The most important thing about the Michael Cohen hearing wasn’t a particular damning bit of evidence about Donald Trump’s crimes—though there was plenty of damning evidence on points from bank fraud to tax fraud to suborning perjury and campaign violations. It was the way the hearing completely, definitively made it clear that this is the beginning, not the end. Under questioning, Cohen listed item after item that would be helpful in gaining a fuller understanding of Trump’s actions. His taxes. His financial statements. His applications for bank loans. The records connected to his billion-dollar inheritance. But even more importantly, Cohen produced names: the names of Trump associates who can be expected to reveal more answers, more questions, more documents, and still more names.
Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg is a cinch to appear before the committee. Weisselberg has been awarded partial immunity in his testimony before the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, but the limits of that immunity remain unclear. Was Weisselberg offered a get-out-of-crime-free card simply to get his take on the criminal conspiracy between himself, Trump, Cohen, and Donald Trump Jr. to cook the books at the Trump Organization to hide his bribes to women? Does Weisselberg’s immunity extend to Trump’s misuse of funds attached to his supposed charity? What about Trump’s tax fraud? Or the way he inflated his worth in some instances, and deflated it in others, to secure public funding? Is Weisselberg absolved of all of that? Based on the number of times his name came up on Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee is absolutely, positively going to probe the edges of that immunity when it introduces America to Allen Weisselberg by bringing him in front of the cameras for inevitable questioning.
Donald Trump Jr. is also going to be seeing his name on a request to appear, and then likely on a subpoena—because Junior is not going to be all that happy about sitting down to talk in front of this group than he was when Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, Trey Gowdy, and Devin Nunes were setting the pace. Trump Jr. will be questioned on his role in the payoffs, including how his name ended up on at least one of the checks. He’ll be questioned about what he knew about Trump manipulating data to collect money coming and going. He’ll be questioned about his connections to the Moscow Project. And he’ll certainly get a fresh chance to explain his knowledge of the Trump Tower meeting and his attempts to cover up that “incident.”
But Weisselberg and Trump Jr. weren’t the only names that Cohen supplied when it comes to where the Oversight Committee turns next. There was David Pecker. There was Rhona Graff. There was Matthew Calamari. There was Ron Lieberman. There was Jay Sekulow. And if they haven’t all picked out their interview suits, they should get on it right away.
American Media, Inc., owner David Pecker—the man with America’s most appropriate name—is certain to get his chance to perch in America’s least comfortable chair. Cohen repeatedly stated that Pecker not only practiced “catch and kill” on the stories of Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal, but picked up other stories for Trump as well, not all of them related to women Trump talked into bed. Cohen recounted one incident involving a potential “love child” supposedly produced after Trump slept with an unnamed woman at his company. But Cohen clearly implied that there were more such incidents, some of which Pecker was angry about because he put himself out there for Trump, but Trump didn’t pay him back. Under questioning, Cohen clearly indicated that the paperwork related to these instances was under Pecker’s control. So … check the mail for that summons, Mr. Pecker. And don’t forget to bring your files.
Being executive assistant to Donald Trump sounds like most people’s idea of hell, but Rhona Graff has held that slot for nearly 30 years. It may be tempting to think of Graff as simply Trump’s secretary, but her official title is senior vice president. Trump doesn’t use email. He doesn’t use text messages. As Cohen made clear, Trump tries to put at least one layer of deniability between himself and any action—it’s critical for Trump that he have someone to blame. But it’s Graff who acts as the pin connecting Trump to many of these schemes. She’s the only one who knows both ends, sometimes even between people like Trump and Weisselberg. She’s not a blameless secretary; she’s Trump’s “right hand,” and she requires close questioning. Trump may not use email or texts, but that only means that someone at his company does it for him, and that someone is likely Graff.
Matthew Calamari is another longtime Trump employee, with nearly four decades working for him. Though his name may not seem all that familiar, his face is—Calamari is the looming, broad-shouldered, sunglasses-wearing figure often bulking up the elevator at Trump Tower or shuffling along at Trump’s side. Like Keith Schiller, whom Trump sent to sneak a dismissal letter onto James Comey’s desk, Calamari is a former bodyguard. Like Cohen, his primary role as chief operating officer of the Trump Organization is to look, act, and be threatening. Like Graff, his entire existence seems to revolve around providing service to Trump. But all of that would likely make Calamari’s testimony more interesting when he’s called on to explain what he knows about bank fraud and tax fraud. As a bonus, just think of all the squid jokes.
While Cohen might be Trump’s ‘fixer’ for his personal … failings, Ron Lieberman is actually the chief counsel for the Trump Organization. It was Lieberman, not Cohen, who put his official legal seal on every golf course deal and foreign contract. And Cohen named Lieberman explicitly as someone who could provide both corroboration for his statements and more information on Trump’s activities. Does he favor mob-style pinstripes, or eye-threatening checks? We’ll soon find out.
Finally, White House attorney Jay Sekulow came up in Cohen’s testimony as the person who literally took a pen to the statements he had made in front of Congress—the statements for which, among other things, he’s going to prison. Cohen’s statements that Trump suborned perjury might have sounded vague and been easily dismissed by Trump fans because of his insistence that he just “knew” what Trump was saying, even when he didn’t exactly say it. But any changes that Sekulow made to Cohen’s statement don’t require belief. They just require a before, an after, and an in-person interview with Sekulow. Sekulow issued a statement following Cohen’s testimony calling it “completely false,” but the statement was also very carefully worded to just restrict the claims to “the duration of the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations.” Nice phrasing. Now let’s see what it means.
Backing all of these appearances is going to be a full-bore extraction of documents from the Trump Organization, including tax filings, loan applications, communications with Pecker, and all the contents of those boxes that have been returned to Cohen. Expect them to contain not “fireworks,” but evidence of crimes. Expect Democrats to greet them all not by demagoguing, but by laying out the details with surgical precision.
Expect 2019 not to be like 2018. Because elections have consequences.