This week, we return to the Trump administration to check in on the current state of the Mueller investigation and new developments in the various scandals Trump is currently facing. These include former Trump lawyer, Michael Cohen’s testimony before Congress a back on Feb. 27 and former Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort’s sentencing. All in all, Trump has had it pretty rough over the couple week hiatus in this blog as the water he’s sitting in continues to heat up.
Let’s start with former Trump lawyer, Michael Cohen. Cohen was indicted by the Mueller probe months ago due to his involvement in paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels. (A small aside: A federal judge recently dismissed Stormy Daniels’ defamation lawsuit against Trump and Daniel’s split with her lawyer Michael Avenatti.) Cohen had his office raided and documents seized last April and has been cooperating with the Mueller probe ever since. He has entirely changed his tune on the topic of Trump wrongdoing as well. In fact, he went from firm denial of any misdemeanor while working for Trump to now testifying to Congress just to say that Trump is a racist. What makes Cohen’s place in all this mess significant is that Trump’s hush money payment to Stormy Daniels’ could represent a campaign finance violation if it happened during the campaign. However, Cohen’s insider knowledge about the events that took place during the campaign and into the Trump presidency could assist in Robert Mueller’s ability to make an accurate assessment of Trump’s guilt on various accusations. As far as the Stormy Daniels’ payment, any amount of reasonable doubt that it occured was erased when Cohen presented to Congress as part of his testimony copies of the check he wrote to Daniels and the check wrote him for the job. Now it is up to Mueller and his team, along with the justice department and Congress to determine more details about whether this presents an impeachable offense or any offense at all.
Cohen decided to take his testimony far further than just hush money, however. He opened by very blatantly asserting that Trump is a racist, which does not exactly prove anything but really just comes off as an attack, regardless of your stance on Trump. One of Cohen’s more concerning accusations centered around Trump having him threaten various parties for various reasons. Cohen particularly brought up the issue of Trump’s SAT scores, which Cohen claims to have threatened all of Trump’s high school, college, and the College Board to not release at the direction of Trump. In fact, when a representative asked Cohen just how many times he had made threats on behalf of Trump, Cohen agreed with the suggestion of around 500 times. That is certainly not the kind of past we want from an elected official, regardless which side of the aisle you stand on, but it is important to take this with a grain of salt. In fact, it is important to take everything Cohen says with a grain of salt because we must remember that this is the same guy who was lying on Trump’s behalf only a year ago. He claims to have undergone a change in ethics and he wants to right his wrongs and pay for his crimes, but it is important to not instantly buy into the sorry victim routine. Many GOP representatives really emphasized this point during the questioning, focusing more on Cohen’s character than Trump, who Cohen was there to testify against. You can read about some of the best lines from the whole testimony in this article from NBC. I would say some of the Representatives tried to take it a bit too far in diminishing Cohen’s ethos, with one in particular bringing and referencing a poster that had Cohen’s face and said “Liar Liar Pants on Fire” on it. I think that ended up being more embarrassing to Rep. Paul Gosar than it helped his point. There was even more ridiculousness throughout the hearing, enough that the writers for Saturday Night Live made it the cold open sketch for that week. I found it very entertaining, I recommend you check it out here. The Washington Post did us all the service of putting SNL’s rendition up next to the actual testimony in this video which is arguably funnier because it shows just how ludicrous the hearing was.
Cohen’s testimony/hearing boiled down to a bombastic attack on Trump’s character which may have had serious substance, but it is honestly hard to sort out Cohen’s character and motivations. Personally, I’ll leave the judgement to those who are paid to determine make such judgements and have significantly more information than me.
Another development has been the sentencing of former Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. Manafort was also indicted a while ago by Mueller and after some drama during his trial, he was recently sentenced to 47 months years in prison. Many were outraged with the sentence since the recommendation called for at least 19 and half years. The judge, though, defended the sentencing by pointing out that recommendations are just that, recommendations. He pointed out that what’s more important when it comes to sentencing is precedent and similar cases did not align with the lengthy 19 year minimum recommendation, nor did the crime itself, according to Judge T.S. Ellis. Those charges were related to tax fraud. Today, though, Manafort was sentenced to an additional 43 months, bringing his total up to about 7 and a half years in prison. This time, it was because he pled guilty to conspiracy against the US and conspiracy witness tampering. So, if you wanted to see Manafort locked up for a very long time, you probably feel a bit better, but perhaps not satisfied, and if you are the kind of person who still insists there was no collusion and this is all a liberal hoax, you are probably outraged. If you want to read more about Manafort’s sentencing, check out this article from CNN.
That is a lot to digest, so I will say farewell until next week.