For months, the political world has hung on the question of whether Donald Trump’s former aide Michael Cohen would cut a deal with federal prosecutors to spill the beans on the president.
There is no evidence such a deal has happened and it’s not clear that prosecutors in the southern district of New York, which is handling Cohen’s case, want one, in part because it’s also not clear what beans exactly Cohen might possess to spill.
But bombshell reports on Thursday evening that Cohen was prepared to tell special counsel Robert Mueller Trump knew in advance about a Trump Tower campaign meeting with Russian operatives have created upset in the president’s inner circle, according to former insiders.
Equally disturbing for the Trump camp was the revelation earlier this week that Cohen made highly sensitive audio recordings of Trump without the candidate’s knowledge.
Trump attacked his former aide Friday morning, tweeting: “Sounds to me like someone is trying to make up stories in order to get himself out of an unrelated jam.”
But even before that tweet, the call had clearly gone out to treat Cohen as a traitor to the Trump cause.
After news broke of Cohen’s tape, Fox News, the president’s approved station, sprinkled its broadcasting schedule with Cohen-bashing, convening a panel to paint Cohen as an unethical lawyer, an opportunist, an unregistered lobbyist and an inconstant friend.
Matt Drudge, the circus barker of the far right, was more succinct on Thursday, branding Cohen “the Rat”.
Michael Caputo, a former senior adviser on the Trump campaign, said he did not know whether Cohen was seeking a deal to cooperate with prosecutors.
“I can’t speculate,” he said. “But one thing for certain is this doesn’t look good, and people in the Trump ranks are talking about it. Because Michael was always considered to be the ultimate loyalist, and this really throws a monkey wrench in that whole theory.”
A second former Trump campaign adviser, Sam Nunberg, said Cohen’s decision to hire Washington power lawyer Lanny Davis made it clear he was looking for a deal.
“Any political person would know: the minute he signed Lanny Davis, it was over,” said Nunberg. “He wants to make a deal or do what he feels is going to be best for him. He’s no longer willing to take a bullet for Donald Trump.”
The question of whether Cohen remains loyal to Trump is separate from the question of whether Cohen is approaching a deal with prosecutors. But Cohen’s personal loyalties are still highly relevant and on Wednesday, Davis said those loyalties had shifted.
“Cohen is trying to reset his life as not being Donald Trump’s bullet-taker, or worse, a punching bag for Donald Trump’s defense strategy where he takes the bullets,” Davis told NBC News. “This is a turn for him. It’s a new resolve to tell the truth no matter what, even if it endangers him.”
In the 1990s, Davis worked for Bill Clinton. In his Friday tweet, Trump called Davis “Bill and Crooked Hillary’s lawyer” and asked: “Gee, I wonder if they helped [Cohen] make the choice!”
‘Family and country first’
Cohen is facing potential charges of bank fraud, wire fraud and campaign finance violations in connection with a company he set up before the 2016 election to facilitate a payment to the pornographic film actor Stormy Daniels. Davis released an audio recording on Tuesday night in which Trump appears to suggest to Cohen that a payment to suppress the former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story be made in cash. Both women have alleged affairs with Trump which Trump has denied.
The Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, has been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury in the Cohen case, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The legal pressure on Cohen could subside if he were able to reach a deal with prosecutors in which he would, the thinking goes, attest to activity by Trump or within the Trump Organization that prosecutors might use to prosecute a separate crime or crimes. Such a deal between Cohen and prosecutors could be very bad for Trump, analysts think.
Other moves by Cohen have been taken to indicate his eagerness to strike a deal with prosecutors. Norm Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who was a top Washington lawyer for decades before serving as White House special counsel for ethics and government reform under Barack Obama, pointed to Cohen’s decision to hire, alongside Davis, the firm of Guy Petrillo, the former head of the criminal division of the southern district of New York.
“They were hired to do a deal,” Eisen tweeted last month.
Not everyone agrees that Cohen is en route to a plea deal. His decision to release the audio recordings with Trump could annoy prosecutors who would have preferred to preserve such material as potential evidence, legal analysts say.
And other former aides who have struck deals with prosecutors, including Michael Flynn and Richard Gates, did not grant major interviews or send their lawyers on television in advance of their agreements, leading to speculation that Cohen may yet be seeking some detente with Trump.
But signs abound that Cohen is leaving Trump behind. In a letter resigning a post with the Republican National Committee last month, Cohen inserted a poignant – and entirely gratuitous – criticism of the Trump administration policy of separating families at the border, writing: “As the son of a Polish Holocaust survivor, the images and sounds of this family separation policy is heart-wrenching.”
And then there are Cohen’s own words. “My wife, my daughter and my son have my first loyalty and always will,” he told ABC this month, adding: “I put my family and country first.”
