Pod Save America - “The impeachment eagle soars.” (BONUS episode)

Episode Date: January 18, 2019

Jon, Jon, and Crooked Media editor-in-chief Brian Beutler break down the bombshell BuzzFeedNews story that President Trump committed a crime by directing Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow deal.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Levitt. And with us today, we have Editor-in-Chief of Crooked Media, Brian Voitler. Hi, Brian. Hey, guys. media brian boitler hi brian hey guys um we are doing a special moscow on the potomac edition of bots of america today uh thanks to the buzz buzzfeed story that broke last night i'll tell you guys so i did a forum at the hammer museum in la about the 2018 elections that shaniqua mcclendon our, put together. And about to go on stage last night,

and I see in our Slack channel Michael Martinez send the story about the BuzzFeed thing. And I just saw the headline, and I was like, ooh, that seems like a big deal. And then there's a two-hour event. And I leave, and I just look at Twitter, and it's like, do an emergency pod. So now we're doing an emergency pod.

Is this the first ever emergency pod? Maybe. Maybe. It was one of our New Year's resolutions. To do more emergency pods. Okay, so here's what happened. Let's start here. During a confirmation hearing earlier this week, Senator Lindsey Graham asked Attorney General nominee William Barr whether it would be a crime if, quote,

the president tried to coach somebody not to testify or testify falsely. Barr's answer, which he repeated again when asked a similar question by Senator Amy Klobuchar, was yes. Then, last night, Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier of BuzzFeed broke the following story. Here's the lead, quote, Leopold and Anthony Cormier of BuzzFeed broke the following story. Here's the lead. Quote, President Donald Trump directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow according to two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter. Trump also supported a plan set up by Cohen

to visit Russia during the presidential campaign in order to personally meet President Vladimir Putin and jumpstart the Tower negotiations. Quote, make it happen, the sources said Trump told Cohen. Brian, just to refresh everybody's minds, what do we already know for sure about the Trump Tower Moscow deal from both the previous BuzzFeed story by Leopold and Cormier and Mueller's sentencing memo. Right.

So I guess we should start at the beginning of the story, which is that initially Trump and everyone around him denied that there were any contacts with anyone in Russia during the campaign at all. That's right. That's good. It was unequivocal. Very unequivocal. That story evolved when, I believe it was Yahoo News, but it might have been BuzzFeed also revealed that there had been negotiations between the Trump organization and Moscow about building a Trump tower there.

put himself in jeopardy is that in order to like reduce the sense that maybe there was some kind of quid pro quo arrangement between the Trump campaign in Moscow where where the Trump campaign promised policy spoils and in return Moscow delivered election assistance and maybe a Trump tower tower to boot we'll help you win the election we'll throw in a tower well it's it's it's uh the election if you win the tower if you lose yeah, that's true. The BuzzFeed story suggests that the tower deal was going to be worth like $300 million to the Trump organization, which is bigger than any deal they've had going back decades. So it was a real inducement. Plus, I bet they don't – I don't think Trump Tower is like – I don't think you get Wi-Fi with the hotel room. I think you have to – I bet they're the kind of douchey hotels where you have to pay for the Wi-Fi. But this is the key. This is the key. And this is where Cohen put himself in jeopardy and thus, you know, put himself later in a position to incriminate Trump about pressuring him to lie to Congress under oath, is that to minimize the sense that there was some sort of illicit arrangement here. Cohen told Congress that this was a nothing deal. We had some early conversations about it.

There might have been a letter of intent, but it went nowhere. And we stopped talking about it before the primaries were even over. It's not that big a deal. Turns out that the negotiations continued well into election season and were much farther along than anyone let on,

including under oath. And they involved not just Trump, but Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. And so this is reportedly what Trump asked Cohen to lie about. Cohen's already been been charged. Essentially, he confessed that he lied to Congress under oath. And Robert Mueller hinted in a in a sentencing memo last month, he said, basically, Cohen has been cooperating with us in good faith, including by telling us basically the provenance of this testimony that included the false statements about the Trump Tower Moscow deal. So Mueller was kind of hinting back in December that

other people might have been involved in helping him craft whatever cover story he told Congress. And now BuzzFeed is saying that that was at the direction of Trump himself. So basically, Cohen tells Congress, you know what? We had this. There was the potential deal with Russia for a Trump Tower thing. But it ended in, I think, January of 16. Yeah. And Trump wasn't really involved. And the kids weren't really involved.

