The Feds take a blowtorch to everyone around Michael Cohen as he prepares to flip on Donald Trump
Michael Cohen is planning to flip on Donald Trump, according to reports from ABC News, CNN, and NBC News. But there is no plea deal officially in place, even as Cohen has hired an attorney with ties to SDNY, seemingly for the explicit purpose of cutting a deal with the SDNY. Meanwhile, as this drags on a bit, the Feds have begun setting everyone around Cohen on fire – creating a very short window for them to flip before Cohen does.
Yesterday the Feds subpoenaed the National Enquirer and its boss David Pecker, due to the tabloid newspaper’s coordination with Michael Cohen during the election. Today we learned part of what the Feds are after. The Washington Post is reporting that during the election, the Enquirer was not only staging its fake content to benefit Trump, it was sending its articles and front covers to Cohen for approval before publication.
This is obviously biased and immoral, but what makes this different from any of the other fake news that the National Enquirer publishes, or the fraudulent operations at Fox News? The key difference is that Trump and Cohen and the Enquirer appear to have been coordinating their efforts during the election when it came to Trump’s affairs, and the payoffs that were made to Trump’s mistresses. Some of those payments were made by Cohen, while others were made by the Enquirer. It’s illegal for a candidate to pay someone off to keep quiet during an election. It’s also illegal for a news outlet to conspire with that candidate to pay someone off.
Once Michael Cohen cuts his inevitable plea deal, he’ll have to give up Donald Trump, as well as everyone he conspired with. That means David Pecker of the National Enquirer may want to hurry up and cut a plea deal of his own before Cohen’s deal is official. It’s clear the Feds are going to torch everyone who participated in the illegal schemes that Cohen ran on Trump’s behalf.
