Michael Cohen Releases Secretly-Recorded Trump Tape; His Lawyer Lanny Davis Threatens That He's Ready to Talk, Whatever That Means

The impression many have gotten for a while is that Michael Cohen is threatening Trump to either get a pardon for whatever crimes he may have committed, and/or get Trump to pay his legal bills. And so he and his shyster, former Bill Clinton mouthpiece Lanny Davis, are ratcheting up pressure and threats to compel Trump to deliver something.

Alternately -- it could be that Cohen is already cooperating with prosecutors and so is threatening to release information in order to get Trump to contact him and ask him to not reveal anything more to investigators, at which point the feds would indict Trump for obstruction of justice.

So, obviously, Trump should not contact this guy.

Whatever their scheme, so far they haven't released much. They caught Trump on tape discussing possibly doing something legal -- to wit, buying someone's story through a third party (the National Enquirer) to keep the story quiet.

What would be the crime here? Will Mueller also start prosecuting blackmail victims for paying blackmail to their blackmailers?

I'm not saying this woman's a blackmailer -- but she was trying to make money off her sleazy story. She made that money. What's the harm? Trump was and is under no legal compulsion to share his sex history with anyone. Keeping a story quiet is only a crime under one circumstance -- when you're under legal compulsion to not hide it, as when you're under subpeona to disclose it or when it's being investigated by police. Neither of these things were true before, and I doubt they're even true now.

Unless, of course, Mueller has decided that blackmail victims can't pay hush money without being indicted for Conspiracy to Commit Privacy.

Which who knows- - maybe he has.

But Cohen, through his Clinton mouthpiece, has threatened that Cohen is now singing to the feds, whatever that's supposed to mean.

Davis, a damage-control maestro going back to the Clinton administration, told me: "Michael Cohen has made a turn. This is on the record -- Michael and I talked about it."

"Michael is going to tell the truth to the powers that be, and let the chips fall where they may."

"I've used this line too many times, but who talks about cash like that besides drug dealers and mobsters?"

Davis said that the tape's release sends the message: "I am no longer the previous Michael Cohen that you knew --taking a bullet for Donald Trump, saying anything to defend him, being a good soldier. ... That is over."

Davis said he was unable to say what Cohen's next move is: "I'm not saying there are more tapes as telling as [this] one, ... but there are more tapes. ... There is more to come."

Alan Derschowitz had already declared/predicted that Cohen would or already was "flipping" on Trump.

One area where I'm actually worried Trump might (might) have done wrong concerns the threats some people claim they got about laying off "Mr. Trump." That could have been Cohen behind that -- and Cohen will say it was Trump ordering him to do that, even if Trump actually only said "make it go away" or something like that.

posted by Ace of Spades at 12:41 PM

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