Indeed. How many of the 63 million who voted for Trump have the capacity to be honest with themselves? None, probably, when I put it that way, but ...
You'd think that authoritarian (fascist) people who's whole identity is wrapped up in God, Country, and Leader would also have respect for law - which is usually followed by the word "order".
But God (theirs, not mine) and Leader are saying secular government is bad and "false" and must be resisted. These idiots could bring it all down on our watch.
Because so few of the most powerful voters in the world, bother to pay attention, we could lose it all.
24
Mr FixIt famously told people that he would 'take a bullet' for Trump; that he backed him completely and that neither he nor Trump had ever done anything wrong.
That was before he found out, in quiet, very deeply counseled questioning, that it was not at all a bullet that he need worry about; with the level of possible crimes on the table it created the possibility that he could see a long drop on a short rope in his future, as that is the 'Normal Price' for Treason.
He is sighing mightily, so far, and likely talking very clearly and succinctly to the legal teams questioning him, making sure that everything he says is as exactly the truth as he can possibly remember it. With getting ONLY 3 years, so far, he is going to be making very, very sure that he does not create More problems or get prosecutor types upset with him.
But he IS going to have to worry, increasingly, about problems arising from his prior Own...errr Employer getting increasingly upset and one of His cronies or wannabe cronies just might sling bullets at Mr. FixIt, I certainly hope he has excellent security as I am sure that Mr Mueller is going to want Continuing testimony from him as I would imagine they have only really gotten so far in the Extremely Detailed timeline.
The Rough Timeline is pretty well sealed, and 3 years is not terrible for the level he is at. However, Individual #1 has to be a little bit more than just 'concerned' about now, as does his entire Administration, from the very bottom down.
7
This didn't start with Trump. Many Americans assented to "indecency, dishonesty, cheating" when they embraced Newt Gingrich, the Tea Party, Fox News, Mitch McConnell -- who loudly proclaim their rules and expectations but do not apply the same principles to themselves, in either their personal or public lives. I am still angry that McConnell and the GOP refused Merrick Garland a seat on the Supreme Court after he was properly nominated by a sitting President, long before President Obama's term of office was over.
Gingrich and Trump, both serial adulterers, act like the tawdriest of carnival barkers. McConnell and his wife Elaine Chao are the consummate Washington insiders, millionaires through her family's untaxed fortune, and yet he claims to represent the people of one of our poorest states, Kentucky (5th poorest in the US) while fighting to slash the public programs and services that sustain many Kentuckians. Fox News has been pumping out right-wing propaganda for decades, including spreading outright falsehoods. All of these and their fellow-travelers represent "indecency, dishonesty, cheating" in my book
55
Frank, you fail to relate a common denominator to all of this behavior that is a key element of the rot and corruption in America: money. Particularly ill-gotten money. Dirty money.
The American "ethic" has long given essentially a wink-and-a-nod - or a passive surrender - to swindling, particularly "non-violent" white-collar crime, frauds and thefts and skimming of one sort or another. Many get institutionalized, many are undiscovered, most go unpunished and not even recovered, and the ratted-out or unlucky few who get punished or made examples get off very lightly and easily go back to their criminal habits. Let's be honest, it's just "business" these days.
What Trump, Cohen et. al. engaged in - and I'm including all of their histories, most long before their recent collaboration - may be a tad more lurid than the run-of-the-mill, but it's pretty much emblematic of business-as-usual in today's America. With apologies to animal rights sensibilities and canines everywhere, "It's a dog-eat-dog world, and if you can't find a dog to eat, that's your problem."
This is America today. It is the cancerous symptom of unbridled predatory capitalism.
21
Cohen served the needs of a man who has done inordinate harm to the US.
The three years of time in a "cushy" jail is little enough, all things considered.
It's a good job for Cohen that he didn't work for his boss's pals in Saudi Arabia.
11
Cohen's complaint Trump led him astray is ludicrous, The crimes he committed that relate to Trump were misdemeanors while the crimes he committed on his own were felonies.
Cohen confessed to making a campaign contributions in excess of $2,700 and causing a corporation to make a prohibited campaign contribution. This are misdemeanor offenses usually settled by a fine based on a percentage of the amount contributed. He got a two-month sentence for telling Congress that the Trump Tower Moscow project ended a few months earlier than it actually did.
