Trump's Lawyer Forgets to Pretend He's Innocent, Also Compares Him to Mobster

[highplainsdem]

Jonathan Chait in New York magazine this evening:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/04/trumps-lawyer-cohen-forgets-to-pretend-trump-is-innocent.html

Not all of Trump’s supporters feel so confident that Cohen will respect the omerta. In a conversation with Trump last Friday, Jay Goldberg, one of Trump’s lawyers, warned the president, “Michael will never stand up [for you]” if charged by the government, according to the Wall Street Journal. But why would Trump have anything to worry about, unless… Trump committed a crime that Cohen knows about?

In an interview with the Journal, Goldberg elucidated his concerns about Cohen’s loyalty and the devastating impact it would have if he cooperated with the government. “The mob was broken by Sammy ‘The Bull’ Gravano caving in out of the prospect of a jail sentence,” Goldberg explained.

Again, this makes a lot of sense as a legal defense strategy for a businessman who has probably done a lot of illegal stuff. But as a public relations strategy, isn’t Trump’s lawyer supposed to say he believes Cohen is innocent, and would be shocked to learn if he did something wrong, because of course Trump has never engaged in any illegal behavior and would never tolerate it among his employees? He’s probably not supposed to casually liken the president of the United States to the boss of a criminal syndicate.

Update: Politico has more reporting on Trump allies expressing concern that Cohen will flip on Trump. All of the sources implicitly assume both Cohen and Trump are guilty of serious crimes. (Because otherwise, Cohen couldn’t give prosecutors any information damaging to Trump.) And many of them also use mafia lingo. “I think for two years or four years or five years Michael Cohen would be a stand-up guy. I think he’d tell them go piss up a rope,” says a defense lawyer who represents a senior Trump aide, “But depending on dollars involved, which can be a big driver, or if they look at him and say it’s not two to four years, it’s 18 to 22, then how loyal is he?”

18-22 years sounds like it would involve some pretty serious crimes, huh?

[DURHAM D]

1. Jay Goldberg just violated attorney client privilege. nt

[unblock]

2. starting to look like donnie is going for the incompetent representation defense!

[shanny]

3. Where. nt

[DURHAM D]

4. Just by calling up the WSJ and blathering all of this stuff.

He is old and has lost his way.

[shanny]

5. That may be true but

not all conversations are privileged. Even with your attorney. And his statements sounded like hypotheticals to me.

[GeorgeHayduke]

6. This. nt

[duforsure]

7. He'll be flipped

After he understands the scope and depth of information they have on him, and how long they've been onto him. His loyalty will evaporate when he realizes he'll face prison time, serious prison time for his actions if he doesn't. He's a fraud like trump is, and will protect himself by flipping on trump and others before its over. Even trump's attorneys understand this now. Cohen's not the only one flipping on him either. I suspect there will be many more. Cohen may have a lot more troubles as they sift through all the information, and maybe find many illegal practices used to get information, or dirt, on others for trump. This is badly backfiring on Cohen and trump, and they know it. Trump will try to obstruct this from continuing forward.

[oberliner]

8. Obviously Trump has engaged in criminal activty

His only claim, really, is that he didn't engage in collusion with Russia. He is implicitly admitting that he has done other illegal things.