In his new book, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen linked Jerry Falwell Jr.’s early Trump endorsement in 2016 to Cohen’s suppression of “personal” pictures of Falwell and his wife, Becki.
Guessing either he or the publisher’s lawyers were shy about directly saying Trump blackmailed Falwell. The reader supplies that inference. “Just raising the question,” as one does.
The blackmail doesn’t have to be explicit when you’re already indebted to the person with damning information who is asking you for a favor. Regardless, I’m sure Maddow will be all over this in her interview with Cohen tonight.
“If Becki Falwell was seen half-naked by the students of Liberty University, let alone evangelicals all over the country, it would be an unmitigated disaster.”
Much as I would like Cohen to be correct about this, alas, empirical data say otherwise.
Even if you published full-page glossies of her and Jerry in congress with an underage goat…
99% of “Trump evangelicals” would just shrug and ask, ”So what?”
I don’t even believe the blackmail wasn’t explicit. Sure, it often works with a “shame if something should happen to it”…and that’s exactly how Donny’s blackmail racket has always worked, like a protection scheme, i.e., he gets dirt on you and then you pay him to protect you from him releasing it (it’s why he was friends and blackmail-mates with Pecker)…but here, I just don’t believe it wasn’t stated outright. Mikey’s delivering the goods without putting his own ass back in front of a jury.
I think when a slimeball like Michael Cohen lets you know he’s got some interesting photos, nothing more need be said. Is he dumb enough to have directly blackmailed Falwell? I mean, probably, but I suspect the undertones felt sufficiently clear.
Moral Depravity, We Hardly Knew Ye
Mikey unbuckling the bible belt.
First it was “locker room talk,” now it will be “barnyard talk.”
Cohen
Like the Bieber favor a few years earlier,
I hate to admit it because it is a hypothetical question. But if I was a Liberty student and Becki Falwell wanted to have sex with me, I would say yes but on the condition that sleazy Jerry not be watching. Like the Fallwells, the sex part of my brain is transected from the bible and god-containing part of my brain.
Blackmail is completely legal under the Constitution. The President and the Trump Organization did nothing wrong when they blackmailed Jerry Fallwell and Becki Poolboy into giving them Jesus’ endorsement. Free speech and win-win for everyone.
Many people are saying that Trump blackmailed the Falwells. I don’t know. I’ll look into it. But many people are saying that. Respected people. Many of them.
Yes. Have we learned nothing from the past 4 years? Inside the power bubble they’ve created for themselves, these people feel invincible, untouchable, unassailable. In their minds, there would be no reason to be coy with Falwell. None. He’s given the message in direct terms and his compliance is a foregone conclusion, because he would otherwise lose his own self-enrichment grift, Liberty U…as we’re watching happen right now (and I expect we’ll be finding out just how much he was siphoning off cash as those left in control start digging in).
Not to mention that Falwell has probably blackmailed people himself. You can bet your man-nipples on it.
ETA: And BTW, who gives a fuck about the endorsement blackmail? HE WAS PROBABLY ALSO BLACKMAILED INTO OPENING LIBERTY UNIVERSITY DURING THE PANDEMIC.
So that’s what “bippy” refers to…man-nipples. (Always wondered that…) 
This is the kind of stuff Michael Cohen and David Peck of the National Enquirer used to do with Trump.
Enquiring minds want to know- were the photos with the Enquirer? Are they involved?
I guess Falwell saw this coming the minute he heard that Cohen was writing a book. He got out before he probably would have lost the pay-out he got. Maybe they’ll sue to get it back. I hope so.
“If Becki Falwell was seen half-naked by the students of Liberty University, let alone evangelicals all over the country, it would be an unmitigated disaster.”
Is she that bad-looking?
It all makes you think that maybe Trump has some experience with being blackmailed, and knows how uncomfortable that can be and the lengths you’ll go to keep things quiet.
I think Liberty U. just wanted to the sordid mess to go away, but circumstances may prevent that. Not that I pity them. They knew what he was—in their parlance, a whited sepulcher.
Oh, oh, oh… can’t we please request from the folks prepping Biden for the debates to do a bit of payback to what Trump did to Clinton by seating the women who had accused Bill in the front row by seating the pool boy next to wounded vets of color next to E. Jean Carroll next to Mattis next to Cohen next to???