If Cohen had not worked for Trump, he would have had nothing to offer the prosecutor in exchange for lighter sentencing on the felony charges of tax evasion and bank fraud. He would have received a longer sentence,
7
"The followers of the camp of wealth pitch their tents for many a mile around." -- Dickens
Yes, and often in mud.
14
Excellent article.
But significantly most American voters did not vote for Trump.
Trump lost by 3 million votes in 2016 in opposition
to a candidate many believed to be deeply flawed
herself. Trump lost the popular vote by a very substantial margin.
Trump won in the electoral college, not the popular vote.
And there is no indication most American voters have ever supported Trump.
Trump has his "base" as did George Wallace, etc.
9
Sorry.....no sympathy for Michael Cohen. And, redemption? That he will have to seek, after he gets out of jail and tries to find a way to make a living, as a disbarred lawyer and someone who will be viewed as toxic. There is no redemption. Only finding a way to make money again.
He has at least a decade of illegal, transactions, most not involving Trump. I am no Trump defender, but the taxi business, and the fraudulent bank applications, and the tax evasion.....those are not conspiracies with Trump.
He got caught committing multiple crimes, and he is actually getting a fairly light sentence, because he "talked" to Mueller's team.....the SDNY was not impressed with his cooperation.
Most likely, he would have received at least 2 years just for the tax evasion and the bank fraud. Which had nothing to do with Trump.
The 2 counts related to campaign finance were just a tack-on. Plus, the lying under oath.
Interesting: On that one audio recording with him and Trump, and during the Stephanopolous interview, it's as if he has two gears: (1) he was infatuated with Trump and loyal and did bad things because of all of that and he's really a good person, and (2)
very careful wording and trying to sanitize the actual facts of the substance being discussed, especially during that audio tape.
I feel sorry for his wife and two kids. Not for him.
8
Why is Lannie Davis no longer Cohen's lawyer but his "advisor"appearing on all manner of media..isn't this unusual??
1
Poor mike, he has to go to prison for being a crook, boo hoo. The only thing that make me sad is the paltry 3 years given that a woman who ‘committed voting fraud’ got FIVR YEARS. That’s justice.
7
Michael Cohen is the perfect protagonist that any playright from the ancient Greek world would have loved to display in any of their works. He is the perfect example of hubris. The only thing lacking from Cohen's story, is the traditional Greek chorus chanting All That Glitters Is Not Gold and woe to him who enters on to the Trumpian path.
7
Thinking about Republican politics over the last 50 years, I just realized that the word "ignorance" is based on the word "ignore". It's now clear to me that, in addition to the Republican party, a significant proportion of American's are not only choosing to ignore facts, but they are ignoring our basic tenets of ethical and moral behavior as well.
9
"We" (the people) haven't a green light to "indecency, dishonesty, cheating" and criminality. It is our broken political system that has given much power to the few and way to little to the many.
7
The Republicans who continue to stand by Trump did not loose their moral compass – you cannot lose what you don't have. Cohen at least found it at the end.
10
Interesting. I agree with a lot of what Bruni says here - but Trump isn't the first President to surround himself by greedy, immoral, opportunist humans. Other Presidents have done it - but simply their lot has been more genteel. Old money folk well trained in manners and etiquette - and an sense of their inherent superiority to others. The racism, the greed, the criminality - Trump is simply the most obvious about it. Let the Cohen story be not a cautionary tale but a wake up call - What kind of humans are we being? What have become the norms of our democracy and ways of being and doing in Congress? In workplaces? In how we relate to ourselves, each other and the planet?
9
There is only one solution to our ongoing nightmare of having a psychopathic con man and traitor in the White House. Mueller should indict Trump now and let the chips fall where they may. Most of the GOP rats will run for cover and have to decide between the rule of law or blind obedience. Michael Cohen realized blind obedience only serve's one person's selfish desires and is contrary to our country's values.
Indict the entire family and Rudy for obstruction. Do it on Christmas eve.
11
I recall H.L. Mencken once claimed that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. Perhaps these are the times to prove him wrong.
