494

To paraphrase poll analyst Nate Cohn-the night of the 2016 election when it became clear how much trouble Hillary Clinton-and the country-was in-you can panic now. That is if you are Trump or in his orbit.

According to sources Michael Cohen asserts that Trump knew about and signed off on the meeting with the Kremlin connected Russians Donald Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort attended at Trump Tower in advance.

To be sure, this is only confirming something I personally always presumed-it just wasn’t logical to think that a micro manager like Manchurian ‘President Trump’ knew nothing about this-that his son, son-in-law, and campaign manager would keep him out of the loop on something like this.

So I-and many in the #Resistance-assumed he knew all along. But presumptions even based as this was on educated speculation and simple logic is one thing. But in a court of law like the Mueller probe-or for when the Democrats take the House and reopen the House Russia investigation-logic is one thing but you need factual evidence.

By the way calling this meeting ‘treasonous’ is just using Steve Bannon’s own word. Bannon himself-who blabbed his guts out to Michael Wolff for Wolff’s huge bombshell of a look inside the Trump Russia White House-Fire and Fury and stated that there was no way Trump didn’t know about that meeting-that if nothing else-Donald Jr himself would have wanted to get credit from Daddy Trump about his setting up that treasonous meetings with their Russian friends like a big boy.

So in the etymology of the #TreasonMeeting

1. I personally presumed when the story first broke in June, 2017 that Trump knew in advance

2. Bannon himself as an insider who later became the campaign manager-asserted the same thing in all the material he gave Wolff. No wonder that book led to his excommunication… Whatever grand role Bannon conceives for himself in terms of the great international leader of the anti globalists, the fact is that the conservatives and Deplorables clearly picked sides during that furor over Fire and Fury-and they didn’t choose Bannon as even Breitbart itself excommunicated him. Since then Bannon has been trying to be let back into the ranks of the Deplorables through good works like supporting racist and neo nazi campaigns in Europe-‘If they call you a racist wear it like a badge of honor.’

Bannon’s own assertion that Trump knew, however, wasn’t based in evidence any more than my own-though he, unlike me, of course, was a close member in Trump’s inner circle.

FN: Now it’s certainly possible that Bannon has such evidence but the way he represented it to Wolff was that it wasn’t logical to believe that Jr didn’t tell Daddy.

Again, though, for a trial you need evidence. True, through everything you knew about faux ‘President Trump’ it wasn’t very plausible that he didn’t know in advance. But that was also true of Chris Christie and Bridgegate and yet he was able to get away with it and leave his flacks holding the bag and in prison. Why? Because conclusive evidence was never found.

FN: To be sure there are different types of evidence as Seth Abramson reminds us-most evidence is circumstantial.

FN: Now Christie is being treated like a conquering monarch on cable news while continuing to pretend he never knew. It’s been pointed out that Christie’s narrative is rather lame in the sense that it blames ‘evil, incompetent’ people for Trump’s disasters as if Trump were just a bystander but this is after all the role he feigned-successfully-to get away with Bridgegate.

Of course, a truism of investigations is absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But it will make it very hard if not impossible to prove in a court of law. What this adage also means is that a good criminal will be careful not to leave traces of evidence-you know, more or less the opposite of Roger Stone who is in such  hot water largely due to his own public tweets and comments-what the legal folks call prima facie evidence-that is, evidence that turns the normal standard of proof behind a reasonable doubt on its head. With prima facie evidence you need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that what is right there in front of your face-like Trump’s Muslim ban, his threats against the Mueller investigation, or his call for Russia to hack Clinton’s server-Russia, if you’re listening-

In any case, Christie got away with it due to lack of evidence. Nixon almost got away with it until those tapes surfaced. While it was logically very likely Trump did know in advance there was no evidence-at least public evidence-which does not mean at all that Mueller didn’t have such evidence.

UPDATE: For Trump the equivalence of the Nixon Tapes appears to be the Ukrainian phone call.

