Keeping Cohen Confined
by Pinchas Himmelstein
Convicted felon Michael Cohen, whom according to the latest news is, is not, is being released from prison early because of COVID19, told us in no uncertain terms during his post-conviction, pre-sentencing, testimony before Congress on February 27, 2019, what to expect.
“Indeed given my experience working for Mr. Trump I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a peaceful transition of power, and this is why I agreed to appear before you today.”
Attributing to Mr. Cohen only the basest self and family preservation motives for making these remarks, makes them even more credible. After all, Mr. Cohen, with the possibility of a shorter sentence put in front of him by the Southern District of New York US Attorney’s Office, if he agreed to be a full cooperating witness, had refused, knowing that answering questions about his New York Taxi Industry business might provoke some people that don’t play nice at all.
The United States of America not having a peaceful transition of the Presidency based on 2020 election results would end our almost 250 year old democracy and signal the victory of forces that hundreds of thousand of Americans have given their lives to oppose. A brief look at how this might happen follows.
I worked 50+ years with recovering drug addicts and learned early on to triage information, in particular to see the behavior pattern of “copping to the misdemeanor”, bitter and grudging and oh so slow admission to a misdeed, mostly for the purpose of distracting from a greater misdeed, the felony that hangs over someone or that someone is planning to commit. These “felonies” are not necessarily legal issues. (The best example I know is the recovering man who would endlessly discuss his money troubles and why he was working three jobs, until it emerged oh so slowly that the “felony” he would not disclose was his fear of more free time, dating, and his terror that he would revert to being physically violent with women, his pattern while a cocaine user.) I believe that our political life is at a moment when we are witnessing an onslaught of new misdemeanors (some in the news business call them “shiny objects”) by the Trump administration for the purpose of distracting from a planned felony, the overthrow of our Constitution about which we were warned by Michael Cohen.
President Trump’s most recent behavior seems to reflect a judgment by him that his ineptitude with COVID19 issues and their catastrophic impact on our economy have already cost him the possibility of reelection, so why have an election? (Our President is bright and intuitive and cunning despite his character issues and a suspected untreated learning disability). Mr. Trump, with a public approval rating that never reaches 50%, with a loss in the popular vote in 2016, and with the public eye on his administrative ineptitude and oafishness in dealing with COVID19, may anticipate a resounding election defeat should Americans be allowed to go to the polls in November of 2020. So why would someone like Mr. Trump let people vote and what are the basics of his avoiding an election?
The number one basic for me and a lot of other people has for a long time been the suspicion that President Trump is an unwitting traitor. President Putin of Russia has pushed him every which way to damage the standing and well-being of the United States of America, first, by flashing baubles of profit in front of him for more than two decades, but more importantly, through control of compromat (compromising materials) that put Mr. Trump and his adult children at extreme personal risk. Putin’s evidence that our President committed illegal money-laundering felonies must be pretty solid (and also applies to the Trump adult children, officers of the Trump Corporation when access to new loans from Deutsche Bank miraculously appeared despite Mr. Trump’s six bankruptcies that stranded backers, lenders, co-investors, and mortgage holders). After all, it was Putin’s oligarchs that showed up with the dirty rubles that were routed by Deutsche Bank in the first place. This money-laundering violates state laws as well, so a self-pardon won’t save Trump or Don, Jr. et al from facing legal consequences. Just picture State Police from New York or New Jersey or Florida waiting with arrest warrants for Mr. Trump on Marine 1 as he prepares to leave after the inauguration of President Biden. It seems highly likely that our “me first” President Trump has already foreseen this scenario and will use any means necessary to avoid such an outcome. If he can’t head off the election, perhaps he flees to Moscow the moment he knows he has lost. That would be an interesting debriefing by the KGB pro who leads the Russian Federation.
Less important legally but great if you own a tabloid, there is a part two to the unwitting traitor theme. People I trust, say Putin has evidence of our President’s connection to Eastern European women being trafficked to serve as sex workers in Trump hotels and casinos. “I’m shocked, shocked” to find sex workers in casinos and hotels and where is Claude Raines to play Jeffrey Epstein when we really need him? (Wouldn’t Sidney Greenstreet have made a great Trump?)
