The WSJ article feels like something Rudy Giuliani would say without attribution or supporting documentation and that the WSJ would print it.
If this is true–big IF–that Cohen implicitly or explicitly threatened to blow the whistle, and Trump turned him away, isn’t that a point in the Orange Excrescence’s favor? (Which may be all we need to decide that its a lie.)
I am beginning to suspect that Trump’s convicted accomplices, like Flynn, Cohen and Manafort want the pardon for free, which is something against the religion of the Pestilent, which requires him to profit from everything he does. They should offer to pay for their pardons.
Obstruction is all–and I mean ALL–there is to this story.
So Trump was unwilling to corruptly spend some of his political capital to bail out one of the guys who knows where the bodies are buried? If true, I would find this unsurprising. Trump only understands loyalty in a rudimentary and (critically) unidirectional sense. That which is owed from peon to patron.
Cohen Lawyer Spoke To Trump Team About Pardon After FBI Raid Last Spring
I’ll wait to hear from the Republicans who see pure evil in Cohen’s having spoken to congressional staff about his forthcoming days of testimony.
“During testimony before the House Oversight Committee last week, Cohen told congressional investigators that he had never personally asked for a pardon from Trump…”
IANAL, but if Cohen authorized or instructed his personal attorney to approach Trump intermediaries with a pardon request didn't he effectively (legally?) "personally ask" for the pardon?There are a few missing pieces in this article that inexorably call us to dismiss it.
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If Cohen’s attorney pushed for a pardon and Trump rejected it, you can bet the GOP would’ve been all over it in the 3 Cohen hearings thus far and made that the story. That story would undercut Cohen’s credibility and make Trump look ethical. The GOP has not adopted that line of argument because it isn’t true.
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This discussion allegedly happen while Cohen had a different attorney and was under a JDA w/Trump. It would have been natural for Trump’s attorneys and Cohen’s attorneys to look at all of the plausible options post FBI raid and get them on the table, including pardons. That doesn’t mean a pardon was requested, but when you analyze a situation, you identify all the options. The fact that Cohen in a fairly short period of time thereafter ended the JDA, found new attorneys and worked against Trump’s interests tells you that he made a decision to not actively seek or hang around for a pardon. He isn’t Manafort or Stone.
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The other reason why a pardon wouldn’t work for Cohen is because he was charged with tax fraud and real estate fraud crimes which were prosecutable at the state level. When the Taxi King (Evgeny Freidman) took a plea deal with the NYAG, it was to get him to flip on Cohen. Cohen knew, after consultation with attorneys like Guy Petrillo, that a pardon would not protect him from prosecution. The SDNY ended up taking on those cases w/NYAG help because they also had the campaign finance charges.
What I think this issue is really about is exposure for Rudy Giuliani who I believe has been dangling pardons left and right to folks.
Even among lawyers, “personally” means “personally.”
According to people familiar with the discussions who spoke to the WSJ a panic-stricken Rudy Giuliani accompanied by a visibly sweaty Jay Sakalov . . .
FIFY, WSJ.
Is your relationship with an attorney literally a “Power of Attorney”? If I send someone with a POA to the DMV to apply for plates for my car I haven’t personally requested the plates, so to speak?
Why would he want a pardon? He’ll spend some time in a low-security prison, hanging out reading, watching TV, while working on his book. A good ghost writer will interview the hell out him and write it. Then he gets wealthy from the book deal, and can live in the lap of luxury hanging out with his grandchildren. Obviously, he’d have to not write the book as a quid pro quo for a pardon, and why give up all that money??
Additionally, the booked can be fluffed up with a few chapters detailing his struggles and deprivations suffered in the penal system. The pain of isolation, being away from family. The introspection it forced upon him, and how he grew as a person through suffering his punishment. A win-win.
No, you’ve requested them (to use one of our cherished formulaic incantations) “by and through your attorney-in-fact.”
The distinction between acts done personally and through an agent is critical and one we are at considerable pains to note because because there is a large body of law dealing with the limits of an agent’s authority and when and whether a principal is bound by the acts of an agent. It pops up everywhere in the law. Contracts, property, tort cases, criminal law. You name it. It’s key to whether criminal plea agreements are binding, controls responsibility in tort cases. Even questions of search warrant validity, . You may recall that the constitutional validity of the search warrant on Manafort’s storage unit turned on whether the guy with the key had authority-that was a question of agency law.
. So we’re always careful to note the distinction. Our pleadings always begin with “now comes [party], by and through counsel . . .” We always note when a party is appearing through someone with a POA in the caption, and, in dealing with others, always note when we are not acting with explicit client authority.
This is how most settlement negotiations outside ADR are conducted, with a conversation that starts something like “now look, I don’t have authority from the client, haven’t even spoken to her about this, but if she offered x dollars, would you take that to settle the case?”
Whatever conversations Cohen had with his lawyers about feeling them out on the pardon are privileged and (for good reason) the privilege cannot be set aside in pursuit of a perjury conviction. They could have run the entire range from Cohen saying “go tell those fuckers I’ll spill my guts if I don’t get a pardon” to the lawyer saying “look, before you go off half cocked, let me go and at least see if they’ll give you a pardon” to the lawyer just doing it completely on his own.
Only thing we can be sure of is that Cohen never said “listen, don’t you even think about talking to those fuckers about a pardon.”
Other point here is that given this is 100% guaranteed to be coming from Rudy and Jay, and not the result of WSJ asking, but them dropping a dime, this conversation (if it happened at all) could just as easily have been the result of them initiating contact with Cohen’s lawyers to do the same pardon dangle they’ve done with other key witnesses.
My first thoughts, too. A quick attempt to discredit Cohen before more of the pardon story comes out…
Ok. I’m more clear. However, say this report is true. I think Cohen has provided the committee he testified before at least an opening to plausibly assert in answering their question about personally requesting a pardon he was too cute by half in answering it. And, ergo, at least in their mind (they being the committee Republicans) he was effectively lying.
If I had posed the question and Cohen denied requesting it, him sitting there knowing while answering he had instructed his attorney to request one, I would assuredly feel his answer was disingenuous at a minimum.
Rudi is another one who should end his years in jail.
I’d suggest headline rewrite : Trump team spoke to Cohen team about PP…right?
Hold on here. “People familiar with the matter” is not a credible source of information to make judgement upon. Certainly conversations between Cohen lawyer and Giuliani took place. Factually who spoke first is comedy. Both sides are desperate to get a handle on the overall situation. Think about it. At what point on the timeline do you attribute guilt. Both sides were stumbling over each other as it became obvious they all were under public (media) scrutiny. Can well be argued that at the onset, whoever made the initial gesture, is not important…but very soon what is important (trump guilty) became very obvious.