There is a timeline below that made me think about this as a reason (to use as a distraction) for the shutdown. But first a few points.
EDITED: It’s of course true the Congress is still functioning. I guess that I was trying to point out, and doing it poorly, that 45 shut things down as a distraction. All the chaos of the shutdown is pushing the testimonies and SCO investigation happenings off the news pages.
Background and review
0. Cohen is due to report to prison on March 6 and is still cooperating with the SCO investigation: abcnews.go.com/...
Cohen has professed his willingness to continue to answer questions for special counsel Robert Mueller and other federal and state investigators.
1. Cohen is set to talk to House Oversight on 7 February and has been caught lying to House Intelligence. According to this report www.cbsnews.com/...
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Sunday he has given Michael Cohen a date to testify before his panel, "either voluntarily, or if necessary, by subpoena." Cohen, President Trump's former personal attorney, has already agreed to testify publicly before the House Oversight Committee on Feb. 7, weeks before he begins serving a three-year prison sentence.
But before Cohen talks…. Looks like Corsi is due to appear before Senate Intelligence Cmte: The subpoena calls for Corsi to appear on February 6. edition.cnn.com/...
2. And, according to this New Yorker piece, there are “tapes” per Guiliani, who walks back that they aren’t, after he says there are www.newyorker.com/…
Did President Trump’s lawyers or you yourself reach out to the special counsel’s office after the story, as has just been reported?
I can’t discuss that. President Trump would not have done that. If anybody would have done it, obviously it would have been his lawyers, and I really can’t discuss that. That would be confidential.
Do you—
But I can tell you, from the moment I read the story, I knew the story was false.
Because?
Because I have been through all the tapes, I have been through all the texts, I have been through all the e-mails, and I knew none existed. And then, basically, when the special counsel said that, just in case there are any others I might not know about, they probably went through others and found the same thing.
Wait, what tapes have you gone through?
I shouldn’t have said tapes. They alleged there were texts and e-mails that corroborated that Cohen was saying the President told him to lie. There were no texts, there were no e-mails, and the President never told him to lie.
So, there were no tapes you listened to, though?
No tapes. Well, I have listened to tapes, but none of them concern this.
3. Looks like Cohen may be backing out of his 7 February testimony per a report 4 days ago in Reuters: www.reuters.com/…
“There is genuine fear and it has caused Michael Cohen to consider whether he should go forward or not, and he has not made a final decision,” Davis said.
Last week Cohen agreed to appear before a congressional panel on Feb. 7, as U.S. House of Representatives Democrats began kicking off numerous investigations of Trump, his business interests and his administration.
Cohen was sentenced in December to three years in prison for his role in making illegal hush-money payments to two women to help Trump in 2016 in violation of campaign laws and for lying to Congress about a proposed Trump Tower project in Russia.
In a Fox News interview on Saturday, Trump suggested he had damaging information on Cohen’s father-in-law. “That’s the one that people want to look at,” Trump said in the interview.
Davis said: “There is no question that his threatening and calling out his father-in-law, who - quote - has all the money, is not only improper and unseemly for a bully using the bully pulpit of the presidency, but the very definition of intimidation and witness tampering.”
He said Trump’s remarks “could be obstruction of justice.”
4. And of course, Cohen’s previous testimony Trump’s been engaged in Russia for a long damn time and the Vox time line supports this: www.vox.com/...
Michael Cohen’s guilty plea in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation last November threatens to unveil an explosive possible reason why President Donald Trump adamantly wants friendly ties with Russia — a long-sought real estate deal.
The court document filed then by Mueller states that Cohen — Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer — lied to Congress at least three separate times about plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow with Trump’s name prominently featured on top.
What’s clearer now is that not only did Cohen speak to Trump about the plans during the 2016 campaign, but the Trump Organization was in contact with high-level Russian officials at the same time.
5. HuffPost is saying Cohen is fearful too per his lawyer Davis: www.huffingtonpost.com/...
“There is fear that Mr. Trump has supporters either in this country or maybe abroad that have a motivation to harm,” Davis added.
Davis was addressing different remarks by Trump, including a tweet Friday written in response to a BuzzFeed story Thursday that said the president had directed Cohen, his former personal attorney, to lie about to Congress about Trump’s involvement with a Moscow real estate project during the 2016 presidential campaign. In Friday’s tweet, Trump mentioned Cohen’s father-in-law, who he has claimed should be investigated — without offering any details.
Timeline
So a basic timeline for this government shutdown as it relates to Cohen and the SCO investigation, is as follows with a lot of fluff in between by 45:
20 November 2018: Trump send over his replies to Mueller’s questions edition.cnn.com/...
Then, 29 Nov 2018 Cohen pleads guilty and it is reported that Cohen testified and lied about all the Russian contacts (going back with Sater to 2005 officially and earlier to 80’s as per Art of the Deal)
29 Nov in 2 tweets from the @realdonaldtrump account that are REtweeted by @potus account while in the G20, is when 45 cancelled meeting with Putin:
(As a side note look at the @Potus account — it is REtweets of a lot of @realdonaldtrump stuff BUT NOT ANYTHING about Mueller of Cohen, etc in the timeline of this account that I can see. I find this interesting to see what is REtweeted etc …. there is a pattern here. Who does RTs for @Potus account in the White House?)
Beginning in December, 45 starts up his bleating again, with more on twitter about Cohen, his lying, and his sentencing and also going on about Jerome Corsi and issuing a counter report to Mueller’s report
12 December Cohen is sentenced. Here is a good resource on all charges, etc: edition.cnn.com/…
13 December 5 of 6 tweets he sent out are about Cohen and the SCO investigation:
13 December threatens shutdown
16 December tweets include this one
18 December these tweets:
20 December he pulls USA out of Syria per announcement totally blind siding various people in charge of that war, etc etc, plus announces Mattis is retiring (haha) on this day.
21 December announces shutdown if they don’t all vote for this stupid wall and also on this day notes he’s tough on Russia again:
22 December shutdown starts.
Since 13 December there are 42 cases of the word shutdown in his twitter feed — not all made by him but a lot of them were.
14 January the word ‘coup’ by Tom Fitten (haha this guy’s a nut) has now popped up in REtweets of 45:
On 17 January Jerome Corsi was subpoenaed: edition.cnn.com/...
The Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenaed Jerome Corsi, a conservative author and conspiracy theorist with ties to Trump ally Roger Stone, for documents and testimony. The committee requires Corsi to hand over communications involving Stone and WikiLeaks, as well as any communications related to President Donald Trump's presidential campaign or transition team related to Russia.
So…. I think that before the 7 February testimony of Cohen it is unlikely that the government shutdown will be resolved, and I also think that Cohen will retreat and bail out somehow, as noted by feeling threatened in the above linked stories. As I noted above too, Corsi is set to talk to Senate Intelligence on 6 February.
This is 15 days away, sure.
And sure, McConnell is pushing a vote this week on some solutions. I hope that I am wrong. Because, if in 15 days the government is still shut down, this is going to be way worse for the country and all those directly and indirectly impacted by this mess. What is 45 hiding that he (45) is possibly intimidating Cohen according to Cohen’s own lawyer?