Michael Cohen’s Testimony Before Congress: Analysis by Rachel Griffing
The New York Times had 5 key takeaways from yesterday’s Cohen hearings. Here’s my take on each of them:
1. The president faces peril having nothing to do with Russia.
Cohen producing a check written to him, signed by the President doesn’t prove anything about what the payment was for. Why isn’t anyone else taking issue with this?
2. Possible conspiracy with Russians remains on the table.
Again, Cohen produces no evidence that the President knew about the Wikileaks email dump. Are we supposed to just take his word for it that he knew what Trump had knowledge of, just because he said so? Even working in the hypothetical, saying things like, “Wouldn’t that be great” doesn’t implicate him in the least. At that point in time, EVERYONE following that story was saying the same thing! Again, no proof, just his word.
3. Mr. Cohen explains the role of “a fixer.” “That was my job,” Mr. Cohen said. “Always stay on message. Always defend. It monopolized my life.”
Well, if that’s the best he’s got, their side is in big trouble, because ANY candidate has at least 1 lawyer on their team who is dedicated to tamping down stories in the media. Clinton is a professional at this. She & President Clinton had lawyers, like Lanny Davis (Cohen’s current lawyer) doing exactly this kind of work during the many public scandals that involved his conduct WHILE HE WAS IN OFFICE; not 12 years before the election, which is the case with DJT & the Stormy Daniels payoff. P.S. Always stay on message, always defend is a pillar in the Democrat playbook. Never surrender your position. They should understand that on every level.
And, again, no one in the Trump camp really gives two craps about the Stormy Daniels case, considering then-private citizen-Trump was being extorted by a sleazy porn star who had already signed an NDA & received hush money. Furthermore, Congress should know first-hand about this stuff, considering they have a slush fund of taxpayer money devoted to settling complaints of this nature. I’m not justifying Trump’s behavior as a private citizen, but, again, him paying to keep it quiet is baked into the cake for his supporters and any other clear-thinking American.
4. Cohen savaged Trump’s character.
· Trump’s a bigot: Prove it! You’re the scum bag who audiotaped your client w/o his consent and released it to the public. If the President was a racist, there would be audio proof of this. There isn’t, otherwise, it would have surfaced yesterday. Him calling 3rd world countries “s*holes” in the presence of his closest associates isn’t advisable, but it’s also not a high crime or misdemeanor. And it’s also not new evidence or news. Again, it’s also hearsay.
· Trump boasts assets when it served him and understated values to lower his taxes. If this is a serious accusation, then I’d like to subpoena any CPA in America who DOESN’T do that for his clients and ask them why not?? That is exactly what private businesses are supposed to do: mitigate tax liability and maximize profit. I’d be concerned if Trump WASN’T doing those things to benefit his shareholders.
· Trump refused to pay money owed to contractors for their services.
Well, if this is true, then bring a civil suit to small claims court. Short of that, shut the hell up about this. And, again, no evidence was presented at all.
· Trump avoided Vietnam with a medical deferment. Yeah, so did millions of other young men during the draft, including President Clinton & Bush. The fact of the matter was that not only was he in college at the time, he was deferred for a medical condition. Incidentally, when did it become acceptable to publicize people’s medical conditions and hold those against them?
Bottom line: Yesterday’s Cohen testimony did NOTHING to further implicate the President of anything that wasn’t already well-publicized bull crap. If anything, I believe Cohen ultimately exonerated the President of ridiculous claims of having hookers urinate on him in sex acts, beating his wife in an elevator (caught on film-of course that doesn’t exist) or having a secret love child that he has hidden for years.
Here are questions that were asked yesterday that aren’t getting any attention in the mainstream press:
1. Someone asked Cohen to name WORST thing he could think of to say about the President at this point in time. Like, what is the worst accusation you can hurl on him that hasn’t already been said in your testimony or in the press. Cohen had no answer for that at all.
2. He was asked if there was anything the President should be afraid of becoming public at this point in time. He didn’t have an answer for that at all. Nothing.
3.He was asked where the boxes of documents were that should have already been given to Special Counsel Mueller. He didn’t know where those were.
Here’s a couple of questions that WERE NOT asked yesterday that should have been:
1. Mr. Cohen, you’ve presented a check signed by the President as evidence that he reimbursed you with campaign funds to pay off Stormy Daniels the porn star. But you were his attorney for over a decade. Why should we believe that a check from him from his company’s bank account automatically was hush money reimbursement? Why shouldn’t we think that was payment for your retainer or your monthly services? I can’t imagine he’d have an answer for that at all.
2. Mr. Cohen, you recorded the President w/o his knowledge on many occasions. Why aren’t you using recordings of him to prove your most critical accusations about him being a bigot, racist homophobe or that he knew about Wikileaks or that he was active in the Russia Trump Tower project?
You can’t answer that because there aren’t any such recordings, because none of those things are true. The truth is that he’s a businessman with strong opinions on a lot of topics. He’s a salesman with a penchant for exaggeration and people exploit that to make him into a bad person when he just isn’t a bad person. His son, Don Jr, probably had a potential project for a Trump Tower in Russia, but then-candidate Trump was busy campaigning to win the Presidency, and a real estate deal on another continent was probably not forefront in his mind. And, finally, if he knew about the potential Wikileaks document dump of DNC emails, then he’s one of the millions of people who knew about it because it was leaked to the press beforehand. EVERYONE knew about it by the time Cohen says that Trump said, wouldn’t that be great?
That makes him a candidate who has an opposition research mindset, like any candidate who is interested in winning. Do you think for one second that HRC DIDN’T have an oppo team? NO! We know that she not only had an oppo team, but she also contracted a foreign-based team to draft a fake dossier on Trump that, today we found out was 100% false.
Whew, so that’s my exhaustive assessment of yesterday. Meanwhile, the President was negotiating with a tyrannical lunatic in Vietnam and working with the VP concerning the revolution going on in Venezuela. He has his hands full with Presidenting-ya know? This is why we don’t indict a sitting President.
So, Liberals, get your crap together, because the next 2 years are going to be a grind for you!