President Trump’s ever more strident “lie about the sin of the day” approach to governing is in fact “copping to the misdemeanor”. He seems to be working to make his (rest of your life in an orange jumpsuit unless COVID19 lingers in perpetuity) financial felonies the lesser of his crimes, his daily behavior matching both his personal and political view and Dershowitz’s absurd legal theory (at least under our constitutional non-monarchy); i.e. as ruler, if it’s good for me it’s good and if it’s bad for me it’s bad. Questions that do not end in the words “for me” appear to be of little concern to President Trump. Beyond “for me” and his apparent abiding faith in the inability of anyone to add anything of value to anything (zero sum means there is just so much to be gotten and if you get, I don’t) there is almost no sign of our President’s concerns going beyond getting “more”, and “not getting caught”. This is why his traitorous behavior is considered unwitting. He never gets past “for me” in looking at the consequences of his actions and helping Russia doesn’t register.
There is a second basic that seems fairly certain to me. Whatever scheme Mr. Trump concocts to negate an election where his defeat looms, will be framed as legal by our living proof that “law begins where justice ends”, Attorney General William Barr. The question is “how” not “if”. Two approaches seem likely, both involving martial law making free elections impossible, justified by either civil unrest or a public health emergency. We can examine pathways to both circumstances.
As President Trump launches “Liberate” tweets aimed at Democratic governors in swing states, and street demonstrations ensue against public health “social distancing”, “mask and glove precautions”, against First Amendment freedom of assembly and freedom of religion infringements, and against the ever popular “they’re trying to take our guns” Second Amendment infringers, and now endless fear-mongering in the face of the reactions to the murder of George Floyd, both public health and civil unrest are at issue, There have been plenty of images of people carrying assault weapons, predatory behavior by criminal elements both left and right, and a whole lot of social un-distancing all over the country. However, even all this does not mean that anything goes.
In the latter part of President George W. Bush’s Presidency, a revision to the Insurrection Act, which overrides the Posse Comitatus Act that prohibits the use of the military in the role of “instrument of domestic law enforcement”, was enacted. That revision added response to public health emergencies (probably because of the anthrax scares after 9/11) as one of the conditions which did allow use of the military in domestic law enforcement. Passed in 2007, it was repealed and deleted in 2008. So Corona virus itself doesn’t justify martial law, at least not on the national Federal government level. We need an insurrection or something we can call an insurrection to have U.S. military forces in our streets enforcing the law. The fifty States seem to vary on this, allowing martial law declarations for public health emergencies by only some governors.
Has President Trump made a political judgment that a COVID19 resurgence in the Fall or racial conflict serves him, as absent an election, he would remain in office? The 20th Amendment to our Constitution specifies that the President’s term ends on January 20th and that all sorts of untoward circumstances are to be resolved by the House of Representatives. Given the House under Democratic majority, Mr. Trump will need some extra fancy footwork by Mr. Barr to benefit from sabotaging our democracy.
Is greater damage to the American people as justification for martial law what he is after? Maybe we can have conflicting messages from president Trump on alternating days, with governors prone to slavishly following his lead both praised and scolded for their actions, and the President voicing growing concern that things are getting out of control in (you fill in the blank) followed by “I’m hearing from their great governor that we may need Federal troops to go in there and keep people safe.” Perhaps a little misapplied force in minority neighborhoods with street demonstrations to follow, some Presidential incitement against the fake news being tolerant of minority demonstrators but condemning Trump supporters, something that will justify more force and more force, and more force, until the case can be made that it is truly unsafe to conduct an election in such circumstances and the election will have to be postponed. Given the 20th Amendment there would probably have to be active violence to stop the House of Representatives from meeting.
This scenario may actually be the least damaging in terms of property damage and loss of life. Forced breakdowns of the food or medicine distribution systems fomented by skilled interventions by Trump agents in the name of “national security” or “FEMA coordination” could get even more people out in to harm’s way, either from COVID19 or bullets from a variety of sources. Maybe only Red states get chloroquine or a new partially tested vaccine rushed to market and conflicting orders about nationalizing guard troops are reserved for blue states.
Depending upon where martial law is triggered, my guess would be blue states but it’s just a guess, President Trump could then announce an election postponement based on making sure that the few remaining “sleepy Joe supporters have their chance to vote” and saying he is doing all he can to get things back under control, with election day moved to before the House could convene and Trump is out of office on January 20th. A few press conferences with the President declaring that martial law has never been used more perfectly might yield the added entertainment of seeing the heads of some of the former Republicans that appear on news shows explode on national television. This is less than a complete picture of what things might occur in our near future. At least we will know where to find Michael Cohen.
