Michael Cohen Can’t Stop Blabbing to Mueller, Which Seems Bad for Donald Trump
Erstwhile Donald Trump errand boy Michael Cohen is a man whose life, to date, has been defined by bad choices: investing in NYC taxi medallions as Uber showed up, committing tons of crimes, wearing that one jacket in public, and so on. But in an inspiring testament to the human capacity for change, it appears that Cohen has at last made what might be classified as a good choice: telling Robert Mueller everything he knows about Donald Trump's business dealings in Russia, and about the campaign's alleged clandestine efforts to cooperate with the Kremlin to swing the 2016 presidential election.
Cohen, according to ABC News, has sat for several interviews with the special counsel's team since entering his guilty plea in federal court last month. Mueller has reportedly made no formal promises of leniency, but since Cohen won't be sentenced until December 12, he has a strong incentive to do everything he can between now and then to make himself valuable. News of his cooperation wipes out a significant bit of potential leverage for Trump, because even if Trump were to offer Cohen a pardon today—a subject about which Mueller has also inquired—it would be of no practical use to the president: Robert Mueller already has all of Cohen's secrets tucked securely in his breast pocket.
While Mueller's Russia witch hunt is Trump's favorite witch hunt to complain about on social media, it is not the only criminal probe in which Cohen is now embroiled. Last month, ABC News revealed that law-enforcement officials in New York had secured Cohen's participation in their examinations of the Trump Organization's finances and the family's sham charity. Given that he ran the show in Trump Tower for the decade in which his boss rose to political prominence, he has probably, to use a legal term, seen some shit that makes for a pretty compelling story.
Even if Trump were to offer Cohen a pardon today—a subject about which Mueller has also inquired—it would be of no practical use to the president.
This parallel state investigation is important because it is, to use another legal term, pardon-proof. The president's pardon power extends only to federal crimes, not state ones. In other words, there is practically nothing Trump can do about Cohen's nascent BFF-ship with Robert Mueller; there is literally nothing he can do about Cohen's nascent BFF-ship with the New York attorney general's office.
Alas, despite the tremendous strides he's made of late, Michael Cohen has yet to shake his history of spectacularly poor decision-making altogether. Perhaps bursting with pride related to his newfound status as a certified upstanding citizen, he slipped into third person in a tweet on Thursday, offering effusive praise for his own integrity and forthrightness. (He deleted it moments later, but the screenshot of the push notification tells no lies and lives forever.)
The same tweet reappeared shortly thereafter on the timeline of his lawyer, Lanny Davis, who offered the world's most dad-struggling-to-use-the-Twitter-machine explanation for this screw-up.
Never change, Michael Cohen.
