Well, well, well, it appears that Michael Cohen and Donald Trump were aware of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s peculiar ideas of how to treat women since about 2013. How do we know this? Because an attorney has filed a letter with the special master overseeing the review of the documents seized by the FBI when they raided Cohen’s residence, home, and office saying that the FBI may have vacuumed up privileged papers. (H/T to my HotAir colleague Allahpundit.)
And now this tweet seems a lot more than someone just spouting off.
Weiner is gone, Spitzer is gone – next will be lightweight A.G. Eric Schneiderman. Is he a crook? Wait and see, worse than Spitzer or Weiner
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 11, 2013
I’m not sure any of this means anything. The attorney who spoke with Cohen didn’t ask for help in going public. Ronan Farrow denies he got the lead from Cohen, Trump, or anyone associated with them:
https://twitter.com/RonanFarrow/status/994973782635933696
Just to be clear: not one source for our story on Schneiderman has any ties to Trump or Michael Cohen. Our sources all are deeply opposed to Trump and deeply disappointed that Schneiderman let them and their Cause down.
— Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) May 11, 2018
I’m not a Farrow fan, but I think if Trump had struck he would have used The Enquirer.
Back to Allahpundit:
Million-dollar exit question via me: How the hell did Gleason end up being referred to Trump and Cohen in the first place? Gleason’s letter reads like MAGA Mad Libs. “I discussed the matter with a retired journalist by the name of Stephen Dunleavy who suggested and offered to discuss the matter with Donald Trump.” W-w-w-what? Why did Dunleavy think to bring Trump into this instead of, say, a private investigator who might work to build evidence against Schneiderman? The only thing I can figure is that, fearing the cops and D.A. would look the other way at the allegations against Schneiderman, maybe Gleason was looking for a pipeline to the tabloids to get the women’s stories out that way. Trump could certainly provide him with that. But even then, Dunleavy must have known lots of ways to put people in touch with newspapers. The Trump cameo here is completely bizarre.
I have no idea why Trump was chosen as a trusted intermediary. Though this is a possible theory: the lawyer for the women beaten by Schneiderman may have been hoping Trump would put it in play:
Giuliani tells me that he's not yet talked to Trump about Gleason's claims, but says that people might have wanted to share the info b/c it "could be of use to the president" given Schneiderman's then-recently filed Trump U lawsuit —> https://t.co/AaMXyyhC76 pic.twitter.com/r4fHVjxNq8
— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) May 11, 2018
I can, however, see why Trump sat on it. Schneiderman would have inevitably targeted Trump for something serious because that is just how he operated. Trump U. was just background noise. By hinting at what he had, he may have encouraged Schneiderman to find other prey. If so, Scheniderman’s sick fetish may be sort of responsible for Trump being president.
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