Michael Cohen

The Wolff is once more at the door. The Guardian reports that Michael Wolff, the author of Fire and Fury, has written a new tome. It’s called Siege: Trump Under Fire. It alleges that special counsel Robert Mueller drafted a three-count obstruction of justice indictment that he then decided to discard. The Mueller team says that Wolff’s report is bogus. But Wolff himself writes that his assertion is ‘based on internal documents given to me by sources close to the Office of the Special Counsel.’ He’s also got some eyebrow-raising quotes. ‘The Jews always flip,’ was apparently Trump’s verdict on the cooperation agreements of Michael Cohen, David Pecker and Allen Weisselberg.

How many watched the Michael Cohen hearings and thought it was simply faithful civil servants trying to do what was best for their country? Yeah, me neither. How many thought it was just self-aggrandizing political figures putting on a show? In the lead role, of course, was Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and longtime confidant who has now ‘turned heel’ against his former boss. ‘The last time I appeared before Congress, I came to protect Mr Trump. Today I am here to tell the truth about Mr Trump,’ Cohen declared. What was that truth? ‘He is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat,’ Cohen said of the president, presenting his case for each. All of these things may or may not be true.

The most fascinating thing about the Michael Cohen hearing may not be what Michael Cohen said, but what Republicans didn’t. They made no attempt to defend Donald Trump other than to disparage Cohen’s character with metronomic regularity. Cohen was a liar. A bad man. He enriched himself. But how do you derogate someone who has already confessed to swimming happily in Trump’s swampy waters? The other tack they pursued was to declare the hearing a circus or a charade. Protestations were profuse. O tempora o mores! Washington, we were told, is a ‘hellhole.’ (At least Republican lawmakers forbore from deeming it a shithole.

Michael Cohen wanted to be the dean of the White House, but Trump spurned him. Now he’s getting a chance to become the John Dean of Trump’s entourage as he prepares to testify publicly before Congress tomorrow about his former boss. Dean’s testimony led to the downfall of Richard Nixon. Will Cohen’s appearance lead to the downfall of Trump? Cohen, who has been convicted of tax evasion, lying to Congress, and campaign finance violations, faces his own credibility gap. Today, as he met behind closed doors with the Senate Intelligence Committee, he was disbarred by a New York court.

No sooner had darkness at noon ended in a Manhattan courthouse, where Michael Cohen said that Donald Trump’s ‘dirty deeds’ led him into ‘darkness,’ than a fresh story about Individual 1’s past shenanigans emerged. The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York released a memo indicating it’s receiving ‘substantial and important assistance’ from the parent company of the National Enquirer, American Media Inc. CEO David Pecker, who received immunity from the feds this past August, appears to have become part of a special species that Trump has previously described with disdain: ‘I know all about flipping, for 30, 40 years, I’ve been watching flippers.’Not like now, he hasn’t.

Individual 1 is at it again. This morning, he went to the old reliable: ‘AFTER TWO YEARS AND MILLIONS OF PAGES OF DOCUMENTS (and a cost of over $30,000,000), NO COLLUSION!’ But the filings yesterday from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and federal prosecutors in New York indicate that this is an unintentionally self-deprecatory statement. For once, Trump is being far too modest about his abilities. He and his fellow colluders were colluding so much that they have already helped rack up no less than 192 criminal charges. So perhaps Individual 1 should take a step back for a moment from frenetic tweeting to admire his greatest handiwork before it collapses entirely.It’s the very sweep of his schemes that is likely to prove his undoing.

‘Totally clears the President. Thank you!,’ Donald Trump tweeted, following the Southern District of New York’s sentencing filings for Michael Cohen, which recommended prison time for the lawyer. And Donald Trump isn’t mentioned by name in the 40-page document – but things aren’t shaping up too well for whoever ‘Individual-1’ is. Per the filing: ‘During the campaign, Cohen played a central role in two similar schemes to purchase the rights to stories – each from women who claimed to have had an affair with Individual-1 – so as to suppress the stories and thereby prevent them from influencing the election...

Will wonders never cease? Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III is recommending that General Mike Flynn serve no jail time. Isn’t that nice of him? Of course, Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III first destroyed Mike Flynn’s career and essentially pauperized him through legal fees (‘the process,’ as they say, ‘is the punishment’). In making his recommendation, Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III cited Gen. Flynn’s ‘substantial assistance’ in the long-running soap opera that is his campaign against the president of the United States. The centerpiece of that ‘special assistance’ are the 19 interviews with the Office of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III for which Gen. Flynn sat.

It’s beginning to look as though Michelle Obama does not like Donald Trump. In her new memoir, Becoming, she explains why. Her beef with Trump centers on his embrace of the birther controversy about her husband, who was supposedly born in Indonesia or some other far off country — anywhere but America: ‘The whole thing was crazy and mean-spirited, of course, its underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed. But it was also dangerous, deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks. What if someone with an unstable mind loaded a gun and drove to Washington? What if that person went looking for our girls? Donald Trump, with his loud and reckless innuendos, was putting my family’s safety at risk. And for this I’d never forgive him.

Poor Paul Manafort. His defense attorney Kevin Downing asked if he could appear in his street clothing rather than a dark-green prison jumpsuit for his sentencing on Friday. Manafort, who has spent millions on bespoke suits, has always placed a premium on his public appearance. Judge T.S. Ellis III, however, was having none of it: ‘This defendant should be treated no differently from other defendants who are in custody post conviction.’Another former Donald Trump associate also got kicked in the shins this week, but the source wasn’t a federal judge. Instead, it was Trump who delivered the blow, dismissing his old chum and confederate Michael Cohen as a nobody.