There’s nothing suspicious about the timing of this at all, right?
Michael Cohen and his Clinton crony lawyer (Lanny Davis) are now claiming in a new 12 page memo that they magically found a hard drive that contains documents proving everything from Trump/Russian collusion to Trump directing Cohen to lie to Congress about it.
Buzzfeed News, who were previously corrected by Robert Mueller for false claims on this very subject, has the report. No doubt this was fed to them directly by Lanny Davis.
WASHINGTON — Attorneys for Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former fixer, submitted documents to lawmakers Thursday night accusing Trump and his team of lawyers of instructing Cohen to lie to Congress about when negotiations ended to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.
In a 12-page memo sent to top House Democrats, Cohen’s attorneys said Trump “encouraged Cohen to lie and say all Moscow Tower project contacts ended as of January 31, 2016 using ‘code’ language — telling Cohen during various conversations that there was ‘no collusion, no Russian contacts, nothing about Russia’ after the start of the campaign.’”
Buzzfeed goes on to say this backs up their previous false reporting.
Cohen’s memo supports BuzzFeed News’s earlier reporting that Cohen told investigators Trump had directed him to lie about the timing of real estate negotiations in Moscow.
What they don’t mention is that Cohen, just weeks ago, told Congress under oath that Trump did not direct him to lie. He’s once again changing his story, apparently not happy with only being convicted of lying to Congress once. We also know that Cohen did not tell investigators that Trump told him to lie. Instead of Buzzfeed’s reporting being vindicated, all this shows is that their original source was likely Lanny Davis. After being burned the first time, the journalistic giants at Buzzfeed are rushing to put their hand right back on the stove.
Buzzfeed goes on to cite the memo’s claims.
“Cohen explained that he was, in effect, instructed to lie about the January 31, 2016 date through the use of Trump code words that could only be interpreted as an instruction or ‘directive,’” the memo states, “to cover-up the fact that Cohen had been in contact with Russians during most of the presidential campaign, from the day of the Iowa caucuses, February 1, through all the primaries and caucuses and until June 2016, after Trump had become the putative Republican nominee by assembling a majority of delegates.”
I’m sorry for not giving this the seriousness it deserves, but this is just hilarious.
After testifying that Trump did not direct him to lie, Cohen is now claiming he did, but in super secret “coded language.” This is obviously an attempt to throw red meat to Democratic Congressional investigators, who are desperate for anything at this point. By the time I publish this, I’m sure Adam Schiff will have been on CNN a half dozen times claiming this is proof of collusion and suborning perjury.
Buzzfeed continues with more collusion talk.
“In May 2016, Cohen told Trump he could travel to Russia to assist the building of the project either before or after the GOP Convention in August, and Trump agreed,” Cohen’s attorneys wrote. “Obviously this proves that Trump knew that Russian contacts about the Moscow Tower project continued after January 31, 2016. Cohen made inquiries about Trump’s schedule to Trump’s executive assistant” about a trip for Trump to make to Russia during the campaign, to move the negotiations along.
The trip did not take place, but the memo characterizes those inquiries “as further evidence that the trip to Russia was under serious consideration after Trump approved it.”
Two things.
One, this is not “collusion,” nor improper. If you were running for office but had a multi-million dollar project in the works prior to your run, would you cancel said project before you even know if you’ve been elected? Of course you wouldn’t and anyone that says they would is lying. In the absence of treasonous Russian collusion to steal the election, these are the kind of nonsensical assertions Democrats and Cohen are left with. Two, notice the trip did not take place. Why? If Trump was so intent on colluding with the Russians, why would he not continue negotiations after the convention? Furthermore, not only did this meeting not take place, the deal itself didn’t take place. That’s one really weird quid pro quo.
None of this makes sense and there appears to be nothing of actual substance in Cohen’s new memo. It’s him turning over about 100 documents which don’t say what he claims they say. Instead, we are supposed to take Cohen’s word that it’s actually a bunch of coded commands for him to lie to Congress. Real James Bond level stuff.
I’m firmly convinced at this point that Michael Cohen is simply a moron. I don’t say that as a petty insult but as a genuine description of his lack of mental fortitude. His lawyer, Lanny Davis, is clearly dragging him along to be used as a pawn in the Democrat’s impeachment games. When you hire a former Hillary Clinton fixer, you should expect that you are being used and that said fixer does not have your best interests at heart.
Instead of protecting his client, Davis is flailing around, making contradictory statements and submissions that only make Cohen look less credible and expose him to more criminal liability. If Cohen had any sense at all, he would have fired Davis long ago and found representation that’s actually working for his interests.
It’s even an open question as to whether Cohen would be headed to prison right now had Davis not convinced him to plead to non-crimes, namely two very questionable campaign finance violations. A lawyer actually working for his client – and not the DNC – would have fought such weak charges or negotiated a better plea.
And that leads us to what this is really all about. Tough guy Michael Cohen, who we were assured is remorseful and just wants to do his time, is scared of going to jail.
The memo is part of an effort by Cohen to reduce and delay the three-year prison term he was sentenced to serve, which is scheduled to begin on May 6. Highlighting evidence he provided to congressional committees in February, a letter that accompanied the memo states that Cohen “was only recently able to access a hard drive with important documents,” and that the “drive contains over 14 million files, which consist of all e-mails, voice recordings, images, and attachments from Mr. Cohen’s computers and phones.” Lanny Davis, one of Cohen’s attorneys, told BuzzFeed News that Cohen had no access to the hard drive when he testified before Congress earlier this year because it had been seized by prosecutors and was returned to him only last week.
There it is. He’s wanting a reduced and/or delayed prison sentence. All the sudden, the timing of this makes perfect sense.
The idea that he only recently found these “documents” is laughable. The “there’s 14 million documents we must go through so I can’t go to jail!” line is also pretty funny. This is obviously a ploy they’ve been holding onto for a while. After all that talk about him taking responsibility for his actions, when it comes time for the metal door to slam behind him, Cohen wants a do-over and that’s what this is. He told Congress that Trump didn’t direct him to lie, but knowing that Congressional Democrats will eat this up, he now wants to claim Trump did tell him to lie. This is a transparent, pathetic attempt by Cohen to save his own skin.
The letter continues: “We are writing this letter in the hope that you will support Mr. Cohen’s value as a cooperating witness and the need for him to be readily accessible.”
In reality, Congress has no ability to keep Cohen out of jail. They can simply write a recommendation to the SDNY who will no doubt reject it. They’ve heard all this already and determined he had nothing worthwhile on the Russia front to provide to Robert Mueller. There’s almost no chance Cohen isn’t going to jail on May 6th as planned, but what this will do is stir up a fresh round of media and Congressional hysteria.
And that’s what this is really all about. Lanny Davis knows Cohen is not getting out of his sentence based on the idea that he’s just too darn valuable to Congress to be locked up. Rather, this is Davis taking one last bite at the apple to help out the Democrat’s impeachment push. Nothing more.
Enjoying the read? Please visit my archive and check out some of my latest articles.
I’ve got a new twitter! Please help by following @bonchieredstate.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member