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Impeachable Offenses?

~ Examining the Case for Removal of the 45th President of the United States

Impeachable Offenses?

Tag Archives: cohen

Reflections on Michael Cohen’s testimony

03 Sunday Mar 2019

Posted by impeachableoffenses in Uncategorized

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bank fraud, cohen, Deutsche Bank, House Oversight Committee, Justin Amash, Michael Cohen, Michael Cohen testimony

By Frank Bowman

I tuned in and out of Michael Cohen’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday. By the end, my reactions were pretty much in tune with what has become the general consensus.

Cohen told us very little we didn’t already know. Mostly he confirmed from an insider’s perspective that Trump is the man he appears to be. A liar. A bigot. An adulterer. A cheat. A narcissist to the marrow who, unlike the mythical Greek who gave obsessive self-regard its name, will not pine quietly away staring at his own reflection in a sylvan pool, but has found in the modern media an endless river of print and digital pools in which he daily and desperately schemes to be reflected.

In his portrait of Trump, Cohen was entirely believable. Not because he is himself notably honest. Nor because his claimed epiphany about Trump’s flaws and his own foolishness in following such a man is particularly credible. To the contrary, what makes Cohen on Trump so obviously true is that he is just the kind of guy attracted to the Trumps of the world. A second-rater, endowed with only modest talents and unburdened by any noticeable moral code. But hungry for money and respect and happy to abase himself before a seeming bigshot and do his twisted bidding to swim in the bigshot’s wake.

Just as guys like Cohen are drawn to Trump, so too does Trump instinctively surround himself with Cohens. He needs servility and moral bankruptcy and avarice in his servants. And he recognizes and draws those with these traits into his orbit. In this respect, Trump is like the mob bosses he obviously admires and seeks to emulate. There are no honest men or women in his circle, at least none who stay for long. Most either come to him bent or become so by association. Those who retain their ethical grounding either leave when resurgent self-respect compels them or are cast out when Trump realizes that they resist corruption.

Cohen’s testimony rings true in its essence to me in part because I’ve prosecuted and sometimes flipped (and occasionally defended) enough guys just like him. Most members of criminal enterprises are not comic book villains. They are customarily just greedy and weak and amoral. When caught, they often have precisely Michael Cohen’s sort of self-pitying charm. But their flawed humanity makes them no less blameworthy. Still less does it excuse the actions of the bigshots who use them.

All that said, Cohen’s testimony really doesn’t advance the ball very much for those who hunger for Trump’s political demise. The essential problem, often remarked upon, is that Trump’s base in the right-wing media echo chamber, in red state America, and, sadly, in the congressional Republican Party knows who he is and just doesn’t care.

The performance by Republican congressmen in the Cohen hearing cemented this point. With perhaps one exception, the Republican members of the Oversight Committee asked no questions about any of Cohen’s general or specific allegations. They were ostentatiously uninterested in discovering whatever the facts may be on any point. Indeed, they did not even attempt to challenge Cohen on the particulars of his testimony. Their entire effort was repeated variations of the playground taunt “Liar, liar, pants on fire” — which incredibly they put on a poster in the hearing room. The most astute thing Cohen said the whole day was that the Republicans on the committee had transformed themselves into publicly elected versions of himself.

This leads to two reflections:

First, if any doubt lingered, there will be no repetition of the Watergate experience in which, although there was partisan wrangling aplenty, members of Congress of both parties worked together most of the time to discover the facts about President Nixon’s behavior. At a bare minimum, in public hearings members of Nixon’s party (and their staff) felt it necessary to seem interested in the truth and thus asked questions aimed at acquiring information. For example, it was minority counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee who discovered and then publicly exposed the existence of Nixon’s White House taping system. In the Cohen hearing, with the possible exception of Cong. Justin Amash (R-MI), not a single Republican congressman asked a question aimed at discovering facts.

