Michael Cohen says he’s days away from arrest; Trump’s people think he’s going to flip
Yesterday Palmer Report pointed out that we’re just days away from the prison phase of Donald Trump’s Russia scandal. We based this on the fact that Paul Manafort has an arraignment on Friday which will immediately send him to prison through the conclusion of his trial. We also pointed out that Roger Stone and Michael Cohen will be arrested soon, though the precise timeframe was unclear. Now we’re learning that one of those arrests may be coming even sooner than we were expecting.
Federal prosecutors are knee deep into investigating Michael Cohen, but details have been scant when it comes to grand jury proceedings or indictment timeframes. However, Vanity Fair is reporting that Cohen is now telling his associates that he expects to be arrested within days. What’s notable here is that Cohen may be working with inside information.
When prosecutors are trying to convince someone to cut a plea deal, it’s common for them to warn the person that their arrest is imminent if they don’t hurry up and flip. We saw this with both Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort; Flynn responded by cutting a deal, while Manafort didn’t. The Vanity Fair article in question quotes unnamed members of the Trump regime who expect that Cohen will indeed flip, and fear that he could bring Trump down more efficiently than anyone else involved.
This comes even as the grand jury proceedings against Roger Stone have progressed to the point that the people closest to him are being brought in to testify against him. At this point we’re in a race to see whether Stone, Cohen or Manafort lands behind bars first – and of course which of the three end up cutting plea deals as a result. Any one of the three has enough inside dirt to take Donald Trump down and send him to prison.
