Crime

Clown Lawyer Michael Cohen Gonna Learn Today

The problem isn't that the FBI raided his place, it's that they'll probably find what they're looking for.

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In the movie, Michael Cohen will not be played George Clooney. Maybe Zach Galifianakis though. (Photo credit should read BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP/Getty Images)

Due to his closeness with President Donald Trump, there is a lot of talk about the recently raided Michael Cohen being the key to unraveling all of the president’s alleged and supposed crimes. We want answers and it appears Cohen has some. It’s natural to project the desire that Donald Trump be held accountable for something onto the decisions of Robert Mueller, the U.S. Attorney, or the Department of Justice.

It may well be that the raid of Cohen’s office is the beginning of the end of Donald Trump, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that Michael Cohen is a terrible attorney, the Wreck-It-Ralph of fixers. It is as likely as not the S.D.N.Y. is just looking for evidence of election fraud that Cohen has basically already admitted to.

Anything about Michael Cohen that suggests competence flakes off with a light scratch. Yes, he’s a lawyer, but when you look closely, you notice that he got his law degree from Cooley Law School, which is one of the worst law schools in the country. Cohen’s business seems to be taxi cabs, for which he owes back taxes. He doesn’t have a roster of clients; like Tom Hagan in the Godfather, Cohen seems to only have one client. Cohen’s brief association with the otherwise respected law firm of Squire Patton Boggs is already over, leaving one to wonder why the firm sullied itself with a Cohen liaison to begin with. (Answer: I assume the firm thought that having the ear of the president could be useful.)

Cohen is regularly referred to as Trump’s “pit bull” — which is NOT A COMPLIMENT. It appears that Cohen used what legal knowledge he had as an intimidation tactic, as opposed to the basis from which to give sound counsel and advice.

All of which is to say: you don’t need to have it in for Donald Trump to authorize a search warrant on Michael Cohen. The two need not be linked. One thing that Trump himself seems to have a really difficult time understanding is that people have ethical and legal responsibilities independent of the president’s definition of the personal loyalty. If Michael Cohen violated those precepts, he of course needs to be investigated.

We don’t know what evidence investigators had against Cohen, but we know it was significant enough to get multiple levels of prosecutors and a magistrate to sign off on the search warrants.

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The mere existence of the search warrant does not do all of our work for us. Prosecutors have been known, from time to time, to overstep their bounds when requesting warrants. The standard is not, “Oh, they got a warrant so he’s probably guilty of something.”

But, unfortunately for Cohen, the fact that his own office was raided neatly tracks with the kind of buffoonery that has been spilling out of this guy’s mouth since somebody turned the cameras on.

Remember this is the story that Cohen (and Trump) want you to believe:

A lawyer, acting on his own authority and not in consultation with his client, set up a shell corporation to pay $130,000 to prevent a woman for going public with her allegation of sleeping with that lawyer’s client — who happened to be running for president at the time. The client/candidate had no knowledge of the payment, and the payment was not logged as a campaign contribution, but the client may or may not have set up a slush fund the lawyer could access to… pay for things? But this payment was made with a home equity line that the lawyer personally secured to make the payment.

THAT’S THEIR OFFICIAL STORY, FOLKS. We assume that the FBI is looking at whether Cohen participated in election fraud or bank fraud because his official story sounds an awful lot like election fraud and bank fraud.

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This is what Cohen says when he knows people are listening to him. Can you imagine what he says when he thinks he’s speaking in private? The biggest problem for Trump isn’t that the FBI raided his attorney’s office, it’s that the FBI might find exactly what they are looking for.

But Cohen’s clownishness cuts both ways. As many Trump people are learning for the first time, you can pierce the veil on attorney-client privilege in cases of crime or fraud. BUT the intention to commit a crime rests with the client, not the attorney. And if we’re going to get a look at attorney work-product, it has to be shown that the work-product was in fact used in furtherance of the alleged crime.

What that means is that Trump could have said, “What are we going to do about this here porn star,” and Cohen could have said, “I’ll handle it, boss.” And that conversation could not be used against Trump, because it would not pierce the veil of attorney-client privilege. Trump wouldn’t have the mens rea to commit an illegal act in that hypothetical. In that example, Cohen would still be in a heap of trouble, but Trump could say he didn’t know a thing about it.

Maybe Cohen holds a lot of secrets, but maybe he doesn’t. They call him a pit bull, but just think about how much your idiot dog knows about your tax returns. The way Cohen behaves, I don’t believe he knows “where all the bodies are buried” unless he personally buried a literal body… and even then, Cohen seems like the kind of guy who could lose a corpse in the Pine Barrens.

For now, I believe the person most in legal jeopardy from the FBI’s raid on Michael Cohen is Michael Cohen. Though I’d feel more confident in that position if Trump wasn’t so visibly shaken that he’s about to start a war to distract us from the raid.

Maybe Trump is worried that the FBI will find more than they’re looking for?

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