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’Disloyal: A Memoir’: Why Should Anybody Trust or Believe Michael Cohen, part 1
The case for looking behind the Swiss-cheese curtain at the “wizard of lies” and his wannabe mafia
Who would like, believe, much less admire or even trust a man like Michael Cohen? If you are a Trump supporter he is a rat and was rightly relegated to the shadows even in the best of times. If you are a Democrat or a liberal or a Biden supporter, or let’s just say it, a Trump hater , Never-Trumper or a member of the RVAT, why would you believe the guy who was, by his own admission, a dirty, criminal, perjury committing low life?
“…permit me to make a point: If you only read stories written by people you like, you will never be able to understand Donald Trump or the current state of the American soul. More than that, it’s only by actually understanding my decisions and actions that you can get inside Trump’s mind and understand his worldview.”
– Michael Cohen in forward to “Disloyal”
And now he (Cohen) is suddenly and permanently a paragon of virtue? Or at least no longer an “eager and willing” liar for a wannabe dictator?
Then again, as Cohen argues himself in his just released book excerpt, isn’t it always necessary to talk to and believe criminals, liars and “bad guys” in order to incriminate and convict a Mafia Don? Aren’t they, often after they are in witness protection and protective custody, the ones whose testimony is essential to finding out the true actions and character of the bosses and Capo dei capi?
From golden showers in a sex club in Vegas, to tax fraud, to deals with corrupt officials from the former Soviet Union, to catch and kill conspiracies to silence Trump’s clandestine lovers, I wasn’t just a witness to the president’s rise—I was an active and eager participant.”
…As anyone in law enforcement will tell you, it’s only gangsters who can reveal the secrets of organized crime. If you want to know how the mob really works, you’ve got to talk to the bad guys. I was one of Trump’s bad guys. In his world, I was one hundred percent a made man.
While Cohen openly refers to himself as a “keystone cop” and the “Trump Mafia”, to the degree that such a thing exists, is more like a tragicomic almost childish attempt to emulate the Italian-american organized crime structure and behavior, as depicted in movies and folklore. Nevertheless the rise of this “buffoon” to the Presidency is a grave and serious matter, one that is now threatening us all.
Looking at Trump’s history of legal and illegal behavior, and the attempts by the US Justice system to rein him in, one sees a legal strategy of using an eminence front and a claim of innocence due to ignorance and incompetence. This was a major thread, along with the cries of “witch hunt”, in his attempts to avoid any consequences for the alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 election. Cohen hits this point head on:
Both sides were wrong. I knew that the reality was much more complicated and dangerous. Trump had colluded with the Russians, but not in the sophisticated ways imagined by his detractors. I also knew that the Mueller investigation was not a witch-hunt. Trump had cheated in the election, with Russian connivance, as you will discover in these pages, because doing anything—and I mean anything—to “win” has always been his business model and way of life.
…Trump had also continued to pursue a major real estate deal in Moscow during the campaign. He attempted to insinuate himself into the world of President Vladimir Putin and his coterie of corrupt billionaire oligarchs. I know because I personally ran that deal and kept Trump and his children closely informed of all updates, even as the candidate blatantly lied to the American people saying, “there’s no Russian collusion, I have no dealings with Russia…there’s no Russia.”
For anyone who has viewed the recent Netflix series “Fear City: New York vs. the Mafia” the story is a familiar one: the code of silence makes the mafia immune to prosecution, other than low level crimes by “soldiers” while the bosses and the “godfather” are untouchable. Ultimately the use of the R.I.C.O. statute and, most importantly, audio bugging and recordings are combined to finally crack and dismantle organized crime.
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Similarly, the famous tapes that ultimately brought down Nixon illustrate how an insulated boss can only be caught red handed via a “smoking gun”, in the form of an audio tape recording of a careless private “confession” of an overt criminal act.
“The President of the United States wanted me dead. Or, let me say it the way Donald Trump would: He wouldn’t mind if I was dead. That was how Trump talked. Like a mob boss, using language carefully calibrated to convey his desires and demands, while at the same time employing deliberate indirection to insulate himself and avoid actually ordering a hit on his former personal attorney, confidant, consigliere, and, at least in my heart, adopted son.”
Unfortunately, Trump and his keystone cop mafia saw all the movies and know the anecdotal accounts of the fall of Nixon, and so on. According to Cohen, this led Trump to create a system of plausible deniability through the use of euphemism and facial expressions, almost as if audio surveillance was considered a “given” and this new-age code of silence was elevated to an integral part of the criminal culture and way of life.
Cohen, of all people, was the perfect fall-guy to carry out these unspoken, deniable orders as his mission in life, right up until he turned on his idol:
“…I’m certain that Trump knows he will face prison time if he leaves office, the inevitable cold Karma to the notorious chants of “Lock Her Up!” But that is the Trump I know in a nutshell. He projects his own sins and crimes onto others, partly to distract and confuse but mostly because he thinks everyone is as corrupt and shameless and ruthless as he is; a poisonous mindset I know all too well.
Shutterstock Royalty Free Images. 50 million Hi-Res Images & Vectors.
”…I see the men who have replaced me and continue to forfeit their reputations by doing the President’s bidding, no matter how dishonest or sleazy or unlawful. Rudy Guiliani, William Barr, Jared Kushner and Mike Pompeo are Trump’s new wannabe fixers, sycophants willing to distort the truth and break the law in the service of the Boss”…
Read More: Portland & Trump’s Federal Presence: A Short Fascist History of Violent Attacks on Political Foes
“Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a peaceful transition of power,” I concluded. “This is why I agreed to appear before you today.”
– Michael Cohen, in testimony before Congress
The book is available for pre-order and will be released on September 8th, 2020. It is already sitting at #1 on the bestseller list.
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