Donald Trump’s Jerry Falwell Jr scandal is even uglier than we thought

| 10:18 pm EDT May 7, 2019
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Reuters reported earlier this evening that Michael Cohen is on tape admitting that Donald Trump instructed him to help Jerry Falwell Jr make some embarrassing photos disappear, and that shortly thereafter, Falwell endorsed Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Now it turns out the scandal is even uglier – for Trump – than we thought.

Michael Cohen kept one of the embarrassing photos of Jerry Falwell Jr, which we initially interpreted as Cohen merely trying to cover himself. But tonight Rachel Maddow managed to put the pieces together in a different way, which makes a lot more sense. The key to it all is that initially, Falwell was closely aligned with the Ted Cruz campaign, to the point that Cruz launched his campaign at Falwell’s university. So why would Falwell then turn around and endorse Trump, at a time when Cruz’s campaign was still viable?

This raises the obvious question: how did Donald Trump manage to get Falwell to abruptly change sides? This brings us back to the compromising photo of Falwell that Michael Cohen decided to hang onto. If Cohen kept that photo so Trump could use it to – ahem – pressure Falwell into endorsing him over Cruz, that would be an extraordinarily severe crime on Trump’s part.

The thing is, Michael Cohen knows what really happened between Trump and Falwell. Considering what a packrat he’s turned out to be when it comes to secretly recording conversations, hanging onto his old phones, and more, he could have evidence to prove what really happened. Cohen surely gave all that evidence to the SDNY before he went to prison. And if it is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation, SDNY would have instructed him not to publicly discuss it. Cohen may have made a mistake by discussing parts of this scandal in private and getting recorded in the process, but this can’t be the entire story. It’s going to get even uglier.