There’s an eerie silence right now
Interpreting silence can be tricky business. In fact, with all the fireworks going on this week in Donald Trump’s criminal scandals, from Rick Gates testifying against Paul Manafort, to everything the media has collectively unearthed, the silence may have even gone unnoticed. But take a look around at the usual voices, or the voices you’d be expecting to hear right now – and let’s just say that it’s an eerie silence. It does tell us something.
Remember back when Michael Cohen was mouthing off about Donald Trump and leaking evidence against him? Cohen went quiet when he hired Lanny Davis as his attorney, but that was only because Davis began doing the talking for him. But then something changed, and Davis went quiet as well. He had been tweeting negative things about Trump on a regular basis, until two weeks ago, when he went silent on Twitter entirely.
So what does this tell us? All we know is that something has changed. Cohen and Davis didn’t decide to go from waging a public battle against Donald Trump to going entirely silent for no reason. Does it mean they’ve begun negotiating a plea deal? Does it mean they’ve simply decided to change strategy? We don’t know that part. But we did learn today, thanks to the Wall Street Journal, that the Feds are investigating Cohen for tax fraud. That’s what Paul Manafort is on trial for, and losing badly, as we speak. It means Cohen is even more hosed than we thought. Maybe he is formally negotiating a deal.
Then there’s Roger Stone. He only communicates via Instagram these days, and his daily posts have become more erratic as the grand jury proceedings have closed in on him. But now he’s suddenly gone silent for a couple days. It’s remarkable how many major players have simply gone quiet of late, after having been running their mouths so loudly. It means something. I just can’t tell you what. But it’s a bit eerie.
