “Russian Investigation” but in fact he gave tantalizing evidence of Trump’s knowledge of “collusion” with Russia in addition to other crimes. 

Cohen’s public appearance followed his classified evidence to the Senate Intelligence Committee, the day before, which obviously included “Russia”. Senator Warner, the ranking Democratic member, commented after the classified Cohen meeting, that two years ago he maintained that the Russian Investigation would be the most important issue he would ever have to deal with and this had now been confirmed. 

It is important to note that Cohen’s testimony followed the bombshell revelations of the former Deputy FBI Director, Andrew McCabe, in interviews and best seller book, The Threat McCabe crucially reported that Trump believed Russia’s Putin over his whole intelligence establishment. For those with short memories McCabe’s divulgements were preceded by the indictments of The Donald's long time associate Roger Stone. Mueller’s prosecutors told the court that they had evidence of Stone’s conspiring with Wikileaks and Julian Assange. 

THE LEGAL JEOPARDY FACING TRUMP FOLLOWING THE COHEN TESTIMONY

Besides providing evidence that Trump Inc was a criminal enterprise similar to a Mob endeavor, there was verifiable evidence, backed by documents submitted by Cohen to the Committee as exhibits, that there was tax, insurance and bank fraud. Cohen also referenced that there were ongoing criminal investigations into Trump and his organization by the Southern District of New York Federal Office. Then there was incontrovertible evidence that Trump was guilty, as alleged, for campaign finance violations as outlined  in Cohen’s guilty plea and that he had instructed his former lawyer. Moreover Cohen provided documentary evidence of a cover up of this crime.

Then there was statements off suborning of perjury, (persuading a witness to lie), with regard to one of the possible motives for Trump’s alleged conspiracy with Russia. Cohen confessed that he had lied to the Senate Committee at Trump’s behest. The lies that he had pled guilty to in an indictment where the Prosecutors had implicated Trump as a "co - conspirator".  

Cohen disclosed that the negotiations with regard to the Moscow Trump Tower had concluded well after the nomination of The Donald as the Republican Presidential candidate, which was the narrative that Trump had publicly punted. Most disconcerting was the fact that Trump lawyers had edited Cohen’s statement to the Senate investigating committee in regard to the Moscow Trump Tower endeavor. This was one of the crimes that Cohen was going to jail for. Cohen alluded to six meetings he had with candidate Trump with regard to the progress of the Moscow Trump Tower project while Trump was ranting at his Nuremberg style rallies that he had no ongoing business with Russia.

Cohen confirmed the extensive relationship of Trump with a Felix Sater, a shady character with links to the Russian mafia. Trump had previously stated, under oath, that he wouldn’t even recognize Mr. Sater if he was sitting in the same room as him. The former Trump lawyer confirmed that Sater had an office next to Trump’s in the New York Trump Tower. It is on the record that Sater partnered Trump in a Trump Tower enterprise in Soho. He was also the go to man in the Moscow endeavor directly negotiating with the Putin administration and Russian banks. Sater was on record that the Moscow deal would get Trump elected President!.  He had business cards which indicated that he was a Senior Advisor to the Trump Organization. He was negotiating up until till the Presidential election. The significance of the Sater references, besides providing more evidence that Mr. Trump was a liar was establishing the Moscow Tower proposal as one of the possible motives for Trump’s alleged Russian “collusion”. 

Then there was the persuasive narrative that if proven would show that Trump was part of the Russian conspiracy against the USA. The former Consiglieri detailed a phone call from Roger Stone, who Trump put on speaker, where his long time confidant informed him that the Wikileaks founder had imparted to him when the dump of damaging Hillary Clinton’s e mails would take place. Trump had acknowledged the message with glee.

Less conclusive was Cohen’s connecting an overheard statement, by Donald Junior to the POTUS, on June 26, prior to the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians. Donald Junior had loudly whispered to his father that, the now infamous, meeting would take place. Although the date and circumstances of the confab between father and son were highly suspicious it is more than stretch to claim that was confirmative of a conspiracy with the Russians. The statement by Cohen that nothing happened within Trump’s orbit that Trump didn’t control may well be true but that doesn’t prove that he was fully apprized of the meeting with Russian operatives to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. Steve Bannon’s contention that there is no way that Donald Jnr. would not have colluded with his father on the treasonous meeting again is not going to persuade any jury that Trump Snr was implicated. However Jay H. Ell is more than convinced that there is other more substantial corroborative evidence of Cohen’s allegations. He believes that Cohen would have not have alluded to the event if Mueller did not have other ancillary affirmation that that Trump had afore knowledge. 

AT THE END OF THE DAY

There are a lot more shoes to drop in the criminal enterprise that represents Donald J. Trump Inc as well as his and his campaign’s involvement in conspiring with Russia against the USA. It still dosen't register with the POTUS what havoc the Democratic controlled Congress can wreek with their oversight hearings.

Watch this space as day by day the noose tightens around the POTUS. Some of the probes will be ongoing and will continue long past Trump is out of office.

Nothing Cohen said in the hearing will convince Trump’s base to abandon him. There needs to be more revelations in public that he and his campaign conspired with Russia. The irresponsible GOP legislators sticking with the POTUS reassure the faithful that these allegations, however well corroborated, are just part of the Dark State conspiracy against the President and that there is “no collusion”.

There will be a big fanfare as Trump hails his abortive summit in North Korea as a victory as he will the ultimate trade deal with China, whatever it turns about to be. 

What will begin to bite into the faithful’s unconditional loyalty will be the realization that his tax breaks to the rich didn’t include them as their refunds from the Internal Revenue Service don’t match last year’s. The Midwest that gave him his narrow victory have already flipped in the midterms when the factories never returned and the mines didn’t reopen. 

Trump is hanging in there in the hope that he cannot be impeached while the Republicans blindly back him and in the belief that he cannot be indicted while in office and that will last through a second term which still could happen if the Democrats put up someone who is totally unelectable. He will argue the principle better the devil you know…….