Donald Trump Jr. testified to Congress. I was, quote, peripherally aware of this deal. Right. And so no big deal. Nothing happened. involved and the kids weren't really involved donald trump jr testified to congress i was quote peripherally aware of this deal right and so no big deal nothing happened i didn't even really talk to them that much whatever and then we find out from muller's sentencing memo so we know this is true that cohen lied about this that they were talking about it well into the campaign i think into june june of 2016 that also michael Michael Cohen had not just been talking with random Russians about a tower, but had communicated with the Russian government itself, including Putin's press secretary, I believe. Yeah. And so.

That's all right. And so there was a lot more contact. So and then this story that came out last night, how does this add to what we already know? What is the new information in the story so this is that trump both that trump uh told cohen to lie about it and that trump was willing to go to moscow during the campaign and meet with putin himself yeah so that's been kind of floating in the background of all this is that is that michael cohen was going to go uh to moscow first and basically you know set up a future meeting between Trump and

Putin that was going to happen when Putin visited New York for a meeting of the U.N. That plan, I think, got scuttled because news broke in The Washington Post that the DNC had been hacked and that Russia was most likely behind it. And so things got too hot. And so they... That's a little too hot. And so they called it off. So what else new does this tell us? It tells us, well, suborning perjury is a crime. Importantly have to follow the precedent that they set in the Nixon era and in the Clinton era, or they have to kind of explain why Trump is different.

And so, by the way, does William Barr, who may be attorney general, because he just said if a president coaches someone to lie to Congress, it is a crime. It would be so Trump, by the way, to just withdraw Barr's nomination now. He should. He should. Well, there was also that story that said Trump was caught off guard by how chummy Barr and Mueller were. Like, wait, they're friends?

They hang out? Their wives are friends? What the fuck? That's not what I was bargaining for. So, Brian, you alluded to this. In Mueller's sentencing memo of Cohen, he writes, Cohen provided relevant and useful information concerning his contacts with persons connected to the White House during the 2017-2018 period and described the circumstances of preparing and circulating his response to the congressional inquiries

while continuing to accept responsibility for the false statements contained within it. to accept responsibility for the false statements contained within it. So basically this means Michael Cohen told us about all the contacts he had with both the White House and people who helped him prepare his testimony to Congress about the Moscow Trump Tower, which we know is a lie. Why don't you think that the memo stated directly that Trump directed him to prepare the false testimony since Mueller did say, the sentencing memo did say that Trump directed Cohen to lie about the payments, or the SDNY memo said that Trump directed Cohen to lie about the payments to the women,

to Stormy Daniels and stuff like that. It's weird that in the Mueller memo he didn't make clear that Trump could be behind this. Right. So I think the answer to the question is that if he was going to make an allegation like that, that would be an allegation of a crime, just like in in the SDNY, the Southern District of New York, charging documents for Cohen. They refer to individual one as having instructed Michael Cohen to make the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. And and prosecutors just do not make criminal allegations outside of indictment. So this was a sentencing memo that was meant to suggest to a judge you can be lenient with Michael Cohen because he's providing us useful information to to back that up. He can't say. And here are the crimes that we know happened. But what he can do is say, we got useful information about X, Y, and Z. He wouldn't put, Mueller would not have put anything in this sentencing memo that was irrelevant. Like, it's not useful to Mueller if Michael Cohen truthfully said, I wrote this testimony all by myself. Nobody coached me on it. Nobody helped me with it. Nobody told me to lie

to Congress. I spoke to people in the White House and they were super honest with me about everything and they told me, tell the truth. And I lied anyway. Right. Like that would not be something that Mueller then went to a judge and said, look at how honest he was like you can be lenient with him. The point of putting it in there is to suggest Cohen told us about more bad acts that happened around this testimony. And presumably if Mueller does include this as part of whatever his report is or whatever is to come he will do so while substantiating it. Yes. Because you see

because first of all the BuzzFeed report doesn't just rely on Michael Cohen. It doesn't rely on Michael Cohen at all which is it's funny because the Giuliani, White House, Fox News it's all the same response is Michael Cohen is a liar. How could this story be?

