ok, could not find what I thought I WAS hearing on the 24/7 as falling asleep on that, but did just find this article that explains Trump has a shipload of lawyers doing legal work, personally and with the trump org.... Cohen is not one of
them. he was hired primarily as ''the fixer'', not as an attorney....and attorney stuff is handled by others....
What Exactly Was Michael Cohen Doing for Donald Trump?
The more the public learns about the raid this week on Michael Cohenâs office, home, and room at a New York hotel, the more it seems Cohen is in deeper and deeper trouble, and the harder and harder it becomes to tell what in particular the federal government is looking for from Cohen.
Unlike actions taken by special counsel Robert Mueller, this raid, conducted by federal agents in New York City, has produced a quick series of leaks. We know, for example, that the raid targeted information about Cohenâs arrangements with two women, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, who have alleged affairs with Donald Trump, in which they were paid for silence. This is no great surprise, since both have sued to get out of their non-disclosure agreements.
Related Story
Michael Cohen Has a Big Problem
Yet since then we have learned of other things the agents were seeking. Another focus is reportedly Cohenâs involvement in the New York City taxi business, through the valuable (though depreciating) medallions required for cabs. Evgeny Friedman, a Russian-born businessman who managed Cohenâs fleet, is in trouble for alleged tax evasion related to taxis.
On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that agents also sought records related to the Access Hollywood tape, leaked in October 2016, in which Trump boasted of sexually assaulting women. Although many women have come forward with allegations of abuse, Trump insists those comments were empty braggadocio, or âlocker-room talk.â Itâs unclear what Cohenâs involvement in that episode might have been, or what crime could have been committed.
Thatâs a wide range of areas for investigation, and there may still be more, since the warrant is not public. The range is the more remarkable because such a raid required approval from multiple high-ranking Justice Department figures, including, reportedly, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The legal journalist Ben Wittes writes, âThere is no way that the U.S. Attorneyâs Office for the Southern District of New York would have sought or executed a search warrant against the presidentâs lawyer without overpowering evidence to support the action.â Some of the matters involved have clearer connections to the special counselâs investigation and to Trump than others. The fact that all of them are of interest to federal prosecutors examining Trump raises a great deal of questions, but perhaps the central one is this: What precisely was Michael Cohen doing for Donald Trump in the first place?
Cohen is often described as Trumpâs âpersonal lawyer,â but that doesnât really seem to illuminate his work. Itâs helpful to start at the beginning. The Associated Press retold the origin story of the Trump-Cohen relationship, also told elsewhere, on Tuesday: Cohen was a resident at a Trump building and a member of the condo board in the early 2000s when he intervened in a dispute and impressed Trump. âSo Trump said, âWho is this guy? My lawyers that I give thousands of dollars to couldnât do it. Iâd like to meet him,ââ Cohenâs uncle told the AP.
That incident is telling: Cohen wasnât acting as a lawyer, so much as a mediator and troubleshooter. And at many stages in his association with Trump since then, he also has been doing work that doesnât really seem primarily legal in nature.
Trump himself wasâisâfamously litigious. On real-estate matters, however, Trump Organization attorney Alan Garten tended to speak for the company. Marc Kasowitz, who briefly represented Trump in the Russia matter last year, often represented Trump in big cases, from the Trump University suit to an unsuccessful libel case against journalist Timothy OâBrien. Cohen, by contrast, has made light of his own poor performance at a lesser law school, a classmate told the AP. And while he practiced law for a time, Cohen made his fortune as a real-estate and taxi mogul, not in courtrooms.
Adam Davidson, who has reported at length on Trump Organization deals overseas, notes that Cohen was heavily involved in projects abroad, some of which have since come under scrutiny over whether Trump did insufficient due diligence. âHe was not part of the Trump Org legal team in any real sense,â Davidson writes. âTrump Org lawyers either set up contracts for deals others had brought or they handled litigation. Cohen did neither. He was a deal maker. The only non-Trump deal maker doing all those international deals.â
Consider Cohenâs three most prominent appearances connected to the Trump campaign. One came in August 2016, when, on CNN, Brianna Keillar confronted Cohen with the fact that polls showed his boss trailing. Cohen demanded to know which polls, to which Keillar replied, âAll of them.â Whatever role Cohen was playing there, it wasnât legal, nor was it politically informed.
More telling were the other two. In 2015, The Daily Beast uncovered an old anecdote in which Ivana Trump had accused Donald of marital rape. (She later backed away from the claimâand signed a sweeping gag order in her divorce agreement.) Cohenâs threat to the Beast was less legal than brutal: âI will make sure that you and I meet one day while weâre in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still donât have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know. So Iâm warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what Iâm going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting. You understand me?â On matters of law, however, he was shaky, arguing that one could not legally rape a spouseâwhich hasnât been true in New York since 1984.
The other was the agreement with Daniels, which came shortly before the election. The details and legality of that agreement remain up for dispute, but Trump has said that he was unaware of the agreement, and Cohen says he paid Daniels out of his own pocket, raising questions about whether Cohen was serving as Trumpâs personal lawyer or something else. Daniels has also accused Cohen of sending a man to threaten her, which would be, to put it delicately, extra-legal.
Indeed, both of these cases show Cohen more in a âfixerâ role than as a lawyer. Itâs a label heâs embraced in the past. Cohen has compared himself to the TV character Ray Donovan, and told ABC in 2011, âIf somebody does something Mr. Trump doesn't like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr. Trump's benefit. If you do something wrong, I'm going to come at you, grab you by the neck and I'm not going to let you go until I'm finished.â In 2017, he told The Wall Street Journal, âI am the fix-it guy ⌠Anything that he needs to be done, any issues that concern him, I handle.â
It canât hurt to have a J.D., but those arenât the kinds of skills you need to go to law school to learn. Cohen filled the void in Trumpâs circle left by Roy Cohn, the infamous lawyer who had once represented Joe McCarthy, but while Cohen has a similarly bellicose personality, he lacks Cohnâs accomplishments as an attorney.
Last edited:
