If the Water Is Rising, Donald Trump Will Throw

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If the Water Is Rising, Donald Trump Will Throw You Overboard

Michael Cohen, one of Trump's closest allies, is now just "one of his lawyers."

By Jack Holmes
Apr 19, 2018



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No matter how long or how intimately you've known Donald Trump, you're one news cycle away from being tossed overboard. As Esquire's Charles P. Pierce put it this week, the loopholes Trump spends his life squeezing through aren't big enough to bring anyone with him.

An old friend becomes a needy acquaintance; a campaign chairman becomes someone you got from the temp agency; a national security adviser becomes a "volunteer." Anything to keep The Boss' head above water—and the water is rising.

When the FBI raided Michael Cohen's home, offices, and hotel room last week, seizing computers and documents, it was widely perceived as a turning point in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Donald Trump and his associates.

Cohen was Trump's longtime fixer, and is intimately acquainted with whatever President Business Deals was up to abroad before he reached the White House. It also emerged that Cohen has been under investigation for months, and the feds may have been wiretapping him and reading his email during that period.

Trump reacted with volcanic anger. Friends and associates of both men sounded the alarm, with many suggesting Cohen may flip on Trump.

Cohen is usually described as Trump's personal lawyer, or his fixer, or his "consigliere" of sorts. For some time, Trump has referred to Cohen as "my lawyer." But all that came to an end this week—at least if the words of White House aides are anything to go on.

Now Cohen is just some guy, one of "many" lawyers? Wasn't he the avvocato di tutti avvocati just last week? It's almost like the White House is trying to pretend a close associate of Trump is a nobody that he's never met just as soon as he gets in trouble. And it's not the first time.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a198604...ate=041918

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