But, like, anything Michael Cohen says you can't trust because he's a liar. It's like, well, fine. And then Jason Leopold wrote the story. It was like, yeah, we didn't rely on Michael Cohen. In fact, I'd love to talk to Michael Cohen. Michael, you know my number. Please call me. We'd love to hear the story.

Because they didn't rely on Michael Cohen. What they relied on is, it said, the special counsel's office learned about Trump's director for Cohen to lie to Congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents. Cohen then acknowledged those instructions during his interviews with Mueller. Right. This is important because it— That captures a lot, though, right? That captures a very important moment in Michael Cohen's life.

It's important on on two fronts one is that the claim in the story is that muller had trump dead to rights on suborning perjury and then cohen confirmed it yeah okay that's incredible so so it's not just muller saying that co Cohen told him this and he's taking Cohen's word for it. And then the second point is that in reporting it, BuzzFeed didn't rely didn't go to Michael Cohen and say, oh, yeah, you know, Mueller's got Trump dead to rights on on obstruction of justice and supporting perjury. They got it from from law enforcement sources and may have confirmed it with Cohen's subsequently. But they didn't source the story to Cohen. And according to the story, Mueller isn't sourcing the allegation if it's to come to Cohen either. He's got it from documents and from other witness testimony. And normally you'd say, well, presumably nobody would be so stupid as to put this kind of brazen criminality in email. And yet time and again, that is exactly what they do inside of the Trump organization.

We have seen emails from the Trump children saying things like, no one can find out about it. If they do, they'll know it's fraud. Or if it's later in the summer. It's what you say. If it's what you say, I love it. Especially later in the summer. So these are people throughout the campaign.

You know, one question I have is, and I'm wondering what you guys think of this, how much of what we are looking at is a group of people in way over their head who did not believe that, yeah, sure, who did not believe Donald Trump would be president and saw the campaign as an opportunity to make money, get a tower off the ground, all right,

and get the most worth they could by giving Putin whatever they wanted in the platform. Trump could be nice during the campaign and they could build a tower and make some cash after the fact. I mean, one thing that I always come back to is Michael Cohen's experience of working with the Russians mirrored Donald Trump's experience on the campaign. I believe Michael Cohen's first attempt to reach out to the Russians was through a public press email. His first attempt to get in contact with them was. I don't even know if it was the first attempt, but it was certainly a successful attempt because that that was he eventually someone responded to him and he talked to the government.

But the Russian government, this guy, this is not some like low level like assistant to the assistant. This isn't like info at Russian government, this is not some low-level assistant to the assistant. This isn't like info at Russiangovernment.com. No, but he's reaching out blindly and seeing just how much being connected to Donald Trump can get him. And it turns out the closer Donald Trump got to being the nominee and then the president, the more and more it got him. And none of them ever looked back. Here's what we know for sure. I mean, here's what we know for sure. We do know that everyone in the campaign up through Donald Trump himself did not believe that he was going to win the election.

I mean, none of them really planned for this. Donald Trump himself, when he found out he won, was fairly shocked. So you're absolutely right. So you're absolutely right that their mindset during the campaign was. And I think Donald Trump, by the way, said this last time we had a Trump Tower Moscow story. He said, like, well, yeah, there's nothing. Remember, very legal, very cool. And if I didn't win the election, I wanted to make some money and I wanted to have my business. Basically, he just admitted that. I mean, there's more to sort of back up your interpretation of events.

