A little over a week ago, February 26, 2019, to be exact, Trump’s longtime personal attorney and all around “fixer,” Michael Cohen testified in front of the House, both in private (at least twice) and in public.
And Cohen brought a lot of physical evidence with him (i.e.: documents, copies of checks, e-mails, etc.;
https://www.msn.com/ and
https://www.msn.com/) but perhaps the most important thing that happened during Cohen’s public testimony was when AOC expertly set up an entirely valid reason for congress to look into Trump’s Tax-Returns (https://www.c-span.org/) for maybe, like, Trump’s whole life (as in: ALL of Trump’s Tax-Returns, as in ALL-ALL – business and personal).
The fact of the matter is that after Cohen’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee and Ocasio-Cortez’s pointed questions, congress auditing Trump’s tax-returns can hardly be attacked by anybody rational and reasonable as a random “fishing expedition” or a “witch-hunt;” not when you have a credible witness (Cohen) saying that the answers and evidence of Trump’s crimes – mostly Bank, Tax and Insurance Fraud – can be readily found in his tax-returns (
https://www.msn.com/).
Cohen was repeatedly attacked by Republican members of the House during his testimony for being a “convicted liar,” which, of course, he is. Significantly, these Republicans in all their “Cohen is a Liar” arguments never made even a cursory attempt to defend Donald Trump.
So, if I readily admit Cohen’s a liar, why would I call him a “credible witness?” Well, glad you asked! Of equal significance, none of these Republicans could avoid the real issue here (although not a one of them ever brought it up); sure, Cohen lied repeatedly to congress, but why was he lying? Not to protect himself. Cohen was never personally at odds with or under threat from congress. Nor did he have a profit motive (outside of protecting the guy he worked for, again, Donald Trump:
https://www.youtube.com/).
(NOTE: Cohen does have issues with Tax and Bank Fraud unrelated to Trump (
https://www.msn.com/), but congress was not looking into those issues so he didn’t lie to congress concerning either of those issues. In other words: All of Cohen’s lies to congress where all about Trump, Trump Tower Moscow, Russia, etc.
https://abcnews.go.com/.)
The bottom-line is that the only reason Cohen had to lie, his only possible, reasonable, rational motive, was to protect Donald J. Trump. Conversely, if Cohen had always and only told the truth he might not be going to jail now and Trump just might be going to jail. That was the whole point of his lies and that’s what makes him a “credible witness” to me.
While it could be argued that Cohen’s testimony is an attempt to get a lesser sentence for the Bank and Tax Fraud, it does not seem reasonable to me to make-up false stories about the President of the United States in order to get a reduced sentence. I’m not an attorney but to my thinking that is a pretty risky proposition.
Which brings me to my second main point: Never has anything looked more like a classic Mob-Trial than what we in America are seeing right now with Donald Trump’s Mob (
https://www.youtube.com/). You couldn’t write a more definitive Mafia narrative than what’s going on right now! Dozens of the Mob Boss’s (Donald Trump’s) minions have been indicted, tried and convicted (or soon will be): Manafort, Papadopoulos, Gates, Flynn, Cohen and that doesn’t include 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies or Rodger Stone and Konstantin Kilimnik (
https://www.vox.com/). The RICO Act was written for Donald J. Trump and his Mob! (
https://www.youtube.com/...)
Case in point: Judge Ellis, in sentencing Paul Manafort to a slap on the wrist, said he’d, Manafort, has lived an otherwise “blameless life,” as though this horribly stupid judge was entirely unaware that Manafort was going to soon be sentenced for a yet another conviction! (
https://www.cnn.com) Blameless? Are you a complete asshole or just an idiot, Judge Ellis?
As bad and sad as this all is what’s undoubtedly the worst part is how obviously unfair, horrible, classist and racist our system is. How rich, white men are free to break the law right, left, and up and down, abscond millions of dollars in loot from innocent victims, turn innocent underage girls into sex-slaves and walk away scott-free - Hell! Sometimes they even get elected to the Presidency! - while a poor young man of color gets a 20-year sentence for selling $20.00 worth of pot! WTF!
This country has a lot to answer for. Not least of which is electing a f-cking criminal as President.