3. Until now. Michael Cohen recently declared he was not going to be illegitimate ‘President Trump’s’ punching bag anymore. 

Mission accomplished no doubt Trump now sees him as public enemy number one. On Tuesday night a tape of Cohen’s was obtained by the media that showed Trump knew of the payment to Karen McDougal in advance-and gave Cohen the green light. On the tape it also sure sounded like he told Cohen to pay in cash and they also discussed making sure the Ivanna’s marital rape allegations didn’t break before the election-this was in September, 2016 less than two months before the election. Trump’s words were particularly damning:

Perhaps more importantly, Cohen also raises a lawsuit by the New York Times aimed at unsealing documents related to Trump’s divorce from his first wife Ivana.

“All you have to do is delay it for…” Trump says.

“Even after that, it’s not going to be opened,” Cohen interjects.

To guess how furious Fuhrer Trump must be with his former mob lawyer, consider that this was a tape that Cohen taped without Trump’s knowledge. Yes, James Comey-there are tapes! And from everything we’re hearing this is not the only tape by far-see Chapter A for more.

https://lastmenandovermen.com/2018/07/25/the-truth-is-not-the-presidents-friend-and-im-not-talking-about-marginal-issues-michael-cohen/

That story seemed like the bombshell of the week-in the Trump Era that’s saying something. Until now. Now we have more from Cohen-this is not a tape but it is an Cohen’s alleged eyewitness account. According to sources, Cohen is willing to testify for Mueller that Trump knew in advance. 

“Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, claims that then-candidate Trump knew in advance about the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower in which Russians were expected to offer his campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton, sources with knowledge tell CNN. Cohen is willing to make that assertion to special counsel Robert Mueller, the sources said.”

“Cohen’s claim would contradict repeated denials by Trump, Donald Trump Jr., their lawyers and other administration officials who have said that the President knew nothing about the Trump Tower meeting until he was approached about it by The New York Times in July 2017.”

Indeed, Donald Jr denied it under oath in Congressional testimony-yes, lying under oath is the definition of perjury.

“Cohen alleges that he was present, along with several others, when Trump was informed of the Russians’ offer by Trump Jr. By Cohen’s account, Trump approved going ahead with the meeting with the Russians, according to sources.”

Cohen, according to these sources, does not have this conversation on tape but he is asserting his own first person eyewitness account.

“To be clear, these sources said Cohen does not have evidence, such as audio recordings, to corroborate his claim, but he is willing to attest to his account.”

As for Traitor Trump’s legal team, their strategy seems clear: just point out the undeniable fact that Michael Cohen is an inveterate liar.

“Rudy Giuliani, the President’s attorney, told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on “Cuomo Prime Time” Thursday night that Cohen has “been lying all week, he’s been lying for years.”

“I don’t see how he’s got any credibility,” Giuliani added.

“Giuliani also said Cohen is “the kind of witness that can really destroy your whole case” and called Cohen, who was a top Trump Organization attorney for a decade, a “pathological liar.”

Well, Cohen was just Fuhrer Trump’s lawyer for many years. His current pathological liar of a lawyer is calling out his previous pathological liar of a lawyer.

 

We do have Cohen lying-either now or to Congress last year.

“Cohen privately testified last year to two Congressional committees investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. A source familiar with Cohen’s House testimony said he did not testify that Trump had advance knowledge. Cohen’s claims weren’t mentioned in separate reports issued by Republicans and Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee.”

“I did NOT know of the meeting with my son, Don jr. Sounds to me like someone is trying to make up stories in order to get himself out of an unrelated jam (Taxi cabs maybe?). He even retained Bill and Crooked Hillary’s lawyer. Gee, I wonder if they helped him make the choice!” Trump tweeted.

Certainly the denials of an illegitimate ‘President’ who lies 73% of the time settles things.

