Michael Cohen has become the focus of many articles and speculation about his ultimate loyalty to Donald Trump.
Cohen is the personald attorney of Donaldl Trump. He’s the attorney who has recently become subject to a criminal investigation after his home, hotel room, and office were raided. FBI agents have suspected Cohen made or coordinated payments ahead of the 2016 election to silence women with which Trump allegedly had affairs. Despite Cohen’s professed loyalty, Trump allies have expressed their concerns that Cohen will testify against Trump when he is faced with legal bills of his own, and with the prospect of spending decades in jail.
So, the burning question is who is Cohen; would he turn on Trump; and does he know enough to be the end of Trump?
Cohen described himself as: “I’m the guy who protects the president and the family. I’m the guy who would take a bulletfor the president.” He has established himself as a very aggressive and threatening advocate for Trump. “If somebody does something Mr Trump doesn’t like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr Trump’s benefit. If you do something wrong, I’m going to come at you, grab you by the neck,and I’m not going to let you go until I’m finished.”
“I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting. You understand me?”
His profane threats to protect Trump are epic. He calls himself the “fix-it guy.”
Cohen was born in 1966 in Long Island, New York, the son of an immigrant who escaped a Nazi concentration camp in Poland. He attended college at American University. Afterward, he got a law degree from the little-known Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Michigan. After a brief stint at a personal injury law firm, Cohen opened up a solo practice.
Cohen’s personal life and business interests are both enmeshed in a community of Ukrainian immigrants in New York City. Both Cohen and his brother Bryan married Ukrainian immigrants. Both did business with their wives’ fathers. Cohen and a Ukrainian partner began buying up taxi medallions (the expensive city-issued permits necessary to operate taxis).
Cohen is also a longtime friend of Trump business associate Felix Sater, who pleaded guilty to his involvement in a money-laundering scheme with the Russian mob before helping develop the Trump SoHo hotel. (According to the F.B.I., Sater’s father was a right-hand man of Russian mafia chieftain Semion Mogilevich, considered to be the “boss of bosses” overseeing Russian organized crime worldwide.)
Yet the occasional strange incident occurred along the way. At one point in 1999, Cohen cashed a $350,000 check an NHL player wrote as a loan for a Russian woman. But the woman never got the money, and in a later deposition, Cohen was unable to explain what happened to it, as Anthony Cormier of BuzzFeed News (who, along with his colleagues, has done a lot of greatwork reporting on Cohen’s past business ties) reported last year.
Cohen is wealthy in his own right. In early 2015, Cohen shelled out a massive $58 million to purchase an Upper East Side rental building, saying he wanted to convert it into condominiums.
The Daily Beast prepared a story about an old Ivana Trump deposition in which she said Donald Trump had raped her. Asked to respond, Cohen (falsely) asserted that legally, “you cannot rape your spouse” under New York state law. Cohen went on to profanely threaten the reporter who wrote the story saying:
“I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know,” Cohen said. “So I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting. You understand me?”
“You write a story that has Mr. Trump’s name in it, with the word ‘rape,’ and I’m going to mess your life up … for as long as you’re on this frickin’ planet … you’re going to have judgments against you, so much money, you’ll never know how to get out from underneath it.”
Compare this aggressive behavior and threats on Trump’s behalf to Cohen’s remarks about the personal search and seizure of his own documents. Cohen explained that the agents who searched and seized his property were “extremely professional, courteous and respectful.”Alarms immediately went off in Trumpworld. “When anybody is faced with spending a long time in jail, they start to re-evaluate their priorities, and cooperation can’t be ruled out,” one Trump ally who knows Cohen toldPolitico.
Cohen has explained:
“My wife and I have been married for 23 years, and are now entering into the season of our lives when we get to watch our children become adults themselves.”
Jay Goldberg, who previously represented Trump, almost guaranteed that Cohen would turn on Trump if criminal charges were a potential againg Cohen personally. Goldberg went so far as to suggest that Cohen might even wear a wire to a meeting with Trump. On a scale of 100 to 1, where 100 is protecting Trump completely, Goldberg told the president that Cohen
“isn’t even a 1.”
Trump has a history of treating Cohen “like garbage.” Trump has made ” gratuitous insults, dismissive statements and, at least twice, threats of being fired.”
Mr. Cohen has told associates he feels isolated. People working for Trump are questioning how much leverage Trump now has over Cohen. Based on Cohen’s polite and respectful comments about the FBI agents who searched and seized his personal documents it seems safe to say that if Cohen can cut a deal he will roll over Trump like a steam roller.
That cohen evil clown has threaten many people over the years for trump. He has said serious harmful threats. I hope Mueller has zero mercy for that pos. I hope he replays all the verbal threats to cohen and shakes his soul to the core.
That cohen evil clown has threaten many people over the years for trump. He has said serious harmful threats. I hope Mueller has zero mercy for that pos. I hope he replays all the verbal threats to cohen and shakes his soul to the core.
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Generous post. Thanks.
Question – how much of this is Fox reporting? I honestly don’t know.
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Terry,
I always use links to everything I report. The basis of my conclusion is referenced. the conclusion is mine.
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