I rarely see a journalist delve into the CURRENT employment status of Cohen as relates to Donald Trump. Cohen is routinely cited as “President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer”, as the lede in this article demonstrates. No reference as to whether the relationship is suspended or on hold somehow. No mention of whether Cohen is getting payment from Trump for anything. No comment on whether he’s currently performing any work for Trump. Nothing about turning over existing work to another lawyer. Just that he’s currently (evidently) Trump’s personal lawyer, which apparently doesn’t constitutue a damned thing about lawyering for Trump or anything else he does for him. Nor any reference to how the hell all his legal issues affect the reported client/lawyer relationship (if one still exists).
TPM, how about you flesh out Cohen’s job status, beyond “President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer”, and get back with us. If you do you’ll be about the only damned media outlet that does it.
Trump is immune from accountability or legal jeopardy for anything he does. He is effectively above the law, ergo he is the law.
Unless and until the Senate can muster 67 votes to convict him in an impeachment trial he’s free to do as he pleases. Sure, Federal courts can slap down certain directives, as we’ve seen in some immigration cases and others. But so far as personal legal jeopardy? He has no worries. There will NEVER be 67 Senators cobbled together to impeach him. If the Dems somehow got to 50-52 Senators it would take 15-17 GOPers to defect against Donnie, and they’d incur hellfire and hundreds of millions in primary fight expenditures arrayed against them down the road for doing it. They’d sooner sign up for a cage match with a rabid wolverine than vote to impeach.
His attorneys quit. No replacements appointed. He’s likely getting arrested soon. It might even be later today. I see no reason why the Feds wouldn’t book him to get him to sign a plea agreement right away.
Self-interested pardons are likely not constitutional (can be challenged);they open Trump up for obstruction charges; they allow the Feds to release/leak all the evidence on Cohen; and it forces Cohen to testify under oath without 5A protection.
On top of that, it’s an admission of guilt by Cohen.
I know all the things you say are true, but I have a couple of questions.
First, wouldn’t some of those actions be under the control of the DOJ? We’ve already seen that the DOJ is compromised and lacks independence Second, what is the timeline for releasing the information, in this scenario?
Hmm, Gates’ attorneys filed to be released from the case on the same day that Gates lied during his proffer (Gates has since pled guilty to that). Any ideas why Cohen’s attorneys are quitting?
Decision to prosecute is controlled by SDNY in this case, and if Main Justice has a say, it’s Rosenstein, not Sessions. Rosenstein is the one who approved the referral of this particular Cohen matter to SDNY.
Ethically, it is dubious. But Cohen perhaps withheld evidence intentionally and may have manipulated the attorneys to lie before the court. Cohen could have let them go on his own, however, when confronted with the bills.
That happens all the time, particularly in criminal cases where concern about the rights of the defendant are exponentially higher than in a civil matter. However, even in civil matters you can get stuck, because it’s often going to be required that successor counsel has filed an appearance.
And wasn’t this a big thing during the election, with the GOP running around yammering about Clinton having represented a child molester, “forgetting” to mention that she had tried to withdraw as counsel but was ordered by the judge to continue representation?
I expect that challenge would end up before the supreme court, which on issues existential to the continued rule of the republican party (redistricting, bush v. gore) has shown itself to be nakedly partisan.
Yeah, any of this stuff hits SCOTUS and they’ll just name him Grand Emperor, with stern instructions meted out to everyone that henceforth leave him the hell alone.
Any word on the reasons for withdrawal they are citing to the judge?
I mean, I think we all know they’re dropping him like a flaming turd because their work so far has shown them he’s on a slow march to the gallows…and besides, who would want to alienate the potential-client GOP plutocrat class by counseling the guy who flips on and maybe even brings down Trump…but it would be interesting to see what they’ve come up with as their public excuse.