One is that they had done basically no preparation for a transition. Right. They didn't think they were going to win the other is in my mind you if you go back and look at how uh how like trump's aspect changed after he won and like both right before and right after he took office it was sort of like i want oh shit they're gonna come looking for all the crimes that we committed. And he pivoted to this, like, got to cover everything up, got to obstruct justice. I mean, I think it's very possible that he also told Mike Flynn to lie,

which Mike Flynn then did lie to the FBI. And then he said to Comey, please let Flynn go. And then when Comey wouldn't do that, then he fired Comey. I mean, it all makes sense. These were things that he never thought he'd have to tell everyone to lie about because i think it you know everyone was gonna kind of disband well you know we gave it our all right didn't work out and and you know jump back into that deal just to get that tower in the nature of things you know uh it would look pretty bad if if the hillary cl Clinton Justice Department started prosecuting the Trump campaign.

So they just kind of assumed they'd get away with it all. Right. It's a little bit like, you know, when like on The Sopranos, they would take over a sporting goods store. You know, their goal was not to sell kayaks. Their goal was to strip the copper out of the walls and use it as a place to launder money. And then all of a sudden, all of a sudden they become the best sports store in New Jersey. So president of sports. Keep going. Is it so is it possible that Trump also he's not just not just content with suborning perjury

by by asking Michael Cohen to commit perjury. Is it possible that hening perjury by by tell asking michael cohen to commit perjury is it possible that he committed perjury himself and lied to him i mean i trump obstructs justice in various ways in public all the time right he just today uh like sort of subtly threatened michael cohen's father-in-law it's very subtly, Brian. Right, okay. Just he tweeted about him. Basically, he's trying to sick prosecutors or some other goons onto Michael Cohen's father-in-law to get him to not testify to incriminating

facts before Congress next month. He does this shit all the time. It's super illegal and it's definitely impeachable, but for whatever reason, we have been waiting for evidence of one of these impeachable crimes to kind of fall into our laps and have it match something that formed the basis of an impeachment of a past president. So that the republicans who defend trump and the democrats who are hesitant to talk about impeachment have nowhere to run like they can't claim this is sort slightly different or we don't have enough

information to substantiate this or you know we don't know if prosecutors would really regard that tweet as witness tampering or whatever like this if the if the report is is accurate and congress can substantiate it all then it is like on all fours exactly what congress has used as a basis of impeachment in the past so that's one reason why it's a bombshell um the other reason it's a bombshell is because it suggests there's an active cover-up of much worse crimes, right? You don't get in this deep. So yeah, the big question is, why did they lie? Why did Michael Cohen lie? Why did Donald Trump direct him to lie about this deal? If this is just a real estate deal in Russia, he's a private citizen running for president. Maybe it looks bad, but why lie about, you know, oh, it was over in January and not June? Like, why go to this length to cover this up?

I mean, my suspicion is that there was a big quid pro quo deal that involved Russia committing crimes on Trump's behalf to win the election. And in exchange, he promised them certain deliverables in Syria, in Ukraine, NATO, lifting sanctions, etc., on and on down the line. And and that this is in some sense provable. And so you need to engage in a big cover up. So do I think that he possibly not just told Michael Cohen to lie under oath, but also in his answers to Robert Mueller for the record that he might have lied himself. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the the the the pattern here is clear. And Trump being a liar is super well known. He's lied under oath in the past. It's also worth remembering, too, that in the oh shit phase we won.

Right. One of his first acts as as president elect is to war is to publicly let Vladimir Putin know that he doesn't need to worry about whatever Barack Obama says about sanctions. That in that immediate moment, you can imagine... Well, that's what he told, yeah, that's what he told Flynn to tell the Russian ambassador, which got Flynn in trouble. And you can imagine that he's wrestling with this incredible jam he's now found himself in, which is he he wanted a tower. He wanted a tower. He made a bunch of promises. But what he wanted was the tower. And now all of a sudden he is in cahoots with Vladimir Putin. He has to be nice to him because Vladimir Putin knows about all the shit that went on during the campaign.

