Donald Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen is headed to federal prison, after a judge sentenced him to 36 months for a string of Trump-related crimes, including efforts to conceal hush money payments during the 2016 election, in addition to "willful tax evasion, making false statements to a financial institution, illegal campaign contributions, and making false statements to Congress."
Roughly eight months ago, Michael Cohen’s attorney, Stephen Ryan, argued that many of the materials seized by federal investigators at Michael Cohen’s properties were protected by attorney-client privilege. As Judge Kimba Wood was working with investigators to sort out what was and was not protected by attorney-client privilege, Michael Cohen had to name his clients and specify which materials he believed should be off limits. Ryan named Donald Trump and Elliot Broidy, the former Republican National Committee Finance Chair—who just so happened to use Cohen’s services to arrange a hush money payment to a former Playboy model, with whom Broidy had had an affair that resulted in a pregnancy. The lawyer who represented the Playboy model just happened to be Keith Davidson, the same lawyer who originally represented Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. Elliot Broidy and Trump apparently share the exact same taste in mistresses and lawyers.
What. A. Coincidence.
But there was a third mystery client whom Stephen Ryan and Michael Cohen argued shouldn’t be named in open court. They were worried that the taint of Cohen’s legal problems would be embarrassing for this “prominent” mystery client. They offered to give the judge a sealed envelope with the client’s name. Judge Kimba Wood wasn’t having it, and told them to name the client. That’s when Stephen Ryan quietly said the name for the first time—Sean Hannity. At the time, WRAL reported there were audible gasps in the courtroom.
Fast forward eight months, and Michael Cohen entered his guilty plea, federal prosecutors made their case for sentencing, and a federal judge put down the hammer and sentenced Michael Cohen to three years in federal prison. But the night before the sentencing, Client #3 was busy scrubbing his Twitter feed, deleting hundreds of tweets—mostly about his love of the Roseanne reboot, his somewhat disturbing hatred of Jimmy Kimmel, and several related to Special Counsel Robert Mueller—but he also scrubbed mentions of his maybe, kind of, sort of attorney Michael Cohen.
Luckily, thanks to Screenshot Bot, a Twitter account devoted to preserving political tweets, they have been archived.
The tweets above are the most interesting, because Hannity denies Michael Cohen was ever his attorney. So why did Cohen, a frequent guest on Hannity’s show, claim the Fox News host was a client? Could it be because Michael Cohen, who is well-known for recording conversations and phone calls, spoke with Sean Hannity on a regular basis related to the Trump campaign? Was Hannity worried these conversations would see the light of day and ruin his career?
There are still more questions than answers about Michael Cohen’s statements to the court that Sean Hannity was his client … and Sean Hannity’s curious denials. Is Hannity sweating the special counsel investigation as well? Was he part of the plan to weaponize the hacked Clinton and DNC emails? Did he have advanced knowledge of the email release? He was mighty close with the Trump campaign, even reportedly loaning his private plane to fly out Newt Gingrinch to meet Donald Trump for a VP audition, after Trump secured the nomination. Within the last week, Hannity was complaining on his program about people being investigated and prosecuted, “for no other reason than they like Donald Trump.” Curious.
And while Hannity might be scrubbing photos and statements he’s made about Michael Cohen from his own Twitter profile, Cohen’s feed is still full of photos of the pair and praise for the Fox News host.
One way or another, Sean Hannity needs to answer hard questions about the nature of his relationship with convicted felon Michael Cohen and unindicted criminal co-conspirator Individual 1. The truth will come out eventually, one way or another.