In case you missed Michael Cohen’s closing statement, I’m slicing out what I think flew under the radar while he was chastising Trump for being a ruthless, unprincipled churl. It is this:
“My loyalty to Mr. Trump has cost me everything: my family’s happiness, friendships, my law license, my company, my livelihood, my honor, my reputation and, soon, my freedom. And I will not sit back, say nothing, and allow him to do the same to the country,”
…
“Indeed, given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a peaceful transition of power, and this is why I agreed to appear before you today.”
There you have it. In spite of his previous reputation for being a lousy lawyer, Michael Cohen came off as circumspect, contrite, respectful (unlike Matt Whitaker) and eloquent. He might have graduated from a no nothing law school but here was a guy who passed the NY bar exam only to squander everything he had on quick and easy fame and wealth. Elijah Cummings commissioned him to go forth and become a better Michael Cohen and for some weird reason, I actually think that might be possible, in spite of his 500 acts of thuggish intimidation.
But it was his prediction of the 2020 election and what will happen if Trump doesn’t win that is both chilling and suggests that Cohen knows something about who Trump has been working with.
There will be no peaceful transition of power. Why does that sound so familiar? Ahhh, yes, it’s the promise that every debate moderator wanted to extract from Hillary Clinton in 2016 while they blithely accepted that Trump would challenge the results if he lost. And not just anywhere. He would specifically challenge the results in Pennsylvania. I keep coming back to this because it just sounded “off”.
So, Cohen is saying that even though Trump claims he didn’t expect to win in 2016, he will destroy the country from the inside if he doesn’t win in 2020.
Michael Cohen may be a convicted “liar for Trump”, but I think he sees clearly on this. Trump is in the grip of some new thing and he’s going to drag us all down with him if he loses in 2020.
Better impeach him now.
Filed under: General |
The Confluence 
Thank you for pointing to the key statement on Cohen’s closing.
Trump himself has warned publicly about violence if he gets impeached.
Yet, I agree with you that the sooner legal actions get started against him, the better.
I’m happy that his wheeling/dealing with North Korea collapsed.
I’m sure Cohen’s testimony got on Kim’s ears; who’s been using the Moron to get world exposure and acceptability of his Dictatorship.
Hope you’re doing well. Wishing you light and strength…
RD, a very well-taken and powerful point. But practically, Trump cannot be convicted, because there is no way that 67 Republican senators will vote for it, not unless there is some astounding evidence yet to be revealed; and even then, I don’t think they’ll do it. This does not mean that the House should not bother to impeach him, but this will not get rid of him.
My (one of my) worries is that he would start a nuclear war rather than leave office, because leaving office means that he would be subject to indictment. If war can be prevented by someone there, then all he could do is to incite riots in the streets. That is also chilling, with the nuts out there with arms, but the military and law enforcement are not going to take his side. It is possible, though dispiriting, that some agreement will have to be reached wherein he promises to leave (then or before) if he is given criminal immunity. If he lost the election by a large margin, he would be less able to incite violence, but Democrats rarely sweep a national election. I wonder what Cohen meant, and what he heard. Maybe that will be discussed with him today. And yes, Trump’s comments about Pennsylvania during the campaign were very unsettling. Who told him that Pennsylvania was already in the bag, that the count would absolutely favor him, and thus if somehow it did not, it would mean that someone unfixed the fix that was already in? He did not use that language about any other state. PA has gone Democratic in virtually every national election. Hillary led in all polls there by at least 3-4 points, even on the day before the election. What was guaranteed to Trump about Pennsylvania?
I’m past caring whether Trump will get convicted or not. Make the GOP own this mess by having to vote with Trump. They can campaign on defending having a Russian asset in the white house if they would like. It’s just with impeachment they are not going to be able to weasel out of what they are doing.
I agree. Make the Rethuglicans put their support of The Don in writing and in the Congressional Record. To uphold the Constitution, one must impeach. This was Pelosi’s fatal flaw when she took impeachment off the table with W and Darth Vader. Actually the best thing would be La Guillotine!
