KA-BOOM!
Michael Cohen has just dropped a bombshell on America.
Might it serve as the first step toward the impeachment of President Donald Trump?
On Thursday night, CNN reported that the President’s personal lawyer of over two decades is willing to testify to special investigator Robert Mueller that Mr. Trump knew in advance about a meeting in Trump Tower that took place two years ago.
In this June 2016 sit-down – which Donald Trump Jr. and other advisors close to then-candidate Trump have admitted to attending – Russians were expected to offer the campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Emails dug up by The New York Times about a year ago proved that Trump Jr. was made aware ahead of this meeting that the Russians wanted to discuss ways to bring down Clinton.
He responded with enthusiasm to that possibility.
After the meeting was exposed, Trump Jr. and other administration officials went on record with multiple claims that Cohen is now willing to dispute:
1. That the meeting was fruitless and no information about Clinton was brought up.
2. Far more damaging, that President Trump had no idea the meeting took place.
Cohen alleges he was present, along with several other inidividuals, when the elder Trump was informed of the Russians’ offer by Trump Jr.
By Cohen’s account, per CNN, Trump gave the green light to this gathering between his campaign staff and representatives from a foreign adversary.
To be clear, Cohen does NOT have any recordings that can back up his claim.
He is simply willing to testify under oath that he witnessed Trump give his son the go-ahead for the Russian pow wow.
This is pertinent because the attorney did tape Trump on numerous occasions back when he met frequently with his famous client; one recently-released tape features Trump and Cohen discussing payment to keep quiet a story about his affair with Karen McDougal.
What is discussed in the video below may violate campaign finance law. Take a listen:
Trump himself has repeatedly pleaded ignorance about this infamous meeting between his advisors and shady folks from Russia.
He has one said on more than one thousand occasions that there has been NO COLLUSION between his administration and the Vladimir Putin-led regime.
Contacted by CNN, one of Cohen’s lawyers, Lanny Davis, declined to comment.
As always, however, Rudy Giuliani was very happy to speak out and to make things a million times worse for his client, President Trump.
“He’s been lying all week, he’s been lying for years,” Rudy Giuliani said to Chris Cuomo on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time” on Thursday night.
This is really the only approach Giuliani and his team can take, we suppose, but it’s an ironic one.
They are saying that the President’s personal attorney and close confidante is a liar.
One can’t help but logically wonder, therefore, just what is was lying about and for whom he was doing said lying.
“I don’t see how he’s got any credibility,” Giuliani added in response to Cohen’s allegation about this Russian meeting.
Several months ago, Cohen’s office was (legally) raised by investigator in New York who had obtained a search warrant.
He’s under scrutiny by federal prosecutors in Manhattan due to all the dealings he has been responsible for as the lawyer for Trump.
The June 2016 meeting at the center of this scandal was arranged after a publicist who knew Trump Jr. told him that a senior Russian official “offered to provide the Trump campaign” with damaging information about Clinton.
This email also said this information was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
Trump. Jr. responded as follows, in a message made public about a year ago: “if it’s what you say, I love it.”
At the meeting, Trump Jr. was joined by his brother-in-law Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, who was Trump’s campaign chairman at the time.
The President said on July 12, 2017, that he “only heard about it two or three days ago.”
A week later, Trump repeated that he “didn’t know anything about the meeting” because “nobody told me” about it.
Now, however, Cohen is saying the opposite, that Trump played a key role in approving this meeting and in pushing his staff to collude with the Russians.
Strap in, folks. The ride may just get even bumpier from here on out.