Another clue that suggests Michael Cohen is about to turn on Trump
The clues have been coming all week.
[I]n his first in-depth interview since the FBI raided his office and homes in April, Cohen strongly signaled his willingness to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller and federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York — even if that puts President Trump in jeopardy.
“My wife, my daughter and my son have my first loyalty and always will,” Cohen told me. “I put family and country first.”
There was also this big hint in the ABC interview:
The joint defense agreement between President Trump and his former attorney Michael Cohen will come to an end over the next few days, according to ABC.
The joint agreement allowed Cohen’s and Trump’s lawyers to share information with one another, but when Guy Petrillo becomes Cohen’s new head counsel this week, this agreement will be terminated, ABC reported.
This could indicate deepening tensions between Trump and his former fixer, who have touted their loyalty to one another in the past.
Cohen said last year that he would “take a bullet” for Trump.
“Deepening tension”. You just have to love The Hill‘s way with understatement.
Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen has signaled to friends that he is “willing to give” investigators information on the President if that’s what they are looking for, and is planning on hiring a new lawyer to handle a possible indictment from federal prosecutors. … Cohen is planning to hire Guy Petrillo, a former chief of the criminal division of the US attorney’s office in Manhattan and an experienced trial lawyer, a source familiar confirmed. The source said all the paperwork and retainer may not have been finalized just yet.
This morning, in Vox,
What happened at Donald Trump’s inauguration 18 months ago, and why does special counsel Robert Mueller appear to be so interested in it?
Last week, ABC News’s Matthew Mosk and John Santucci reported that several wealthy Russians were “granted unusual access” to Trump inauguration parties back in January 2017 — and that Mueller was seeking to find out why. …
Sometime around March of this year, Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg flew in to a New York-area airport on a private plane — and was met there by Robert Mueller’s investigators, who questioned him and searched his electronic devices.
Vekselberg is the main owner and president of the Renova Group, a massive Russian conglomerate with aluminum and oil interests, and is one of the richest people in Russia. He didn’t directly give any money to Trump’s inauguration. But his cousin, Andrew Intrater, an American citizen who runs a US company tied to Vekselberg’s company, donated $250,000. Intrater had also kicked in $35,000 to the Trump Victory Committee during the campaign, despite having no previous history as a major political donor.
Vekselberg and Intrater attended Trump’s inauguration together, and at the January 19 candlelight dinner, they were seated with Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, according to ABC News. Later that year, that company run by Intrater paid Cohen’s shell company, Essential Consultants LLC, $500,000 — for, they claimed, real estate advice.
Mueller’s team would love a long sit-down with Cohen just to sort through all that Russian… er, I mean, inauguration fund cash.
Meanwhile, over at Business Insider,
Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney to President Donald Trump, has removed all mention of Trump from his social-media biographies, further stoking theories that he is ready to turn on the president in an ongoing criminal investigation.
Cohen’s Twitter bio previously identified him as the “personal attorney to President Donald J. Trump,” with an image of Cohen standing behind a Trump campaign lectern as his banner image.
The change in Cohen’s social media happened on Wednesday.
CCN has more details:
The change on Twitter was not immediately accompanied by a change on his LinkedIn page, and his Twitter account still included a hyperlink to LinkedIn. But later Wednesday the reference was also gone from Cohen’s LinkedIn page.
It’s not as if Cohen is being subtle. He is not only making the same moves Michael Flynn did before he entered a plea agreement woth Team Mueller but adding a few of his own. We would be shocked if Cohen does not end up cooperating fully with investigators in the New York AG’s office, prosecutors for the Southern District of New York, and the Office of Special Counsel.
And remember: if Cohen cuts a deal with New York State, Trump cannot pardon those charges.
