Did Michael Cohen just write something that could get him in trouble with the DOJ and Secret Service?

 

This story is about something Michael Cohen wrote when he worked as a personal lawyer for Trump literally, and as the photos below show, figuratively stood behind him. 

Even before I read the article “Trump's ex-lawyer makes 'bold prediction' about president's 'king'-like ambition” on RawStory, I wondered why the headline writer just didn’t write “Michael Cohen makes 'bold prediction' about president's 'king'-like ambition." After all, by now every RawStory reader, like most Americans, know that Michael Cohen was once Trump’s personal lawyer and legal consigliere. From 2018, here’s an article about his backstory.

My not really relevant reaction to the title being pointed out, the RawStory article summarizes Cohen’s Substack for today:

I recommend reading it here.

Here’s how he begins:

I’ve never been shy about making bold, public predictions. And to date, as you have seen, I’ve been right almost every time. This one is no different. We didn’t just elect President Trump to a second term. We gave him power that looks less like a presidency and more like a monarchy. And this King is already using his courts to punish those who stood against him.

Even if you don’t read it, or just skim through it, go to his conclusion. This is where he writes something that could get him in trouble with the DOJ or the Secret Service, or both.

The proverb "when you strike at a king, you must kill him" is attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, although he was expressing an idea that goes back to Machiavelli. In The Prince he wrote "men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge."

It is quite clear what kind of injury Machiavelli was suggesting.

It is a crime to advocate this for a public official and if someone does so it can get them in trouble. Just ask Kathy Griffin.

Addendum:

Here’s Michael Cohen on The Weekend on MSNBC this morning.

In his Substack today, “MAGA and Americanism are antithetical propositions,”Steve Schmidt blasted Laura Loomer for what she wrote about her disgusting attack on the fact that Florent Groberg was a recipient of the Medal of Honor, the highest valor award of the Armed Forces of the United States. It was how he described her that hit me as an albeit crude, but spot-on description of her:

Here’s just a snippet of what Loomer wrote:

Are we supposed to believe the Army couldn’t find a Republican and US born soldier?

They had to find an immigrant who voted for Hillary Clinton and spoke at the DNC as Obama’s guest?

You can read the rest of Schmidt’s Substack.

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The horror of a second Trump presidency

A Washington Post Magazine article excerpted by Hal Brown

If you don't subscribe to the WaPo here are the bullet points from this article:

What Will Happen to America if Trump Wins Again? Experts Helped Us Game It Out.

The scenarios are ... grim.

By David Montgomery (scroll down to see author's profile)

October 10, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. 

From the article:

To help game out the consequences of another Trump administration, I turned to 21 experts in the presidency, political science, public administration, the military, intelligence, foreign affairs, economics and civil rights. They sketched chillingly plausible chains of potential actions and reactions that could unravel the nation (if Trump is reelected).

Based on what these experts described, here are the three phases described in the article:

Phase 1: Trump seizes control of the government

… He installs super loyalists.

... He governs without Senate advice and consent.

... He creates a MAGA civil service.

Phase 2: Trump deploys the military aggressively at home, while retreating abroad.

... He uses the military to promote his own political power.

In such a scenario, the response of other elements of the federal government and federal law enforcement could be unpredictable. “What that order does is that it fractures the American federal government, because you give an order like that to fire on American civilians and then maybe some agencies will pick it up and some won’t,” says Timothy Snyder, a historian at Yale University who writes about freedom and tyranny. “There’s a very real possibility that giving an order like that leads not to protest being put down, but it leads to some Americans in uniform firing on other Americans in uniform, with the people on both sides being convinced that they are doing the lawful and correct thing.

... American global leadership is finished — much to Putin’s delight.

... Intelligence work is harmed.

Phase 3: Political violence and democratic collapse? It’s possible.

... Ideological, racial and ethnic tensions ramp up.

... The bonds that bind the Union loosen.

... The chances of civil war increase.

That’s when the potential for violent conflict is real. For those studying the implications of these trends, “there’s no scenario that worries us more than that the wheels just come off completely from the restraints against violence in the United States,” says Diamond, of Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute. “My biggest concern is what citizens would do to citizens, and what citizens might do to legitimately constituted government authority.”

... 

Could it happen here? Would it be that bad? The message of prophets of democratic doom can sound over-the-top — “crackpot, practically,” acknowledges Wilentz, the Princeton historian. But to dismiss it, they say, would be naive — and they urge vigilance and civic engagement to prevent the nightmare from coming true. 

The article concludes:

After four more years of nihilistic energy like that, the experience of being American could well have been transformed into something unrecognizable. “If Trump wins, I don’t imagine some kind of normal inauguration in ’29,” (Timothy) Snyder says. “If we want a normal inauguration in ’29, we need one in ’25 which involves somebody else.”

Author profile, David Montgomery

Washington, D.C.

Staff writer for the Washington Post Magazine

Education: Princeton University; University of Michigan

David Montgomery was a reporter at the Buffalo News before joining The Washington Post in 1993. He covered Prince George’s County, politics in Maryland and life in D.C., then became a feature writer in the Style section. Now he writes features and profiles for the Washington Post Magazine.

Honors and Awards: 2022 Climate Narratives Prize, 2nd Place, Arizona State University, for "The Search for Environmental Hope" ; 2018 Excellence-in-Features, 2nd Place, Society for Features Journalism, for "After the Fall," the story of a Confederate statue in Demopolis, AL 

Languages spoken in addition to English: Spanish

Afterword: 

Michael Cohen isn't an expert in any of the fields that would provide the type of bonafides that the author of the Post article sought to ask their predictions about the consequences of another Trump presidency. However, he is the only one who knew Trump up close and personal, who was very familiar with his modus operandi and, significantly, helped him implement his nefarious schemes. With this in mind it is worthwhile to consider what he predicts in this article: 

Keep up with news of interest to progressives as it breaks with coverage from all over the Internet on RawStory

They also cross-publish with Salon, and summarize article published on websites which you need to subscribe to in order toe read them, The New York Times and Washington Post for example. They have an active c0mment section.