According to the sources, Cohen is willing to testify to this for Mueller:

“According to people who have discussed the matter with Cohen, he has expressed hope that this claim about the Trump Tower meeting will help him reach out to Mueller and possibly lessen his legal troubles. He’s under scrutiny by federal prosecutors in Manhattan after Mueller referred Cohen’s case to them.”

As for lying, how many lies have Trump, Donald Jr and friends told about the #TreasonMeeting at Trump Tower already?

And regarding Cohen being a liar, here’s what Rudy said about him in May:

FN: Doubly or triply ironic for Rudy to be complaining about lying in light of his own recently revealed role in Ukraine if you’re listening.

 

UPDATE: We can settle this issue pretty easily:

https://twitter.com/AshaRangappa_/status/1022662460271206402?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1022662460271206402&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Flastmenandovermen.com%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost.php%3Fpost%3D37290%26action%3Dedit

After news of the meeting broke in July 2017, the Trump team offered misleading explanations and changed their story several times. But one claim stayed consistent: that Trump had no knowledge of the meeting beforehand, wasn’t told about it afterward and first learned about it one year later.

“Those denials were repeatedly issued by Trump, his attorney Jay Sekulow, Trump Jr., Futerfas and White House press secretary Sarah Sanders. Those people denied that Trump had contemporaneous knowledge of the meeting on more than 15 occasions, according to CNN’s analysis.”

Trump said on July 12, 2017, that he “only heard about it two or three days ago.” One week later, Trump repeated that he “didn’t know anything about the meeting” because “nobody told me” about it.

Trump continues to lie-as he lies over 70% of the time presuming he’s lying any time he opens his mouth is always the safe bet:

“President Donald Trump insisted Friday morning that he was not aware of a summer, 2016, meeting between officials from his presidential campaign, including his son, and a Russian attorney who promised Kremlin-sourced information on Hillary Clinton, contradicting a CNN report that he personally approved the meeting.”

“So the Fake News doesn’t waste my time with dumb questions, NO, I did NOT know of the meeting with my son, Don jr. Sounds to me like someone is trying to make up stories in order to get himself out of an unrelated jam (Taxi cabs maybe?),” Trump wrote, alluding to his longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen. “He even retained Bill and Crooked Hillary’s lawyer. Gee, I wonder if they helped him make the choice!”

Yeah, I’m sure he’s worried  mostly just about taxi medallions-you know, as opposed to being a major person of interest in both the Mueller probe and the Southern District of NY probe.

Again, this is big news-Michael Cohen is apparently willing to provide first person eyewitness testimony that Trump signed off on the #TreasonSummit in advance. It’s not physical evidence but it’s big-and he states there were other witnesses in the room.

In reality it was always self evidently clear that Trump must have known in advance. I personally assumed-as did many in the #Resistance-this from the start. Bannon told Michael Wollff the same thing. Roger Stone’s protege, Sam Nunberg,  just told Jake Tapper the same thing. 

Tapper: Do you think that — Donald Trump says that — President Trump says he knew nothing about the meeting. Do you think that that’s true?

Nunberg: No.

Tapper: You don’t think that’s true?

Nunberg: No. It doesn’t — and, Jake, I have watched your news reports. You know it’s not true. He talked about it a week before.

“And I don’t know why he did this. All he had to say was, yes, we met with the Russians. The Russians offered us something, and we thought they had something. And that was it.”

“I don’t know why he went around trying to hide it. And he shouldn’t have.”

Why? Because admitting to knowing is admitting to collusion. David Corn made this point on Lawrence last night: if this is true then that’s the ballgame. That’s collusion.

FN: Wether it’s strictly criminal or not-it-though it probably is in terms of violating campaign finance law–is besides the point. Of course, w e now know Mueller declined on not only charging Trump but his namesake son and not only did he punt on demanding an in person interview for Trump-remember the furor over Hillary Clinton’s lawyer being present for her Emailgate interview? Well Trump didn’t even have one, imagine if Hillary didn’t get one; can you imagine Comey backing off because he was intimidated by Clinton’s lawyers a la John Dowd? It’s unimaginable it would never happen.

