"I'm not leaving anyway. This is my country. You leave."

😂🤣Michael Cohen keeps getting trolled during a livestream about fleeing the USpic.twitter.com/ZodVV17rG7

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 8, 2024

"On Tuesday, Judge Juan Merchan loosened the gag order’s conditions, allowing Trump to publicly comment..."

"... on the witnesses that testified in the trial as well as members of the jury.... Under the new ruling, Trump will be able to speak about the trial’s key witnesses, including his former attorney Michael Cohen and adult-film star Stormy Daniels.... Trump will not be allowed to identify individual jurors or disclose any information about them...."

New York Magazine reports.

It's good to remove this chill on Trump's speech, especially with the debate coming up.

"You now have a Republican leading candidate who’s a felon, who’s going to be debriefed on national security issues knowing how loose-lipped he is."

"You do not allow somebody like Donald Trump to be declassified, especially now as a felon. So, my concern is, in a prison situation, he is willing to give away these secrets, as I always say, for a bag of tuna or a book of stamps. He will do it because [he] does not care."

Said Michael Cohen, on MSNBC, quoted in "Michael Cohen Worries Trump Will Spill Secrets in Prison 'for a Bag of Tuna'" (Daily Beast).

Lawrence O'Donnell does an excellent professional job of clearly and concisely presenting what happened to Michael Cohen yesterday.

TikTok so it's after the jump:

"Michael Cohen’s voice sounded truly bizarre in that podcast clip celebrating Trump's indictment on March 30 last year. "

"Giddy, high-pitched, and he was speaking so fast that if you didn’t know better you’d think the tape had been artificially sped up. It also offered jurors a completely different version of the Cohen they are seeing on the witness stand, where he has remained calm and deliberate with every word. [Trump's lawyer] Todd Blanche plays a second clip of Michael Cohen from his podcast, in which he says he hopes 'that this man ends up in prison,' and 'revenge is a dish best served cold,' and 'you better believe I want this man to go down and rot inside for what he did to me and my family.' Cohen's New York accent — he is from the Five Towns, on Long Island — is very pronounced in the podcast clips...."

From the NYT live coverage of the Trump trial. Here's a free-access link.

This gets my rarely used "revenge" tag.

I delved into the topic most deeply back in July 2011, here. Quoting Wikipedia:

"Michael Cohen is now explicitly testifying that the invoices he was sending, which he has sought to tie to Trump, were false documents."

"He is going over the monthly invoices he created, which described him as having been paid for 'services rendered,' and testifying that they were false records. He stresses they weren’t valid legal fees, but 'reimbursements.' Michael Cohen confirms that in response to the false invoices, he received 11 checks in 2017 totaling $420,000...."

Here's a gift link to the NYT's live coverage of the Trump trial.

"While [Michael] Cohen is not under a gag order like Trump, it’s generally not beneficial for the prosecution to have a chatty witness publicly discussing ongoing proceedings."

"'Trump 2024? More like Trump 20 to 24 years,' Cohen said on a recent stream.... While it’s not disclosed how much money Cohen earns on these streams, the longer and more frequently he goes live, the more potential earning opportunity he has. It’s possible that Cohen sees his platform as an opportunity for character redemption. Once a Trump confidant, he now tells his audience to 'vote blue down-ballot.'"

From "The weird world of Michael Cohen’s live TikTok streaming/The former Trump fixer, now a critic, is expected to take the stand this week in Donald Trump’s hush money criminal trial. Meanwhile, he is live wearing cowboy hat filters, receiving calls from Rosie O’Donnell and sharing his feelings on TikTok" (WaPo)(free access link, so you can view a bunch of clips without going to TikTok looking for Cohen's account).

Cohen is the prosecution's star witness, and he's taking the stand today. 

"Jesus Christ, can you [expletive] believe I’m not going to Washington, after everything I’ve done for that [expletive] guy? I’ve saved the guy’s ass so many times. That guy [Trump] is not even paying me the $130,000 back."

Said Michael Cohen, according to the witness Keith Davidson, the lawyer who represented Stormy Daniels, quoted in "The Tawdry Tabloid World in Which Trump Lived" (NYT).

"Keith Davidson, the former lawyer for the porn star Stormy Daniels, faced a blistering cross-examination... with defense lawyers casting him as a serial extortionist of celebrities."

The NYT reports.

Mr. Trump said he hated the deal with Ms. Daniels.... Prosecutors played the recording for the jury, letting them hear Mr. Cohen tell Mr. Davidson that Mr. Trump hated “the fact that we did it,” referring to the hush-money payment to Ms. Daniels....

