Wow, so that’s why House Democrats are bringing Michael Cohen back again next week
Earlier today, Palmer Report brought you the story of how the House Intelligence Committee is bringing Michael Cohen back next week to provide additional testimony about something that Congressman Eric Swalwell said had committee members on “the edge of our seats.” We asked aloud when the public would end up finding out what the new revelation was about. As it turns out, it didn’t take long at all.
Tonight the Washington Post is reporting that Donald Trump dangled a pardon in front of Michael Cohen in an ultimately futile effort to get Cohen not to cooperate with federal investigators. Cohen may not be the brightest, but it looks like even he was able to figure out that Trump isn’t really going to risk trying to pardon anyone involved in this scandal, at least outside of his own family.
The Post believes the pardon angle is what prompted the House Intel Committee to decide to bring Cohen back. Here’s the thing: Cohen said during his public testimony this past week that the last time he heard from Donald Trump was roughly two months after the FBI raided his office. When Cohen was asked for details, he said he couldn’t talk about it, because it was part of an ongoing SDNY criminal investigation. Although this moment got somewhat overlooked by the media at the time, Palmer Report thought it was a big deal. We thought it sounded like Trump sent someone to make an illegal gesture of some kind toward Cohen. Now we know that gesture was apparently a pardon offer.
This brings us back to the question we asked at the time: who did Donald Trump send to deliver this message to Michael Cohen? In other words, who is Trump’s new fixer? In any case that person committed felony conspiracy to obstruct justice, and is surely under SDNY investigation, unless that person has already cut a plea deal.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report