On verge of plea deal, Michael Cohen isn’t even bothering to try to win his court case anymore

| 10:04 pm EDT July 2, 2018
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This morning, ABC revealed the details of an off-camera interview it had conducted with Donald Trump’s longtime fixer Michael Cohen. During the interview, Cohen did not give away any secrets of the Trump-Cohen or Trump-Russia scandal, which was to be expected from a guy who is days away from either being arrested or cutting a plea deal, whichever comes first. Cohen did, however, offer evidence that he’s in the process of cutting a deal. Now, in his separate but related civil court case, Cohen has begun blowing off deadlines that suggest he’s no longer even trying to win it.

Michael Cohen announced this morning that he’s in the process of ending his joint defense agreement with Donald Trump, which is the legally necessary move that Michael Flynn and Rick Gates made just before cutting their plea deals. So now, after quite a lot of talk from Cohen about a plea deal via his friends and family, we have concrete evidence (though not proof) that he’s moving forward with a deal. But what may be more telling is what just happened in his civil trial.

Michael Avenatti, the attorney for Stormy Daniels, revealed this afternoon that Michael Cohen has missed a key June 28th court filing deadline in the civil suit between Daniels, Cohen, Keith Davidson, and others. As a result, the judge in the case is threatening to dismiss Cohen’s latest motion entirely. This tells us that, whatever the reason may be, Cohen is no longer even trying to win this civil suit.

Are Michael Cohen and his recently revamped legal team now so focused on cutting a plea deal on criminal charges, that they no longer have the time or focus to keep up with the civil case? Although Cohen is facing much bigger problems such as being arrested and going to prison, this civil suit could ruin him in different ways. Is he simply conceding the civil case? Is he expecting that Daniels and Avenatti will drop the civil case if he cuts a plea deal? Avenatti has made clear on Twitter that he’s not impressed with Cohen’s recent actions. But Cohen’s focus seems to be elsewhere, and it’s yet another sign that something is about to give.