Where’s Trump’s Crime? Cohen’s Testimony & Hillary Clinton is Right - Top 3 Takeaways – May 14th, 2024
- The man who would take a bullet. In September of 2017 in an interview with Vanity Fair Michael Cohen had this to say referring to Trump: One man who wants to do so much good with so many detractors against him needs support. During the campaign, towards the end, I was offered $10 million to write a tell-all book. I said, ‘How about $100 million. They asked if I’d do it for that much and I told them no, I just wanted to see how high I could get them up and then say no. There’s no money in the world that could get me to disclose anything about them. It was also in this interview that we were told Michael Cohen would take a bullet for Trump. That’s how loyal he was. Now the irony is that early in yesterday’s testimony for the prosecution’s star witness in their fledgling case against the former and perhaps future President of the United States, it isn’t just that he attempted to fire bullets at Donald Trump in his effort to get him put away, but that we learned he recorded a conversation with Donald Trump preceding that interview which was presented in the courtroom yesterday. Now, not only is Cohen attempting to get Trump. Cohen was shown to have violated attorney-client privilege (recording Trump without his knowledge) prior to having turned on him. Prior to telling Vanity Fair that there’s no amount of money in the world to get anyone to disclose anything about Trump. Prior to that whole taking a bullet thing. Now, Cohen, the disbarred convicted liar, being so verbosely dishonest at this point isn’t news. But here’s why the violation of attorney-client privilege matters. 1) We heard the audio from that recording and what it captured is Trump sounding confused about what Cohen was even talking about and 2) Cohen asserting himself with his own legal advice telling Trump how they were going to handle the payment for the NDA’s that are at the root of this case. What became clear is that Cohen, not Trump, directed how the NDA deals were and would be handled. The entire case hinges on the prosecution proving that Trump was attempting to falsify documents (payments for the NDAs) for the purpose of committing another crime – which still at this late stage in the trial has yet to be defined. In other words, objectively...
- Cohen’s testimony appeared to have at least at times made him look worse than Trump and Trump as a guy who simply trusted his attorney and who took his advice. The reason for this distinction appearing to be particularly relevant is due to the composition of the jury. There are two attorneys on it. Are they both willing to look the other way knowing that Cohen acted unethically in advising his client and violating attorney-client privilege? One of the interesting dynamics in a case featuring what’s almost certainly a jury comprised of people who don’t like Donald Trump, is if the prosecution’s witnesses have actually turned out to be more dislikable and less credible to this jury than Donald Trump. The Stormy Daniels testimony certainly didn’t go over as planned – hence why the prosecution decided not to call Karen McDougal to the stand as had been previously planned. And Cohen? Not that he was expected to be likeable, but how likeable is someone who deliberately undermines his own client? Somewhat remarkably Cohen’s testimony appeared to be more damaging to the prosecution than to Trump prior to the defense’s questioning beginning. Now maybe it’s the case that the jury is so anti-Trump, and they look at this as an opportunity to “get” him as so many have wanted to do for so long. That’s possible. But this is also possible. Who wants to hire an attorney who doesn’t reject the testimony and tactics used by Michael Cohen? In other words, who wants to hire one of the two attorneys on this jury (who will probably become known)? Who doesn’t have a problem with an attorney who blatantly violates attorney-client privilege? That realization may matter more to them personally than attempting to “get Trump”. But here’s something else that’s also possible. It’s possible at this point that this case doesn’t get to the jury. It’s possible that the prosecution can’t prove or even credibly allege the crimes that Donald Trump was changed with in this case, in which case, Judge Merchan could render a verdict himself prior to the matter going to the jury. This is unlikely, but then again if Judge Merchan wants to save face in a case that potentially could blow up in his face upon appeal if it ever got that far – that would be a way to do it. We’re still waiting for the other shoe to drop from the prosecution and their case appears to essentially be all but over.
- She’s right. I was never with her in 2016 (or ever for that matter), however I’m with her regarding what she said pertaining to the antisemitic college protestors. To her credit Hillary Clinton said this: They don’t know that…an offer was made to Palestinians for a state on 96% of the existing territory occupied by the Palestinians with 4% of Israel to be given to reach 100% of the amount of territory that was hoped for. Bingo. What Hillary Clinton is referring to is what I’ve frequently spoken of since the October 7th terrorist attacks. The 1993 Oslo Accord agreed to by Israel. The deal which was almost literally blown up by Hamas as the terror network carried out a series of terrorist attacks as a means of ensuring that the two-state solution agreed to by Israel would never come to fruition. That’s because Hamas wasn’t interested in a two-state solution like the useful idiots on college campuses chant for. Hamas wasn’t interested in getting 4% of Israeli territory as part of the two-state deal. Hamas was, from the time of their founding, interested in only a one-state solution as they were founded on the eradication of Israel. Hillary Clinton is exactly right about the Israel-Palestinian conflict and her tale, as she is now taking lots of heat from her own party on this issue, a la what Senator Chris Van Hollen had to say: Secretary Clinton’s comments, in that regard, were quite dismissive of students’ concerns about the awful humanitarian crisis and high civilian death toll in Gaza. We can certainly revisit history and past negotiations, but I believe that the overwhelming majority of students, not all, and…there are some very bad elements that are involved, as well as on the counter protest side, but I believe that the students do understand what’s happening in Gaza with respect to the civilian casualties. A) How many students are really monitoring the situation closely? B) How many know how many civilian casualties there have been? C) How many know that Israel agreed to a two-state solution in which they would have given a piece of Israel to the Palestinians as part of the deal? How many know that Hamas prevented that deal from going through? How many know that after Hamas committed those terror attacks preventing the two-state solution that the Palestinian people overwhelmingly voted them in as the new government to replace the PLO that had agreed to the two-state solution with Israel? And how is all of that not 100% relevant? What this is an indication of is how far to the left the Democrat Party has gone in just the past eight years (as Hillary Clinton was the party’s standard bearer in 2016).