Stocking Coal

Cohen Time:  For a number of years being Donald J Trump’s fixer and sometime lawyer was a pretty good gig for Michael Cohen, his income went up, he was seated at the best tables at hot restaurants and he traveled the world or at least to the parts that had been part of the former Soviet Union.  He probably was engaging in hyperbole when he said that he would take a bullet for his boss, but there is a good chance that he would have thrown himself in front of a slow moving car or offered to carry Ivanka over a puddle.  But times have changed, it turns out that when your LInkedIn bio includes a lot of shady business involvements and thuggish practices, being in close proximity to Trump world when prosecutors are seeking a crack in the Trump armor isn’t such a good thing.  Yesterday, despite his pleas for mercy and his assertion that though he now sees the light he had been caught up in the cult of Trump, Michael Cohen was sentenced to serve three years in a federal penitentiary for a series of crimes and was also hit with some significant financial penalties.  Though most of the crimes that got Cohen into trouble were associated with his own business involvements, the one getting the most attention relates to cult leader Trump since it turns out that paying off women to keep them quiet about their questionable entanglements with a candidate running for president shortly before his election with the intent of influencing the outcome of the election really is a violation of campaign finance laws; and, contrary to assertions made by Trump and his current fixer/lawyer Rudy Giuliani, that’s not a small civil matter, it’s a real crime. Former acting Solicitor General Neil Katyal insists that if Individual 1 wasn’t president he’d be indicted by now and Harvard professor Lawrence Tribe who believes that sitting presidents can be indicted says that he should be.  As to that whole intent thing, shortly after Cohen was sentenced those pesky Southern District of New York prosecutors announced that David Pecker’s American Media Inc. company had confirmed it by admitting to “coordinating a hush-money payment with Trump’s campaign to ensure that damaging allegations about Trump didn’t come out before Election Day 2016.”  It’s unlikely that prosecutors are finished yet, they now appear to be focused on who at Trump Inc. authorized the cover-up payments.  Though the idea of those payments was ginned up while Individual 1 was in charge, the payments were paid according to an installment plan that ran well into 2017 and fraudulently treated as legal expenses after the time that Trump had transferred day to day control of his business to his children so at least one of them is implicated too.  With Ivanka in Washington, Barron in day school and Tiffany who really doesn’t count at Georgetown, that leaves either Tweedledee Don Jr or Tweedledum Eric sharing bag holding duties with Individual 1. And don’t forget Chief Financial Officer Alan Weisselberg, like AMI’s David Pecker, he’s cooperating and he most certainly knows and is sharing all the details of the “payoff” plan, and perhaps a whole lot more with prosecutors.  Though AMI’s David Pecker is getting off scot free, he’s hardly innocent, he didn’t just use his company to influence the outcome of the 2016 election, he’s sitting on a trove of secret “chips” that he has probably used to influence other politicians.  As to Individual 1, Pecker called in one of those chips early in his administration by wrangling an invitation to a White House dinner where he hobnobbed with influential consultants in an effort to get approval to sell his publications in Saudi Arabia.  In all likelihood Federal prosecutors are digging through Pecker’s secret vault to see who, in addition to Trump, was a beneficiary of his story squelching  largesse.  For his part Trump should be very nervous right about now and indications are that despite Giuliani’s assertion that nothing that happened yesterday is relevant to him, he appears to be close to the edge.

Diversionary Tactics: When under pressure Trump goes into diversionary mode so he’s doing his best to turn his search for a new Chief of Staff into a season of Celebrity Apprentice while also holding firm on his threat to close down the government if he doesn’t get $5 billion for his wall.  On the Chief of Staff front, yesterday Congressman Mark Meadows who probably never was much of a front runner revealed that Trump wants him to stay put in the House because that’s where his advocacy for Trump can be most effective, or ineffective, depending on your view of his obnoxiously over the top behavior.  Likewise, two time presidential aspirant Rick Santorum, who no one ever thought was even in the running, announced that he’s taking himself out of consideration due to family obligations.  Oddly enough the current leading candidates include Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker because Trump likes hanging with him, former deputy campaign manager and big time Trump advocate Dave Bossie because he is totally obnoxious, and former Governor Christie who among this crowd is probably the most competent but who is also intensely disliked by Jared Kushner for his role in putting his father in jail. On the budgetary front, outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan is trying to get his caucus to vote on a plan that provides Trump’s $5 billion, he’s having a hard time getting enough members to sign on as many of those voted out of Congress have little interest in sticking around for votes when holiday plans beckon and there is no way that Nancy Pelosi who looks to have secured all the votes she’ll need to become Speaker in January by promising to step down within four years is going to let anyone from her crowd help him out.  That said, Ryan’s stuffing his bill full of Conservative plums and might manage to eke out something that he could pass even if it would fail in the Senate where some Democrats would need to sign on in order to insure passage.  If something doesn’t give soon, the government, or at least parts of the government will close down before Christmas. Holiday coal for all, but remember that is a good thing in Trumpland?