5
I haven't read your column in a while, Mr. Bruni, because I was tired of the false equivalencies between Dems and treasonous Republicans. And here I see you're still doing it, using "we". The majority of WE did not vote for him. WE warned friends and family who refused to hear. The media warned our nation; many refused to hear.
It's not "we". It's oligarchs, corporate titans, the Koch Brothers and their ilk, self-serving power-mad Republicans, racists, Fox News, Infowars, and people who want to blame others for, well, just about everything.
12
Did you vote? For somebody who could win?
1
All Trump needed to do to gain widespread support was demonstrate his bigotry, racism and hate.
12
Deep State operatives and Democrat hacks have mobilized every investigative agency known to man (and woman and however many other sexes liberals created) to investigate the Trump presidency.
They cannot come to terms with the undeniable truth that Trump won the presidency according to constitutional standards. Their heroine Hillary lost through a combination of miscalculation, overconfidence, stupidity and sloth. egged on by fictional journalism. Their goal now is to harass and disrupt the Trump Administration with every wild charge, stupid suggestion and dark insinuation widely disseminated by former journalists--now mostly liberal propagandists--who gave up their profession in favor of the production of made-up muck.
Trump is learning fast how to sidestep the mob. Chances are good he will win in 2020 after his party surprisingly won more seats in the senate this year. Trump is increasingly tougher than anyone imagined. Democrats and Deep State partisans should plan to spend his second term in safe spaces, listening to quiet music.
2
Um, all the polling data, all the political groups like Cook’s, and all the professional pols, said that the GOP would hold the Senate. They also said that the Democrats who lost—Heitkamp, McCaskill, Donnelly—were the most-endangered. Then they reminded everybody that the electoral map was truly bad for Senate dems, pretty good for House dems.
As for the other goofiness, I’ve no idea what in the world to tell somebody who thinks that a lifelong Republican and dedicated Marine vet like Robert Mueller is a Tool of The Deep State. It’s like trying to explain why the world isn’t actually flat, and no, aliens did not abduct your Aunt Minnie.
FYI, I happen to think that your boy Trump won fairly fair and square,mas much because us good guys squabbled and fussed and shot at each ither and stayed home as anything else. And I also think he’s been an absolute disaster for this country...not least for his loudest...ah, supporters.
Thanks for the comedy interlude, though. The idea that Trump’s learning fast cracked me up.
15
Cohen didn't get wise, he got caught.
6
Michael was always wise, never dumb. Too wise, shrewd and cunning, psychopathic wise, in fact, Because he got away with such serious crimes for so long. And he would keep on committing them, Trump or no Trump. Unfortunately, he got a client who became the President of the United States. Unfortunately for him, he got caught red-handed by a navy seal like zest of prosecutors and law enforcement agents. And now he is using that psychopathic wiseness to plan his escape. He got three years, running concurrently for all the high crimes he committed when each crime would have deserved at least 5 yrs. jail time.
Michael Cohen was, is and always be - wise, a negative wise!
2
I will be interested over time to see if Cohen's repentance is sincere, or just another con.
2
I think that one thing that differentiates center right from center left is a stronger belief in personal responsibility. Michael Cohen is not showing any, none, nada. It's all Trump's fault for leading him astray. To that I say baloney, you were way off to the side of the righteous road long before he showed you what real corruption looks like. All your dealings with taxi medallions and others of your early business affairs showed you with a moral compass that veered way east of true north, sir!! You were a con man before a bigger, flashier con man turned you into his shill. But nowhere do you own your personal role in this mess you got yourself into.
2
Our military kills civilians all over the world. Our elected officials lie professionally. Our police have been militarized. Our justice system is irrational (corporations are people! ) The United States is a bully nation with sociopathic tendencies.
3
Frank,
Well said !
1
Trump represents a tumor on the soul of America and Cohen is just one of many victims to feel the effects of this evil incarnation of a man. America will survive because there are too many good people to allow Trump and his gang of grifters to destroy all that is good about America. Sad to watch, but it is what you get when you elect a crook to run your country.
4
Trump has brought to the office of President of the United States an unprecedented stench-ridden stew of immorality, self aggrandizement, illegal actions, impulsive and reckless immaturity, anti-intellectualism, cruelty, unpredictability, laziness, belligerence, self pity, sloth, cronyism.... Where does this list end? And when do Republicans, Libertarians and Evangelicals in power (looking at you Kochs, Mercers, Lindsey, Mitch, et al.) realize the true cost to all of us, of the Devil's bargain they have made ?
