Keep calm and raise hell. The forces of truth and justice may be closing in on President Donald Trump, but there is no reason to believe they can triumph without massive displays of outrage in the streets and at the polls.
Potentially the most serious threat Trump has ever faced came last week when FBI agents raided the office, home and hotel room of his longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. By all accounts, Cohen’s role for the president and the Trump Organization has been that of a “fixer” who brings in deals and makes problems go away.
As everyone knows by now, Cohen “facilitated” payment of $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence about the sexual tryst she says she had with Trump. And according to a lawsuit filed by former Playboy model Karen McDougal, Cohen was involved behind the scenes in cementing a $150,000 agreement that squelched her story of a 10-month affair she says she had with Trump.
But the president’s sex life may be the least of his worries on the Cohen front. For more than a decade, Cohen was in a better position than anyone — arguably, even Trump’s children Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric, who also worked in the family firm — to know the intimate details of Trump’s business dealings.
Was the Trump Organization buoyed by an influx of Russian money, as Donald Jr. once claimed? Were there Russian contacts that have not yet been disclosed? Did Trump or his campaign collude with Russians to meddle in the election? In its real estate sales, did Trump’s firm take the required precautions against money laundering by shady characters? Did Trump’s swashbuckling business style, of which he so often boasts, ever cross the line into illegality?
Cohen can likely provide answers. If necessary, FBI agents may refresh his memory with the audio recordings they allegedly seized of Cohen’s phone conversations.
“Attorney-client privilege is dead!” Trump tweeted after learning of the raid. “A TOTAL WITCH HUNT!!!”
Touchy, touchy.
On the rare occasions when federal authorities raid an attorney’s office, they must go through elaborate and rigorous procedures. A judge has to approve the search warrant, which requires a showing that evidence of specific crimes will likely be found. Documents seized are examined by a special “taint team” of prosecutors who have had no previous involvement in the case and whose only role is to redact materials covered by attorney-client privilege before passing the rest to the principal investigators. The Cohen raid was authorized not by special counsel Robert Mueller but by the office of the U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York. None of this is good news for Cohen — or for Trump.
The other development that reportedly has the president in a rage is the scathing verdict on his character delivered by former FBI director Jim Comey in a newly published book and an interview with ABC News.
All right, Comey does come off as something of a sanctimonious tool. But his book’s account of Trump’s repeated demands for a pledge of personal loyalty and wholly inappropriate attempts to interfere in the Russia investigation ring true. In the ABC interview, Comey charged that Trump was “morally unfit to be president.”
