Former Trump 'consigliere' Michael Cohen is a key witness in yet another investigation: report

24 April 2023

Republican Donald Trump is the first person in U.S. history to seek his party's presidential nomination while facing a 34-count criminal indictment and a variety of criminal and civil investigations from other prosecutors. Moreover, Trump is, according to some polls, the frontrunner in 2024's GOP presidential primary.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Jr.'s case against Trump won't be going to trial until 2024. In the meantime, the former president is facing two federal criminal investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and special counsel Jack Smith, a criminal probe by Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis, and a civil inquiry by New York State Attorney General Letitia James.

Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney and fixer, is a key witness in Bragg's case. And according to Daily Beast reporter Jose Pagliery, he is also a major asset for James' office.

"Trump already faces a criminal trial in Manhattan for faking business records to hide the hush money he paid porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about their extramarital affair," Pagliery explains in a Daily Beast article published on April 24. "But while the Manhattan district attorney endangers Trump's freedom as he runs for reelection, the (New York) AG's lawsuit is targeting his bank accounts. AG Leticia James sued the Trumps for $250 million last year, accusing the Trump Organization of 'persistent and repeated fraud' for regularly faking business records and inflating property values to secure better bank loans and insurance."

Pagliery adds, "The civil trial, scheduled to start in October, threatens to cripple the Trump corporate empire just as the Republican primary campaigns get underway."

These days, Cohen is a scathing critic of Trump. But there was a time when he was quite devoted to the former president. And his in-depth knowledge of how the Trump Organization works has made him a valuable witness to Bragg as well as James.

"For a decade," Pagliery notes, "Cohen was Trump's 'fixer,' a consigliere who advised the boss on legal matters and protected his image by quietly making problems go away, whether that meant getting accusers to sign non-disclosure agreements or intimidating reporters. That all changed when the feds nailed him in 2018 for violating campaign finance laws to shield Trump from an embarrassing extramarital affair and lying to Congress, which eventually cost him his law license…. Of course, he is now the star witness in the Manhattan DA's case against Trump for faking business records related to that porn star hush money — the one that got the former president indicted. But his longtime proximity to Trump is now coming up in the AG's case too, given that he was around when many of these questionable real estate deals went down."

Pagliery's use of the word "consigliere" to describe Cohen's past relationship with Trump is no coincidence. In Italian, "consigliere" means "adviser" or "counselor." But when used by English speakers, it can take on the connotation of an attorney for the mafia — as in a consigliere to the Corleone family in director Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather, Parts 1-3." Many of Trump's critics, including ex-employee Cohen, have accused him of running the Trump Organization like a mob boss.

Cohen is not shy about saying that he spent a decade doing a lot of Trump's dirty work, and he believes that the ex-president has qualities of both a mob boss and a cult leader.

In an op-ed published by The Guardian on April 24, however, liberal economist Robert Reich argues that Trump's misdeeds go beyond ordinary criminality. Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, Reich believes, were an act of treason that, according to the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment, should keep him from running for president in 2024.

"The most obvious question in American politics today should be: why is the guy who committed treason just over two years ago allowed to run for president?" Reich emphasizes. "Answer: he shouldn’t be. Remember? Donald Trump lost reelection but refused to concede and instead claimed, without basis, that the election was stolen from him — then pushed state officials to change their tallies, hatched a plot to name fake electors, tried to persuade the vice-president to refuse to certify Electoral College votes, sought access to voting-machine data and software, got his allies in Congress to agree to question the electoral votes and thereby shift the decision to the House of Representatives, and summoned his supporters to Washington on the day electoral votes were to be counted and urged them to march on the U.S. Capitol, where they rioted. This, my friends, is treason."

So far, the Republicans who have entered their party's 2024 presidential primary include Trump, Nikki Haley (former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations), former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Los Angeles-based talk radio host Larry Elder (who California Gov. Gavin Newsom defeated by double digits in a recall election). Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) has launched an exploratory committee, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appears to be gearing up for a presidential run even though he has yet to make a formal announcement.

DeSantis' ardent right-wing supporters (who include firebrand author Ann Coulter and the Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro) view him as the GOP's best chance to move on from Trump in 2024. But if some recent polls are accurate, Trump has the best chance of becoming the nominee — even if DeSantis enters the race.

Reich observes, "Trump is running for reelection, despite the explicit language of section three of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits anyone who has held public office and who has engaged in insurrection against the United States from ever again serving in public office. The reason for the disqualification clause is that someone who has engaged in an insurrection against the United States cannot be trusted to use constitutional methods to regain office. Notably, all three branches of the federal government have described the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol as an 'insurrection.'"

Read the Daily Beast's full report at this link (subscription required) and Robert Reich's full op-ed at this link.

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