Occam's Razor

Michael Cohen’s testimony this week sure was riveting. Cohen, Donald Trump’s “fixer” lawyer, allowed Trump to live the life of Riley. Whatever Trump was paying Cohen, it certainly was cheaper than the real estate taxes he would have paid had not Cohen helped him artificially discount the value of his property, or the damage to his image that would have come out had some of his many affairs prematurely seen the light of day.

Cohen’s testimony though simply confirmed what even Republicans accept about him: Trump is a bamboozler, cheat, liar and conman, but he’s their bamboozler, cheat, liar, and conman. So unsurprisingly, Republicans on the House Government Oversight Committee went to bat for Trump by trying to paint Cohen’s testimony as untrustworthy because he is a convicted felon.

Of course, none of them bothered to mention that the main reason he’s going to prison is because of crimes he committed on behalf of Donald Trump. Not one of these Republicans bothered to refute the evidence that he provided. They tacitly accept that Trump (like Cohen) is a bamboozler, cheat, liar, and conman. Unlike in 1974 though Republicans don’t plan to hold the president accountable.

It’s good to be retired though and to have the time to watch it live on TV. Curiously in 1974 when Nixon’s counsel John Dean provided testimony to Congress I was watching it live too (I was only 17 at the time). I was more than a bit crushed. I’m not sure if I was a Republican back then, but I did believe what Nixon said and thought he should be given the benefit of the doubt. And there was John Dean on TV proving that I had been a sap for trusting in Nixon.

Today’s Republicans though don’t feel crestfallen at all. They knew all along whom Trump was; they just didn’t care. He’s a means to their ends. Their ends are simply power: holding onto it and milking it for all its worth. They feel it slipping away, which is why they have no choice but to double down.

In reality, Trump is causing the end of the Republican Party. A party that wants to survive would heave him overboard, but they can’t because he genuinely does represent who they are. There are no more principled Republicans left, not that there were ever many of them. Republicans have demonstrated repeatedly that they don’t care about their professed goals like reducing budget deficits. They care about making the rich richer, the poor poorer, and stacking courts with conservatives who will force people they don’t like to do things their way. Most importantly of all, they care about retaining their white privilege. Sometimes they give away the store. As former Maine governor Paul LePage put it recently:

LePage told WVOM radio that allowing the popular vote to choose the president would give minorities more power and that “white people will not have anything to say.”

Thanks for clarifying that, Paul. But it’s not like these goals are mysteries; Trump has been the living embodiment of them. In the past though they were hidden behind code terms, like “states’ rights”. Now they are out in the open for all to see. Their racism is now explicit, not implicit while the nation keeps coloring up.

And yet, Cohen’s testimony feels like the beginning of the end. Cohen provided a tableau of people for Congress to call on to testify. With the House in Democratic hands, these people no longer have a choice on whether they want to testify. Deutsche Bank is now cooperating with Congress in its attempt to figure out how Trump was getting his financing, a supposed red line for Trump. Trump’s tax returns will soon be demanded and must be provided under law to the House upon request. Now the whole Trump Empire is subject to congressional subpoena and much of it can be examined in public testimony. “Rat” (a term Trump used that is only used by mobsters) Michael Cohen has provided many names, places to look and questions for Congress to ask. He should know, since he spent more than ten years at its center. We can also expect more indictments from Robert Mueller and the Southern District of New York too, not to mention at some point a report from Mueller on his findings.

While it’s unclear if the Justice Department would charge Trump while in office, he can no longer realistically expect to escape justice. While Trump waits though, justice can still reach his underlings. It’s likely to reach Trump’s entire inner core including Roger Stone, Don Jr., Ivanka and son-in-law Kushner. And since justice takes time, it’s unlikely that Trump will be president when their cases could potentially become pardonable. And when Trump is out of office, he’s only pardonable by a successor, who is unlikely to be sympathetic to what looks like many crimes.

It took about eighteen months of testimony and work before the Watergate committees grew into the resignation of President Nixon. With his testimony, Michael Cohen has set in motion a snowball on a hill destined to crush many people beneath it as it cascades down the hill. Cohen demonstrated this week he knows just where to let his snowball drop. Now we just need time and patience.