So that is such a key point here is that because everyone's like, you know, what does Putin have on Trump? Is it the P-tape? Right. But yes. Yes. All right. All right. We should mention we should let people know that Brian is covered in red string. He and he also came in with a bunch of wax sealed envelopes. All right. And he's dropping them all over the place. I don't even know what that's just bizarre. He says he got to get him get him to his dead drop okay i don't know what that i don't know what

he where who was picking those things up so so so yes the p-tape may exist but uh putin for a long time now has had a lot of blackmail on donald trump and donald trump's known it because putin has known for years now that donald trump has been lying about his contacts with russia and about this trump tower and this whole time and this dovetails with a story that was like you know a century ago earlier this week i think where where we were kind of marveling about the fact that trump has gone to great lengths to conceal uh transcripts and notes about his private conversations right with vlad Vladimir Putin, like five different conversations over the course of the last two years. You know, all we can do is speculate.

But like if you were being essentially extorted by the leader of a different country because they had compromising information on you, in this case uh about trump tower but also possibly about um the p-tape or possibly just about other long uh long-standing financial entanglements with nefarious and money laundering nefarious organizations russian oligarchs which trump has been sort of in bed with for a very long time in one way or another. We are just left to wonder whether one reason Trump wants all of those transcripts, I guess they're not transcripts, notes from his interpreters to be withheld from his own government is because in those meetings there is some indication that he's being extorted, right? Whether it's super overt or not,

that Trump has leverage over him and exerts it when they meet privately. And, you know, our friend Marcy Wheeler, who we've had on the pod before, points out too that this wasn't just a real estate deal with any old company in some foreign country. This was a real estate deal that involved partnering with Russian banks that were under U.S. sanctions. So that is another thing that Cohen and possibly Trump may have known, that they were about to enter into this deal with the Russian government for a real estate deal. And the funding had to come from a bank that was under sanctions by the United States, which that's not just any real estate deal.

I mean, is it possible this is just the producers? That that's all this has been the whole time? They just needed the show to tank and it fucking was a hit? Yeah. It's the producers with Russian oligarchs and international conspiracies to defraud the United States. The other piece of this too,

which is always worth coming back to, is like, look, we have a lot of data about decisions that have been made. We're trying to put together a lot of deeply strange, unique circumstances about Donald Trump and his behavior. And we don't have all the answers and we don't know what Mueller knows. We don't know what has been over-torqued or not. And one thing I always come back to is Donald Trump doesn't care about America's global interests. He doesn't care about NATO. He has no personal ideology. It would be so valuable for Donald Trump to rebuke Vladimir Putin in some way.

It would be so useful to him with Republicans to go out to the podium and say, do I think it'd be good if we got along with Russia? You can even give him that. Yes. But Russia attacks journalists and it undermines NATO. And I love that. And we love this country. We're going to make sure that we stand up for American values. The the the political windfall for him, for engaging in just that small amount of Republican orthodoxy would be a huge relief for the for the weak-kneed Republicans in the Senate. And he won't do it. Well, he won't do it. More to the point, I think he acts as though he realizes that the fact that the Russia-U.S. relationship has deteriorated under his presidency is a threat to him, because when he when he talks about the Russia investigation, his meetings with Putin, it's all there's always this backdrop of you know

it would be great if we could be friends but there's all there's the the witch hunt and there's this and so it's impeding me from from you know making a deal with putin it it almost sounds like what he's saying is like trying to bide himself time in a way that like he was supposed like his his being elected was supposed to uh redound to to putin's benefits in xyz ways and it's it's not really happening at least not as fully as it as it could and and trump seems to worry that like if he doesn't like deliver that what you know uh you know putin has receipts essentially all right we going to take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll talk about what's next. So let's talk about what happens next.

I imagine right now that reporters at The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, everywhere else, are trying to confirm this story. Just to say a little about the story itself and these reporters, you know, Leopold and Cormier also broke the original Trump Tower Moscow story a long time ago now, which was basically 100% corroborated by Mueller's sentencing memo on Cohen. So their first bit of reporting was completely accurate. The sourcing in that original story was according to two FBI agents. The sourcing in this story that we're talking about now is according to two federal law enforcement officials. So it is similar sourcing.