They shouldn't write "Mr. Trump said he hated the deal with Ms. Daniels" when the evidence is only that Cohen said he hated "the fact that we did it."

Quite aside from whether the fact that they did the deal is different from the deal, all we know is that Cohen said Trump hated it.  They should have to write something like Cohen said that Trump said he hated making the deal. Cohen could have been lying.

"I said: 'This is a terrible, toxic relationship, you and Trump. And you’ve got to break up.'"

Said Tom Arnold, "the actor and comedian best known for his role on the 1990s sitcom starring Arnold’s ex-wife, Roseanne Barr." 

Quoted in "Michael Cohen says he’s reformed. Will America buy it? Resistance hero or reprobate? As Cohen takes the stand against his former boss in Trump’s first criminal trial, it depends on whom you ask" (WaPo)(free access link, so you can sort through the cast of characters).

Arnold was quoting himself advising Michael Cohen.

"You have lied under oath numerous times, Mr. Cohen — isn’t that correct?"/"That’s correct."

I'm reading "Cohen Denounces Trump During Courtroom Face-Off/Michael D. Cohen accused his onetime boss, Donald J. Trump, of manipulating his net worth as Mr. Trump stared blankly ahead. It was their first interaction in five years" (NYT).

Blaming Michael Cohen for the Manhattan D.A.'s difficulties indicting Trump.

I'm trying to read "How Michael Cohen’s Big Mouth Could Be Derailing the Trump Prosecution" (NY Magazine).

Key witness Michael Cohen and his pathological need for media attention have not been making things easier.... He clearly thinks very highly of himself and seems to have little awareness of his limitations.... He appears constitutionally incapable of telling the same story twice in the same way.... He is also obsessed with taking down his former boss Trump... [H]e could be confronted with inconsistent or problematic past statements.... 

"Going more negative while increasing the raw amount of attention — 'copious coverage and aggressive coverage' — allowed networks to retain or even increase the monster ratings Trump offered..."

"... without earning the social opprobrium that came with giving him softball coverage. [CNN president Jeff] Zucker loved Trump for the same reason baseball owners once loved the juiced-up homers hit by Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire: he put butts in seats. He just can’t afford to be seen loving Trump. In another part of the tape, Zucker tried to explain to Cohen the facts of life. One can almost see him wrapping a fatherly arm around [Michael] Cohen’s shoulder: 'Here’s the thing… you cannot be elected president of the United States without CNN. Fox and MSNBC are irrelevant — irrelevant — in electing a general election candidate. You guys have had great instincts, great guts and great understanding of everything... But you're missing the boat on how it works going forward.' Zucker here was trying to play kingmaker, and doing it for real, not as an act of sabotage....  The irony is Trump won in spite of CNN, and it was CNN that ended up changing its tune, not Trump. There may be some genuine political belief behind CNN’s drift in the direction of 'irrelevant' MSNBC, but don’t be fooled into thinking that’s the whole story.... Does CNN feel guilty about the record ratings and billions in revenue the Trump era’s earned them? Just listen to the tape. As a business, they’re more than fond of 'the boss.' They just can’t have us knowing it."

From "Tape shows: ethically, CNN chief a little shaky/A conversation between Jeff Zucker and former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen removes all doubt: our hated president is a beloved commodity to network executives" by Matt Taibbi.

A federal district judge orders Trump to turn 8 years of personal and corporate tax returns over to the Manhattan district attorney.

The NYT reports.

The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., has been investigating whether any New York State laws were broken when Mr. Trump and his company reimbursed the president’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, for payments he made in the run-up to the 2016 election to the pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels, who had said she had an affair with Mr. Trump....

Mr. Trump’s lawyers sued last month to block the subpoena, arguing that the Constitution effectively makes sitting presidents immune from all criminal inquiries until they leave the White House....

Federal prosecutors are barred from charging a sitting president with a crime because the Justice Department has decided that presidents have temporary immunity while they are in office.... Local prosecutors, such as Mr. Vance, are also not bound by the Justice Department’s position....

No response from the President's lawyers yet. Presumably, they'll appeal (and win).

UPDATE: "The president's attorneys have filed an emergency order of appeal."

AND:

The Radical Left Democrats have failed on all fronts, so now they are pushing local New York City and State Democrat prosecutors to go get President Trump. A thing like this has never happened to any President before. Not even close!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2019

UPDATE 2: Bloomberg reports:

Trump immediately appealed and in less than two hours won a delay to give the federal appeals court in Manhattan time for expedited review. The delay postponed what would have been a 1 p.m. Monday deadline for [his accountants] to begin turning over the records to prosecutors....