Second, if Democrats in Congress hope to get to whatever the truth may be about Trump’s various possible misbehaviors, they are going to have shoulder the responsibility themselves. And they are going to have to do a better job than they did on Wednesday. If Cohen’s testimony confirmed the existing sad portrait of Trump’s general character and modus operandi, it added little by way of detail or corroborating evidence.

On Russia, as Republicans gleefully noted, Cohen had little or nothing to add. Indeed, he denied the claim in the Steele dossier that he’d been to Prague doing something nefarious.

The check from Trump to Cohen reimbursing him for paying off the mistresses for their silence was a nice touch, but no one seriously doubts that Trump arranged those payoffs. And it’s pretty plain that Trump is not going to be indicted on that ground during his presidency or impeached for it either.

The Trump financial statements produced in tandem with Cohen’s allegation that Trump made false statements to Deutsche Bank in connection with an effort to obtain a loan to buy the Buffalo Bills are certainly suggestive. It may well prove that Trump committed bank fraud in various transactions predating his presidency, but Cohen’s testimony does nothing more than suggest avenues of further investigation.

If Republican members merely demonstrated their blind fealty to Trump, Democrats demonstrated their lack of preparedness to serve as serious investigators. There was precious little indication of a coordinated Democratic strategy for interrogating Cohen or of individual Member preparation to explore the evidentiary clues Cohen provided. It was political theatre and little more.

In my next post, I will consider whether the House Democrats’ allocation of investigative authority for matters Trumpian suggests a serious effort to build a case for impeachment, or a disposition to create a continuing series of spectacles like the Cohen hearing.

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The Moscow Project Looms

29 Thursday Nov 2018

Posted by crosbysamuel in Articles, Uncategorized

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charge, cohen, Collusion, conspiracy to defraud, false statements, felix sater, fixer, guilty, house of representative, House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Impeachment, individual 1, individual 2, Lawyer, Michael, Moscow Project, Mueller, president, russia, Senate, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Special Counsel, trump, Trump Tower

Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, pleaded guilty earlier today to a charge of “false statements,” for lying to Congress about the extent of his and President Trump’s involvement in plan to build a “Trump Tower” in Moscow, Russia. Cohen falsely represented, in a letter sent to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, that 1) “The ‘Moscow Project’ ended in January 2016 and was not discussed extensively with others in the Company;” 2) “Cohen never agreed to travel to Russia in connection with the Moscow Project and ‘never considered’ asking [President Trump] to travel for the project;” and 3) “Cohen did not recall any Russian government response or contact about the Moscow Project.” In fact Cohen communicated with Felix Sater, a real estate developer with Russian ties, about the project; told Sater he would travel to Russia; addressed Trump about the possibility of Trump traveling to Russia; and communicated directly with Russian officials about the project.

Obviously this looks bad for Trump. The evidence of these ongoing communications with Russian agents strengthen the case for collusion/conspiracy to defraud in that it helps to establish, at least, that Trump’s confidant and fixer had strong ties to Russia while Trump was campaigning for office, and goes a long way towards establishing that Trump had such ties as well. While that doesn’t get us all the way to conspiracy to defraud, it certainly helps to bring us closer. One email written by Sater in November 2015 about the project may be damning. It read in part: “our boy can become President of the USA and we can engineer it.”

e201bbe0-4806-4aef-a7f0-0a873d9738b7-AP_Trump_Lawyer_Party_Switch.jpgMary Altaffer, AP

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Recall-est, recall-est, the 21st of August

22 Wednesday Aug 2018

Posted by crosbysamuel in Articles, Uncategorized

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admitted, articles of impeachment, bank, campaign manager, cohen, Collusion, dark, foreign account, fraud, guilty, Impeachment, invesitgation, Lawyer, Manafort, manhattan, Mueller, plea, tax, trump, tuesday

Of campaign finance law violations and plot! “Tuesday was one of the darkest days of Trump’s year and a half in office.”  That’s a quote from a Politico article describing the beating Trump’s presidency took today from Paul Manafort’s and Michael Cohen’s respective guilty verdict and plea.