And it’s even worse than that he also punted on interviewing Donald Jr. Recently we’ve learned that Mueller also declined to compel either Jr or Don McGahn to testify for the Grand Jury. 

OTOH there’s this annoying narrative out there that somehow the Mueller Report failed-that it was too long and complicated to make a compelling case for impeachment from. Only to the extent that the Dems failed to bottomline it-at bottom it was about a stolen election about engaging in treasonous acts with a hostile foreign power to ‘win.’

OTOH it’s pretty clear that in many ways Mueller really did pull his punches and while if you follow the report he covers most of the bases much he does everything he can to understate it. 

There’s no question that we’ve gotten the kind of bombshell testimony in Ukraine are you listening we lacked for Russia if you’re listening. Even more with the passage of time it’s fair to ask if Mueller didn’t pull his punches far too much.

End of FN

Back to CNN:

“The June 2016 meeting was arranged after a publicist who knew Trump Jr. told him in emails — in no uncertain terms — that a senior Russian official “offered to provide the Trump campaign” with damaging information about Clinton, and that the outreach was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” At the time, the Russian operation to covertly boost Trump’s candidacy wasn’t publicly known. Trump. Jr. responded, “if it’s what you say, I love it,” and started to arrange the meeting.”

If Trump knew about this offer of Clinton dirt as ‘part of the Russian government’s support’ for him and he didn’t immediately call the FBI then that’s collusion. Game set match.

P.S. There’s been some speculation about who leaked this info-Rachel Maddow argued last night that it wasn’t the Cohen team as this doesn’t help him with Mueller. She conjectured that it might have been Team #TreasonTrump to lessen the value of Cohen’s testimony. According to some legal experts she had on like Chuck Rosenberg, this doesn’t actually lessen its value-though the prosecutors still likely don’t like the leaks.

Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, put out a statement this morning that it was leaked by: Team #TreasonTrump.

P.S.S. Chait nails it on Trump/Rudy assailing Cohen’s credibility here:

“Trump, who has lied about his dealings with Russia so many times that his word has grown completely worthless, has to resort to the defense of pulling down the value of hostile witnesses to his own level. Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s attorney, told CNN Thursday night, “[Cohen]’s been lying all week, he’s been lying for years.”

“Years! Keep in mind that Cohen has been working for Trump until recently. The effort to impugn Cohen’s credibility naturally impeaches Trump’s own credibility. Neither man is especially trustworthy, but the preponderance of circumstantial evidence supports Cohen’s testimony.”

UPDATE: About 5 months since the above was written, many have now assumed that Cohen did not witness this after all as this wasn’t mentioned in Cohen’s filing memo, but that presumes that Mueller put everything Cohen told him in the unredacted part of the memo-which seeing that Cohen spoke to him for 70 hours, seems unlikely to say the least.

UPDATE 2.0: It also wasn’t mentioned in his sentencing memo. Again though don’t presume absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

Regarding who put this story out, Lanny Davis later admitted that he was one of CNN’s sources on the claim that Cohen saw Jr tell Sr about the Russia meeting and that he now is not sure about the story he himself put out. However, CNN had other sources and they have remained confident and stood by their story.

UPDATE 3.0: It turns out that Cohen’s testimony-later repeated before Congress was that he believed but wasn’t sure he heard Jr tell Sr about the upcoming Trump Tower Russia meeting. However, he did also reveal a surprise-he could with 100% confidence testify that he did overhear Roger Stone tell Trump on the speakerphone on July 18-19 in 2016 about the soon to be released DNC emails. This estalbishes that Trump knew about the DNC emails as well as the later Podesta emails in advance.

 

License

October 28, 2016: a Day That Will Live in Infamy Copyright © by . All Rights Reserved.

Share This Book