Trump Makes His Lawyers Sad in TV Call In - By Josh Marshall

[DonViejo]

By Josh Marshall | April 26, 2018 9:14 am

There was a lot of crazy stuff this morning when President Trump called into Fox & Friends, the Fox Morning Show. A lot of color. But I want to zero in on several key claims or admissions he made about the Russia, Cohen and Stormy Daniels cases.

1. Trump categorically denied that he told James Comey he didn’t overnight in Moscow in November 2013 at the Miss Universe Pageant. Comey recorded Trump saying this twice in his contemporaneous memos. This is a key claim since it is clearly false and it appeared to be a falsehood manufactured to rebut the prostitute allegations. From one perspective it’s one guy’s word against the other. The problem for Trump is that the space-time continuum being what it is, it’s not at all clear how Comey would know to make this up in contemporaneous memos written in early 2017. He would have no way to know it would be significant. It simply makes no sense. There does appear to be at least one witness, Reince Priebus. It will be interesting to see what he says.

Link to tweet

2. The President said Michael Cohen is mainly a businessman and only secondarily a lawyer. That at least undercuts his privilege argument. He says what prosecutors are looking at only has to do with Cohen’s personal business dealings, not with his representation of Donald Trump. He also said that he knows nothing about Cohen’s private business dealings. (“I don’t know his business… They’re looking at something having to do with his business. I have nothing to do with his business.”) That’s almost certainly false.

Link to tweet

3. However, Trump says explicitly for the first time that Cohen does represent him with Stormy Daniels: “He represents me like with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal.” We know that of course. But Cohen and Trump’s lawyers have been trying to hide behind the fiction that Cohen simply represents the LLC which is also a party to the hush deal.

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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-makes-his-lawyers-sad-in-tv-call-in

[hatrack]

1. Looks like all three of them also have Teh Sad from this call . . .

[Cracklin Charlie]

6. The panel looks stunned...

Or constipated.

Hard to tell from here.

[NewJeffCT]

2. Wasn't Team Trump's claim

that he did not spend the night in Moscow one of their key talking points in saying that the Steele Dossier was not real?

The two main points being:
1) Cohen did not go to Prague because there was stamp on his passport
2) Trump did not spend the night at the Moscow Hotel, so could not have done the golden showers with Russian hookers.

[jberryhill]

3. If I spoke like he does in that first clip, someone would have me locked up

I've heard better self-exculpatory speeches from five year olds.

[duforsure]

4. It just more signs

He's buggy from this closing in on him. Biff is now in panic mode he can.t stop them now. Maybe he's the one getting huge amounts of drugs from his White House dr feelgood

[Nitram]

9. duforsure, you've hit the nail on the head!

Trump loves Dr. Feelgood because he hands out pills like candy. Trump pops a few and then he calls into Friends or starts tweeting at 3:00 in the morning.

[superpatriotman]

5. It's inevitable

That he confesses to a prosecutable crime on tv very soon.

[Botany]

7. Josh Marshall

"Man, watching this video. Even the Fox News yahoos facial expressions are like,
this is disturbing. What's wrong with this guy."

Link to tweet

[BSdetect]

8. They will just lap it up. They are pure hacks and stooges.

[Nitram]

10. Wow! What a disjointed stream of unconsciousness!

They try to look serious, like he's saying Important Stuff, but you can tell they are very uncomfortable listening to Trump's bizarre diatribe.

[Hortensis]

11. This should be a Mel Brooks comedy, not real.

Apparently a colleague believes Cohen associates prisons with PoC and black menace, not for people like him. I bet none of these lawless hyenas see themselves as criminals.

Link to tweet