"Federal prosecutors signaled in a court document released on Thursday that it was unlikely they would file additional charges in the hush-money investigation..."

"... that ensnared members of Donald J. Trump’s inner circle and threatened to derail his presidency. In the document, the prosecutors said they had 'effectively concluded' their inquiry, which centered on payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to buy the silence of two women who said they had had affairs with Mr. Trump.... The president’s former lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, was convicted in the case. He has said he helped arrange the hush money at the direction of Mr. Trump, and prosecutors have repeated the accusation in court papers. Mr. Cohen is serving a three-year prison sentence."

The NYT reports.

ADDED: From the comments at the NYT: "Why does trump always get away with everything, every single time? he is completely immune from prosecution, let alone the very most basic of scrutiny. This is untenable and threatens the foundation of our democracy."

That makes me think of a Dylan lyric: "I can’t help it if I’m lucky." Original context:

Someone’s got it in for me, they’re planting stories in the press
Whoever it is I wish they’d cut it out but when they will I can only guess
They say I shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy
She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me
I can’t help it if I’m lucky

"Bad lawyer and fraudster Michael Cohen..."

Bad lawyer and fraudster Michael Cohen said under sworn testimony that he never asked for a Pardon. His lawyers totally contradicted him. He lied! Additionally, he directly asked me for a pardon. I said NO. He lied again! He also badly wanted to work at the White House. He lied!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 8, 2019

"Wow, just revealed that Michael Cohen wrote a 'love letter to Trump' manuscript for a new book that he was pushing."

"Written and submitted long after Charlottesville and Helsinki, his phony reasons for going rogue. Book is exact opposite of his fake testimony, which now is a lie! Congress must demand the transcript of Michael Cohen’s new book, given to publishers a short time ago. Your heads will spin when you see the lies, misrepresentations and contradictions against his Thursday testimony. Like a different person! He is totally discredited!"

Donald Trump on Twitter, just now, here and here.

"Democrats, GOP find rare unity on Cohen: They see a liar who proves their point"/"Mr. Cohen’s testimony may push each party further into its corner...."

The Washington Post and The New York Times have the same takeaway. Here's how it looks on the front page (just under the news that Trump's Vietnam visit with Kim Jong-Un ended early).

WaPo:



NYT:



Click image to clarify and enlarge.

I'm interested in the similarities and differences between these presentations, but the headlines I put in the post title are especially similar and sum up yesterday's drama in a way that appeals to me, as one of the Americans who have distanced ourselves from the day-to-day agonies of the Trump administration.

Let's click into the 2 columns. "Democrats, GOP find rare unity on Cohen: They see a liar who proves their point" was on the WaPo front page (but isn't anymore). Clicked on, it becomes, "As a Trump insider describes a ‘con man’ president, both sides see a liar — who proves their point." I guess unity is so rare that it evanesced out of the headline. "Rare unity" couldn't survive even as a wisp of humor within the rancor.

The NYT front-page headline is gone now too. "Mr. Cohen’s testimony may push each party further into its corner" was a link that led to "Cohen’s Testimony Is a Test for Both Parties in the Year Ahead." The active role for "Mr. Cohen" is neutralized. On the front page I saw an hour ago, he was pushing — pushing both parties. Now, he's not there at all. His testimony remains and it's just sitting there, not pushing, just a test that the parties might need to take sometime maybe next year.

"I am ashamed that I chose to take part in concealing Mr. Trump’s illicit acts rather than listening to my own conscience."

"I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is. He is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat. He was a presidential candidate who knew that Roger Stone was talking with Julian Assange about a WikiLeaks drop of Democratic National Committee emails."

From the PDF of Michael Cohen's opening statement to the House Oversight Committee.

You can watch the action live here.

"Mueller Statement Disputes Report That Trump Directed Cohen to Lie."

The NYT reports.

The rare public statement by a spokesman for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, challenged the facts of an article published by BuzzFeed News on Thursday evening saying that Mr. Cohen had told prosecutors about being pressured by the president before his congressional testimony.

BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the special counsel’s office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s congressional testimony are not accurate,” said the spokesman, Peter Carr.

The Buzzfeed report led to a flurry of statements by senior members of Congress before Mr. Carr’s statement who said that the allegations, if true, could be grounds for initiating impeachment proceedings against Mr. Trump....

Never mind. How embarrassing for the Trump haters. I didn't even write about the Buzzfeed story myself. I'm so jaded about the latest impeachment bait.