Donald Trump made it through Wednesday without commenting on the sentencing of his former lawyer, and Trump Organization executive vice president, Michael Cohen. And he didn’t respond when information came out in the afternoon about his duplicitous deal with AMI publications to provide a convenient dumping ground for Funny Things Mistresses Might Say. But reports from inside the White House said that Trump, as is so often the case, was steaming. He only made it to the beginning of Thursday morning executive time before he cracked open the pressure cooker to release some of that steam on Twitter.
Over a series of tweets, Trump claimed that he “never directed Michael Cohen to break the law.” Instead, Trump claimed that, since Cohen is, or was, a lawyer, he was “supposed to know the law.” After all “That is why they get paid.” And there’s little doubt that Cohen did know the law, and he clearly knew that the payments being made to quiet women who slept with Trump was illegal. That’s why he set up a shell company to handle making those payments, and why he disguised both the source and the nature of the funds.
And Trump also knew the payments were illegal. That’s why in the recording of the conversation between Trump and Cohen concerning a payment to Stormy Daniels, Trump gets upset at the idea that Cohen is going to use a traceable account to make the payment and instead insists that he will “pay with cash.”
Donald Trump met with the head of AMI publications, David Pecker, and constructed a “publicity trap” through which Cohen and Pecker would promise to make Trump’s ex-mistresses famous by splashing their stories across a national publication. The scheme included setting the women up with a lawyer to “represent their interests” who was also part of the scheme and in communication with Cohen. They would then convince the women to sign an exclusive arrangement and accept a payment. Following that signing, the story would be buried and the women would be threatened with legal action if they broke their silence. This scheme, set up in a secret negotiations in which Trump took part, is by its very nature deceptive and immoral. In addition, Trump took part in proceedings under an assumed name, told Cohen to conduct business in cash, and helped direct payments back to Cohen through an elaborate ruse.
Donald Trump didn’t go through all this effort because he thought Melania was going to audit the books of the 500 shell companies that make up the Trump Organization and spot that payment to Daniel’s lawyer. He did all this because he knew all along that what he was doing was illegal.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Neither is having a lawyer. And Trump attempting to hide behind a just convicted felon … is more than a little pitiful.
In follow-up tweets, Trump continued the bizarre insistence that the two campaign violation felonies on which Cohen was sentenced were “not criminal.” And then Trump finished out the series with a message showing that the only thing larger than his ignorance, is his ego.
According to Donald Trump, Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to felony charges, likely adding months to his prison sentence and contributing to his million dollar fine, to embarrass Trump. Because other people don’t have concerns about their own lives, or their own families. It’s all about Donald.
Trump’s final sentence grinds that home. Trump doesn’t just think that Cohen is the only one at fault, he thinks that Cohen owes him for the honor of having been his private bully, and for conducting deals that landed him in the federal penitentiary.
What’s absolutely clear from the sentencing statements for Michael Cohen and from the documents related to AMI is that a lot of people are dead certain that Trump did order Cohen to break the law. Cohen thought so. David Pecker and others at AMI thought so. It’s very likely that Allen Weisselberg and others moving money around at the Trump Organization thought so. And it is absolutely certain that the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York thinks so.
Trump may feign ignorance, but he’s going to get an education.