Get ready to see these same people, disgusted by Bill Clinton's dalliances, dismiss the coming Mueller Report as they hold their collective noses and bow down to kiss Trump's ring with sly grins as they continue to lock this country down in their corrosive death grip.
3
Yeah, the situation is looking as sordid as Bill Clinton and Al Gore and Chinagate in 1996 -- though I can't member the Left as up in arms over strong evidence the Dems and the Clinton's enjoyed Chinese government money interfering with US elections funneled by a number of corrupt Chinese and American associates of the aforesaid along with fishy fundraisers that were campaign violations that were labeled not fundraisers though uncovered emails proved they all knew they were illegal fundraisers, many of whom either were convicted, skipped the country fast, or pleaded the Fifth.
One big difference though admittedly: when FBI director Louis Freeh urged Clinton-appointed AG Janet Reno to open a full special counsel investigation based on the mounting evidence, rather than recuse herself for possible conflict of interest as Jeff Sessions did, she simply played block and refused.
Frank: Where were you then? Where was the NY Times for that matter? Or CNN?
1
WHILE I UNDERSTAND Michael Cohen's remorse and reframing of his perception of right and wrong, I do not accept Frank Bruni's idea that you have to be a con man in order to see Trump coming from miles away. I can tell you that it suffices to have grown up with a con artist to know it when you see it. I'm not going to air my dirty laundry here by identifying the family con artist. I'll leave it at saying that the person was regarded as charming, clever and entertaining. Beyond the charm of the psychopath lies thinly veiled violence. Once the social veneer is eroded, the brute force of evil comes out. What will it take to bring politicians of all stripes together to see, as they did with Nixon, the destruction being wrought by a monster. Perhaps, as the public shifts its opinions, and polls show those siding with Trump to be at risk among voters, there will be a rebalancing. And a recalibrating of our norms and standards for morals, ethics and basic decency. It won't come to the level required by the de-Nazification of Germany after the war. At least I hope it won't come to that. But Trump is the real deal. He's the product of Fred Trump, along with Roy Cohn, Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover, three of the most evil men of the 20th century who, had they been more powerful, would have been as destructive as Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Our nation is strong. Our democracy runs deep. But anything subjected to sufficient destructive force will, over time, be eroded and lost.
4
Michael Cohen didn't get wise. He got caught. Amazing what a little bit of jail time can do for a person's intelligence.
2
It isn't just dt. It is every single Congress Member and Senator that supported his evil rule.
We are looking at you GOP. Red Wingers.
3
These stories about repentant Trumpists bring to mind Jimmy Cliff's song, "The Bigger They Are, the Harder They Fall":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYJaVYobdac
Still waiting for the biggest to fall. The sooner, and harder, the better.
6
The transformation in the liberal anti-Trump press of Mr. Cohen from a lying conniving con artist from birth that he evidently is, to a penitent with prayerful eyes turned to heaven asking for divine absolution, is touching, humorous, laughable and false.
That Mr. Cohen has an inner voice that sees right from wrong but that he denied when seduced to the deluded service of an evil master, only to see the "light" (conveniently when facing a decade in jail), in the process “helping to bring this country back together”, a statement that coming from Mr. Cohen makes one gag, would make a nice opera, with mostly violins and plaintive oboes, but is about as likely to be true as a pig with a pair of wings.
When the likes of Mr. Cohen try to save their own skin, they will say and do anything. After all, they’ve done that all their life. Any instant conversion is unconvincing and false: their con has worked for decades, why not try it on the public, the courts and the gullible press?
3
More important, when will GOP Congress get wise?
As long as this GOP Congress continues to enable this dangerously out-of-control president, their constituents will follow suit.
Our press needs to demand more responses from these GOP sycophants every time Trump utters another lie (which is daily).
Why have no reporters hounded Republican Leaders...McConnell, Ryan, McCarthy, Meadows, Hatch, Cornyn, Graham... for their opinion of Trump's recent call to shut down the government?