So people are going to talk about, you know, is the story true? Can we confirm it? Other outlets are going to try to confirm it. But, you know, their reporting has held up in the past. So I guess people are going to try to confirm the story. If they're wrong, we'll just take this episode down. Yeah, we'll just take it down. What happens in Congress now?

We have not heard a lot from Republicans today. They're doing their sort of like – they're not doing their I haven't read the story yet or he's just an unusual president thing. So far, they're just not talking at all. They're all like disappeared. There was a Kevin McCarthy shaped hole in the side of the Capitol. And apparently he there was a cartoon like trail that went all the way from D.C. to an avocado field in the Central Valley of California. And that's where his his trail does run cold. Cato Field in the Central Valley of California.

And that's where his trail does run cold. Democrats, you know, Joaquin Castro, a congressman from Texas, said he should be impeached or resign if this is true. Schiff, Chris Murphy, all these other people, they're pretty, they said they're going to investigate. I thought Murphy's statement was the most interesting. He was basically like, we can't, look, if Robert Mueller is treating this like any other investigation and eventual prosecution. Right. He's going to wait until he's ready to seek an indictment. He's going to get an indictment. It's going to name the people, at least, you know, on the obstruction side of things who obstructed justice.

And it'll either include Trump's name or refer to him as individual one. And we don't know how long that's going to take and if it takes until well into this year then you're getting so close to the election that it's impossible for congress to do its its job you know to begin impeachment proceedings without it getting tangled up in the election process and he's saying we don't need to wait for Mueller to finish to start doing this ourselves. I think that there is a growing demand among Democrats to start getting their hands on some of this evidence, whether from Mueller directly or from the same sources Mueller pulled from himself. That's important, too, for another reason.

You know, we are it is amazing how history repeats itself. But, you know, we're basically slowly is amazing how history repeats itself, but you know, we're, we're basically slowly filling out the Nixon Mad Libs for impeachment, right? And so you have one article of impeachment against Nixon, it's around obstruction of justice. You have a second article of impeachment against Nixon, it's basically about breaking the law. Yeah. And you know, misusing the office. And then, but there is a third article of impeachment, and it's basically not allowing Congress to do its job to investigate Richard Nixon. So one of the reasons it's really important to get Congress in the game is because we will learn a lot about what Donald Trump does and doesn't do, how his team cooperates and doesn't cooperate, who is willing to testify, who requires a subpoena.

All of that will be informative, even as it kind of runs behind what Robert Mueller is doing. Yeah, I mean, this is an investigation of how exactly Donald Trump betrayed his country, right? And the obstruction, the obstruction angle on it is important, but it is as part of a cover up of the betrayal, right? And, and all along, Congress, particularly Democrats in Congress, have treated the Mueller investigation as like their sort of get out of jail free card for having to take this crisis head on, right? And so that means waiting until Robert Mueller says definitively or not, Donald Trump cheated in the election by partnering with the hostile foreign intelligence service to sabotage Hillary Clinton. We don't don't know a whether Robert Mueller is ever going to be able to conclude

whether that happened one way or another. He might just go silent on that question if he can't substantiate a full conspiracy that involves Trump. And it, you know, it might it might drag on past the election. We we need clarity on this sooner than we can get it if Congress is going to sit on its hands until Mueller's done. It's also not, it's all, like, they have two different jobs. Robert Mueller's job is to prove crimes. It is Congress's job to find the truth. And those are different responsibilities.

Well, it's Mueller's job to, you know, prove the truth true. But like Brian said, not on any, not on anyone's timeline, but his own. But not on any. Meanwhile, we have crimes piling up now. Yeah, but it's not even about, but no, but it is, it is, he has a specific mission, right? It is, it is an investigation of potential crimes. And Congress's job is to oversee the administration in a much broader way. Obviously, they should try to uncover crimes if they exist, but also just general incompetence, malfeasance, things that might not rise to the level of crimes. Disloyalty.

