'Boss, I Miss You So Much': The Awkward Exile of Michael Cohen

[highplainsdem]

From the Wall Street Journal yesterday:


https://www.wsj.com/articles/boss-i-miss-you-so-much-the-awkward-exile-of-michael-cohen-1524767440

In the 15 months since Donald Trump shut him out of a White House job, Michael Cohen, the president’s personal lawyer, has made a show of publicly dining with a vocal Trump critic, the billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

After lunch at Freds restaurant in New York in April 2017, a gossip item appeared in the New York Post. When they had breakfast at the Time Warner Center in November, paparazzi “somehow” showed up, Mr. Cuban said. “I think he does it to piss off Trump when Trump is ignoring him.”

The second meeting, reported by celebrity-news outlet TMZ, did catch Mr. Trump’s attention. He called Mr. Cohen to complain. The attorney sought to reassure him, according to a person familiar with the conversation. “No, boss, I had breakfast with him to set him straight. I told him he has to respect the office, to respect you,” Mr. Cohen said, according to this person.

“Boss, I miss you so much,” he said later in the conversation. “I wish I was down there with you. It’s really hard for me to be here.”

-snip-

In the months before the election, when Mr. Trump reshuffled his campaign for a third time and named Steve Bannon as campaign chief, Mr. Cohen told associates he had expected to be tapped for the role, according to people familiar with the matter. He also told people at the time he expected to be named White House chief of staff, people familiar with the matter said.

Mr. Trump decided that bringing Mr. Cohen inside the White House carried too many risks, according to people familiar with the discussions. Mr. Trump privately has described Mr. Cohen as a “bull in a china shop,” who when brought in to fix a problem sometimes breaks more china, according to a person close to the president.

-snip-

Mr. Cohen, who as a teenager frequented Brooklyn’s ethnic Russian neighborhoods and married into a Ukrainian family, cultivated a rough-and-tumble, streetwise image.

Gregory Ehrlich invited Mr. Cohen to his wedding and was amused to hear he bragged to another guest that he belonged to the Russian mob. Mr. Ehrlich, who is now estranged from Mr. Cohen, said he doesn’t believe his former friend had any such ties.

-snip-

Mr. Trump didn’t always demonstrate respect for his employee. After saying he’d attend Mr. Cohen’s son’s bar mitzvah in 2012, Mr. Trump was late, and the blessings were delayed, according to an attendee.

After Mr. Trump arrived, he gave a speech, telling guests he hadn’t planned to come, but he relented after Mr. Cohen had repeatedly called him, his secretary and his children begging him to appear, the attendee said. The guests laughed because “everyone knew it was very realistic-sounding,” the attendee added.

-snip-

Cohen, despite his threatening other people at times and attempting to seem like a tough guy, is apparently a masochost in his sado-masochistic relationship with Trump.

I still think he'll flip on Trump if confronted with a long prison sentence. But it might take a long sentence instead of a short one.

Btw, Trump's going to that bar mitzvah is one of the things Sam Nunberg told the NYT supposedly showed that Trump does have some affection for Cohen and his family.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/20/us/politics/trump-michael-cohen.html

“The softer side of the president genuinely has an affection for Michael,” Mr. Nunberg said. For instance, Mr. Trump attended the bar and bat mitzvahs of Mr. Cohen’s children.

Considering that Trump showed up very late, disrupted the ceremony, made himself the center of attention, and bragged about how much Cohen had to beg before Trump condescended to attend, I would not call that a display of affection. It was deliberate humiliation of Cohen in front of his son, on a day that was very important for the Cohen family.

[Marie Marie]

1. Cohen has all the signs of an abused spouse.

[dawg day]

2. Trump the source?

>The attorney sought to reassure him, according to a person familiar with the conversation. “No, boss, I had breakfast with him to set him straight. I told him he has to respect the office, to respect you,” Mr. Cohen said, according to this person.

“Boss, I miss you so much,” he said later in the conversation. “I wish I was down there with you. It’s really hard for me to be here.” >

How much you wanna bet Trump is the source of this? Two people on the phone call.....

[Kirk Lover]

3. I'm not sure if they even need him to flip. They got everything. Sweet. nt

[ProudLib72]

4. Maybe he'll just decide telling all is the right thing to do