Donald Trump may have just sunk himself with his latest attempt at spiting Michael Cohen
It could be argued that at this point, Donald Trump and Michael Cohen are each more interested in taking each other down than they are in saving themselves. Trump is waiving incriminating evidence against himself, seemingly just to weaken Cohen’s plea deal leverage. Cohen is leaking evidence and testimony just to make Trump look guilty in the court of public opinion, instead of using it to get the best deal. But now Trump may have found a new way to top it all.
Over the weekend we learned that Michael Cohen is willing to testify that he witnessed Donald Trump signing off on the Trump Tower meeting with Russian government representatives during the election. This morning Rudy Giuliani went on cable news and revealed that Trump campaign deputy chairman Rick Gates, who has already cut a plea deal, also knew that Trump had signed off on the meeting.
Was this simply yet another classic Rudy screw up? Maybe. Here’s something to keep in mind. Michael Cohen appears to be trying to position himself as a valuable witness against Donald Trump by revealing that he can demonstrate Trump is guilty on the Trump Tower meeting. Now Team Trump is responding by revealing that Special Counsel Robert Mueller already has a witness in hand who can demonstrate the same thing. As such, Trump and Rudy may be revealing this to try to make Cohen less valuable as a witness, thereby reducing his plea deal leverage, just to spite him.
Of course, if you think about it, this doesn’t make much sense. Rick Gates already spilled his guts to Robert Mueller a long time ago. This latest revelation about Gates is news to us, but it’s not news to Mueller. This wouldn’t change much when it comes to how valuable Mueller would or wouldn’t view Michael Cohen as a cooperating witness. So if Trump and Rudy revealed this today just to stick it to Cohen, they didn’t think it through particularly well, and they just confirmed Trump’s status as a traitor for nothing.