Manafort has been convicted on 8 counts of tax fraud, bank fraud, and hiding foreign bank accounts. This is exciting news, but has been largely overshadowed by the accusations which accompanied the guilty plea of Michael Cohen, which came only hours before. When Cohen stepped into the New York federal district courtroom to plead guilty to breaking campaign finance laws, he also admitted that the payments he made to the adult film stars were issued at the bequest of President Donald Trump.

If this it true, it is groundbreaking news. Though Trump has brushed it off, stating that it has “nothing to do with Russian collusion,” it still (shockingly) warrants consideration. First off all, the payments very well may have something to do with Russian collusion. The money used to pay Stormy Daniels (one of the actresses) could have come from Russian officials (a full post about that subject can be found here). Additionally, regardless of whether the payments were related to collusion, Trump could still be considered a conspirator to Cohen’s crimes. This is almost certain to result in an article of impeachment, and perhaps someday indictment. And lastly, the simultaneous plea and verdict are bound to light a fire under Mueller’s investigation as each conviction adds to its credibility. If there is treason and plot, Mueller will find it.

michael-cohen-court-1-ap-thg-180821_hpMain_2_16x9_992.jpgABC News

 

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Cohen Files Articles of Impeachment

15 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by crosbysamuel in Articles, Uncategorized

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articles of impeachment, cohen, Green, politcs of impeachment, Politics, The House of Representatives

Articles of Impeach, sponsored by Representative Steven Cohen, were filed in the House today. Five other House Democrats joined Cohen in endorsing the articles: Luis Gutierrez, Al Green, Marcia Fudge, John Yarmuth, and Adriano Espaillat. The articles charge President Trump with obstruction of justice, violation of the foreign emoluments clause, and undermining American institutions, specifically the courts and press.

The text of the resolution can be found here.

1060x600-6302511f2bd35a6c8f50c7aee99d32da.jpgWashington Examiner

 

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Cohen’s Objection to Trump

22 Sunday Oct 2017

Posted by crosbysamuel in Articles, Uncategorized

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articles of impeachment, cohen, house of representative, objecting to conduct, Politics, politics of impeachment, resolution

Here you can find the text of Rep. Cohen’s resolution which objected to the conduct of President Trump. Amongst the complaints listed in the resolution are Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns, potentially unfair international dealings relating to the Trump brand, communications with Russia, the firing of James Comey, his allegations of wiring tapping, his travel ban, feuding with the media, and other flagrant international communications.

Rep. Cohen has also expressed his intention to introduce articles of impeachment in the next upcoming months. An article summarizing Cohen’s position on impeachment can be found here.

1060x600-4574142ef6512a969da27342a8079ec7.jpg

 

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Things are Heating up in the House

13 Friday Oct 2017

Posted by crosbysamuel in Articles, Uncategorized

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articles of impeachment, cohen, Green, impeachment resoluton, Politics, politics of impeachment, sherman, The House of Representatives

Matters of impeachment are gaining momentum in the House after Representative Green read his articles of impeachment on Wednesday. Rep. Cohen intends to introduce his own articles of impeachment in the next couple of weeks. Here is an article summarizing the recent politics surrounding impeachment in Congress.

Though these resolutions lack the votes needed to pass through the House, they represent a growing support for the idea of impeachment.

merlin-to-scoop-128668370-990905-master768.jpgSmialowski/Getty Images

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Rep. Cohen Introduces Articles of Impeachment

17 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by crosbysamuel in Articles, Uncategorized

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articles of impeachment, charlottesville, cohen

Representative Steve Cohen has stated that he intends to file his own articles of impeachment in response to President Trump’s comments following the riot in Charlottesville. Click here to read the details.

steve-cohen-trump-impeachment.jpgGetty Images

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Blog Owner

Frank O. Bowman, III


Floyd R. Gibson Missouri Endowed Professor of Law
University of Missouri School of Law

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