Donald Trump just backed himself into a corner
Ah, the meeting. You know, the one that never happened? Well, okay, maybe it happened after all, but it was about the adoption of Russian babies? Well, okay, maybe it wasn’t about the adoption of Russian babies, but nothing untoward happened? Well, okay, maybe something untoward did happen, but Donald Trump didn’t know about it beforehand? You know, that meeting?
The June 9, 2016 meeting in Trump Tower, to be precise, the one where the attendees gathered to discuss alleged dirt on Hillary Clinton supplied by the Russians. Now CNN reports that an unnamed source says Michael Cohen claims he was present when Trump Junior told his father of the meeting in advance, and Trump Senior approved it – in advance. Other people were present too. Now NBC has verified the unnamed source.
Faced with such a preponderance of evidence that he knew about the meeting and an embarrassing backlog of lies concerning the meeting, Donald Trump finally came clean and admitted he knew about the meeting all along. Actually, we’re just kidding, Trump lied about that too. In a mid-Friday tweet Trump wrote, “… I did NOT know of the meeting with my son, Don jr. Sounds to me like someone is trying to make up stories in order to get himself out of an unrelated jam (Taxi cabs maybe?). He even retained Bill and Crooked Hillary’s lawyer. Gee, I wonder if they helped him make the choice!”
On Thursday night Rudy Giuliani, appeared on CNN to push back further. “It would have to be people in the room with the president that can corroborate Cohen, which there won’t be because it didn’t happen,” Giuliani said. “And then it becomes a credibility contest between two or three witnesses who say one thing and Cohen who says another.”
Here’s the problem. The “credibility contest” Rudy refers to will ultimately one day be contested under oath, and the contestants will think twice before lying to save a man who demands loyalty from others but consistently demonstrates zero loyalty to anyone else. Anybody care to bet how many people will be willing to go to jail to save Donald Trump by then? The smart chips are on the “none” square. Stay tuned.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.