Disloyalty, et cetera. These are more complicated, subtle distinctions and still worthy of our knowing. So, you know, we end with one day to circle on your calendars. February 7th, Michael Cohen will be testifying again before Congress. Now, I heard Anthony Cormier say today that his sources told him that Cohen did cut a deal with Mueller to say, you know, I will not talk about in my testimony anything that is still under investigation by Mueller.

So you can imagine that there may be some questions that Cohen gets where he's going to say, like, I can't say. But what do you think we might be able to learn? What would you want to ask Michael Cohen? I think I would just ask him, did Trump ask you to lie under oath to Congress because he was worried about more damning things that might come out. Yeah.

Okay. Because that way he doesn't have to say anything about whether there was a hotel involved or the hotel was in Moscow and whether that hotel was going to be a prize for, you know, Syria and Ukraine. Right. He can just say, yes, there was there there was much worse stuff happening. And that's why he wanted me to lie. That's probably where I'd go. In the meantime, I'm going to be looking out for any indication that Trump's threats to Cohen's father in law are are having an effect.

I mean, Cohen hasn't been subpoenaed as far as I know. And, you know, he's going to be sentenced to prison shortly after he's scheduled to testify and trump's goal seems to be to try to get cone to shut his mouth one way or another i mean this is like incredible gangster right yeah oh my god and and it's not crazy to me to to imagine that uh that cone will get nervous and will want to not talk about things that might implicate his, you know, his family's business, the taxi cab stuff, the Trump, you know, his his role in the Trump organization aside from Russia. You know, it makes me it makes me really nervous that he might he might the Trump might succeed in tampering with this witness. Also, it's worth keeping in mind that Michael

Cohen is a degenerate liar, a criminal and has been sort of chastised by prosecutors for not being cooperative fully. You know, he's he got a better he got a better he got a better record. You got a better grade from Mueller than he did from from prosecutors in New York. And that that is important. His incentives have changed. I mean, I am not vouching for Michael Cohen in any way. But but all of his criminal behavior occurred when he was in Trump's good graces. And he has slid so far out of Trump's

good graces that he's going to prison with no hope of a pardon. He's lost. You know, if he has not already been disbarred, he will be. You know, all he wants is to be able to get out of prison and spend some time with his family without being destitute right twist 2020 candidates pledge to pardon michael cohen now who's no michael cohen welcome to the resistance yeah i mean look from muller's perspective whether cohen is a liar or not is is has been so far moot because everything that michael co everything that he has attributed to Michael Cohen has been backed up by emails, texts, documents, all the rest. Well, except everything we have seen. It all filters through reporting. It all filters through reporting.

And we don't know what Robert Mueller has not-one conversations between Donald Trump and Michael Cohen. And we are relying on the fact that these things can be corroborated outside of those conversations. But sometimes it may not be possible. I just think it's worth keeping in mind that Cohen's incentives are completely different. Like who benefits from him lying under oath when Trump has his back, when Trump might pardon, when they have a lot of money at stake? You know, the idea that you might lie to Congress and hopefully get away with it, like there's a logic to it. Also, he's not lying to Congress. It's bad. You shouldn't do it.

Lying to Congress doesn't reduce his sentence anymore. Right, exactly. So, yeah, he's already half pregnant with lying to Congress. Well, I guess we're right. with lying to Congress. Well, I guess we're right. The one thing we do not know is what crimes connected to Trump or otherwise Michael Cohen

has still not been proven to have committed and what money he is relying on from those acts. So many crimes, so little time. Okay, that is all we have for today. Thank you, Brian Boitler, for joining us. That's a title, by the way. Too many crimes.

Too many crimes. All right, everyone. We'll talk to you. We'll have the next pod on Tuesday of next week. Have a good long weekend. Keep a lookout for that impeachment eagle soaring, soaring majestically. There it goes. Over the nation's capital.

That unmistakable cry. Furloughed workers looking up overhead. The marshal of the Supreme Court. End of podcast. Outro Music