I’m on board with Ga6th and alibe. Trump has certainly committed impeachable offenses, and if the Dems don’t impeach, they ratify his conduct. They have to lay down the marker and show what they stand for, whether they win this time or not. The Republicans do what they say they will do for their base and it works for them. In this case, doing right by the base would work politically for the Democrats, in addition to being the principled thing to do.
By the by, I’m tired of the impeachment “story” being about “who wins the week” and who looks better in the political horse race. As Froomkin says:
View at Medium.com
A fine little article, except for one worm in the apple:
“…thought Hillary Clinton was entitled to the presidency…”
Danny Boy apparently thinks the Very Serious People were Hillary’s friends. Those of us who remember HRC’s runs for President in 2008 and 2016 will remember that the VSP were NOT Hillary’s friends.
It disgusts me, but no longer surprises me, how many non-wingnuts believe the 30 Years of Smears the McDuck-funded wingnuts have spread, like some sort of brain-eating spores, about the Clintons. 👿
I forgot to add “to one degree or another” after “non-wingnuts believe”.
The non-wingnuts don’t believe the Warp 9 Looney Tunes Crazy stuff, such as pedo rings in the basements of pizza parlors, but many of them believe just enough of the rumors and smears to think there is something suspicious about the Clintons–never mind that years and years of gleeful partisan Rethuglican investigations found NOTHING on Hillary, and could only nail Bill on lying about receiving sexual favors from a consenting adult. To the True Believers, this just shows how diabolically clever the Clintons are at covering their tracks (never mind the question that if the Clintons are so omnipotent, why is Benedict Donald the president* now?).
Sometimes, where there’s smoke, there’s just somebody trying to blow smoke up your @$$. 😛
Aw jeez, my hair is seriously falling out.
I am so sorry. But if all goes well, it will come back, right? Hopefully that will be an encouraging prospect.
Well at least I won’t have to buy hair gel for awhile.
Sooo, there’s that…
How about a buzz cut and a couple of pairs of fabulous earrings?
I haven’t gone that route yet but, as a woman who’s been dealing with hair problems for years, I can attest that the worst is looking at all of the fallout. Love you, RD.
Lol! My stylist is standing by. Just having trouble fitting an appointment in. My personal Republican is threatening to do it for me. This could be interesting.
Love you too!
It’s possible that even Benedict Donald doesn’t want to take it to the point of Civil War 2.0, but he can no longer refuse Putin anything, and Putin wants the USA to fall apart.
RD, thank you for this fabulous blog which I’ve followed since the DNC/RBC debacle. I wish and hope only wonderful things in your life. 💕
And Cohen’s testimony opened a door to all of it.
Very interesting stories about how Democrats in the House, and the problems which are occurring with regard to Republican “motions to recommit,” which are amendments to legislation which the opposing side can toss in at the last moment. Whereas Republicans controlling the House defeated every single motion to recommit from 2011-2019, Democrats have actually voted for two of them, because there are splits between moderates and progressives. Some of the Democrats who won last Fall, did so by running as moderates in purple or even reddish districts. And some of the Democrats in the House seem to not be listening to Speaker Pelosi, who correctly describes these motions as “gotcha tactics,,” and wants her entire caucus to vote against them. But some of her lieutenants think that if voting for some of these helps the moderates to stay in office, it is okay.
So here comes AOC, who is now threatening to use her donor and support lists to arrange primary challenges against these moderates. And unfortunately, this is our new problem. Republicans are absolutely going to make AOC the centerpiece of their 2020 campaign. They will run against “socialism,” and the GND. AOC apparently has a vastly inflated sense of her own importance and brilliance; and in that, she is like Bernie Sanders. I don’t know what the answer is. But I sometimes imagine that the Democrats are like Athens, and the Republicans are like Sparta, which was a militaristic regime which brooked no dissent, and where orders were always followed. For one reason or another, Sparta eventually triumphed over Athens in the Peloponnesian Wars, We don’t wan the Democrats to be like the Republicans, but they cannot run around in various directions, with the Left more focused on trying to purify the party, than on the real enemy, or we will have found a new way to lose elections to the Republicans, even when the Republican Party has devolved into awfulness.