Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation continues to press on, looking to uncover any and all crimes conducted inside Trump World. They’ve now, apparently, drawn in the president’s former lawyer Michael Cohen — but Trump’s not worried.
Appearing on a Geraldo Rivera-hosted radio show, President Donald Trump explained that he’s not worried about potential Cohen cooperation with Mueller.
He said:
‘I’m an honest guy. And that stuff is unrelated to me. And that was Michael did that stuff. And Michael — I mean you know, you know I have many, many lawyers. I have very big law firms I have that do my work.’
In reality, as has been pointed out elsewhere, “that stuff” is not entirely unrelated to the president. Pleading guilty to crimes including two campaign finance law violations, Cohen directly implicated Trump, although not by name. He explained, though, that he illegally secretly pushed hundreds of thousands of dollars in hush money throughout the months before the 2016 election at the direction of a candidate for public office, and Trump’s the only real option for who that is.
Besides, the women targeted with the hush money had affairs with Trump, not some other candidate. In other words, even a very strict, by the book reading of the situation doesn’t let the president off the hook here.
Still, he finds no reason to worry. His lies have reached such a crescendo that he’s lying about lying, and it’s only downhill from here.
Asked if he knew of anything troublesome that Cohen could tell Mueller, the president told Rivera:
‘I don’t know anything because, I’ll be honest, I do everything straight. I do everything straight.’
Really?
Throughout the three decades leading up to his ascent to the presidency, USA Today found that he and his business had been party to some 3,500 lawsuits. Those cases included everything from personal injury lawsuits against Trump or one of his many businesses to Trump-ian struggles with the government over the size of his property tax bills.
That’s not the mark of someone who does “everything straight.” The publication even compared the number of lawsuits Trump has been involved in to the number involving five other top real estate executives — and found that his number was greater than all of theirs combined.
Trump’s sorely reality disconnected attempt at shoring up against the Mueller investigation comes after reports of Cohen sitting for long talks with Mueller’s team, although his guilty plea deal didn’t at least initially include any demanded cooperation.
Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, on the other hand, has agreed to cooperate as part of a plea deal reached before what would have been his second trial stemming from crimes uncovered by the Mueller probe. Some have asserted that he wouldn’t have even had that opportunity had prosecutors not believed him to have information condemning someone higher up on the food chain.
That person could be Trump. When it comes to Cohen, Trump’s attempt at a defense would be laughable if he wasn’t the president of the United States with the ability to affect the fate of basically the entire globe.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