These Republicans are the only people who can stop Trump's increasingly erratic dangerous behavior yet these cowards are allowed to hide and are never pressed to explained how they can support such a moron running our country.
Every Republican representative needs to be grilled about Trump's incessant lies. They need to be asked how they can remain silent about the growing evidence of criminal activity by so many members of Trump's his cabinet, his administration and his campaign.
4
Michael Cohen is not much different than folks who since the 80's when American society allowed and venerated the shark like, ostentatious, tacky business type as the all encompassing savior as opposed to the traditional Gray flannel suited Organizational Man who acted in the best interests of the workers and company. The "Celebrity CEO like GE's 'Neutron" Jack Welch and "Chainsaw" Al Dunlap of Sunbeam. Roger Smith at GM. Leverage buyout and greenmail artists like Carl Icahn. Look at the popularity of Lifestyles of the rich and famous, Dallas and Dynasty during that time and today's reality TV equivalent. Of course the same period gave us rise of Trump in his Krylon Gold Penthouse. As one referred to him as "The hobos version of s successful businessman".
Their world view revolved around; CEO’s are king, shareholder value is everything. Workers and consumers be dammed. Just go back to those Enron tapes from a decade ago. “Yeah, Grandma Millie, man.”
After Cohen is in Otisville contemplating his life and Trump and his awful offspring are gone a return to more sensible corporate and governmental values is in order.
4
Bruni: I disagree -- here's the truth.
Cohen's crimes had nothing to do with Trump.
Paying Daniels $130k was not a crime but Mueller threw that in to smack Trump, WHO MUELLER DETESTS.
Not a crime because it wasn't paid from campaign funds -- it was a completely, legal, separate NDA contract, which happen all the time for businesses.
Every real crime of Cohen's had NOTHING to do with Trump.
Hope you Trump-haters are happy with your delusions.
4
But, you know, you are wrong. You may disagree, but you are wrong about the facts.
5
The Democratic Party needs to nominate someone other than another old, rich , white man such as Joe Biden
2
Cohen definitely is a wise guy. Whether he got wise is debatable.
3
How to explain all this?
The next time you are in a line, look at the person in front of you, the person in back of you, and at yourself.
At least one of you is basically amoral, willing to cut any and all corners in the pursuit of self-aggrandizement. And, probably, one of you is fascistic enough to not care who gets hurt in that process, and actually believes some individuals of certain characteristics are inferior and have that hurt coming to it anyway.
Often this is the same person. But not always. Which is why Trump's support is above 33.3%.
3
Can't hardly wait to vote for Trexit!
Picture yourself as Trump. All of your life has been privileged. You got everything you desired. You got away with every nasty thing you did. Your Dad trained you in unscrupulous ways. You are one of the wealthiest men in the world and one of the most vile.
Today you are being investigated by the FBI facing the possibility you will be removed from office and spend time in prison. The person overseeing your investigation, Robert Mueller, is relentless. You do not intimidate him. You don’t dare offer him a bribe. His supporters are not backing off. Your previous employees are turning state's evidence. You recognize there is a likelihood impeachment hearings will be brought against you.
Trump prides himself as a deal maker, but who does he make a deal with? Who can he trust? He knows he cannot trust Putin. He realizes Putin has “out trumped” him. Trump knows he will be fortunate to leave the presidency without being in a prison jumpsuit. ... https://lstrn.us/2PGbl64
3
Nailed it!
Cohen should be told to keep his mouth shut...He should not appear in public,on radio,in print...everytime he opens his mouth about Trump,he reminds everyone that he is a horrid tax cheat first and foremost.The only reason he's saying his moral compass has been redirected is because he got caught.Close your mouth, Cohen,or you'll end up with more jail time
Michael Cohen is no Michael Clayton. There’s is no internal struggle of self-interest vs. right and wrong. Michael Cohen got caught cleaning up his own mess.
Michael Clayton a model of moral relativism who escaped barely due to a misfiring car bomb. He did not become saved. He simply sought revenge. In that only are the two are alike.
2
Cohen and Pecker both succumbed to Trump's refusal to take responsibility for his actions. If Trump paid hush money to Stormy and McDougall in order to silence their tales of sex with Trump, then it would be the candidate making the expenditures to influence the election, and there are no limits on candidate self-payments. But Trump refused to write a check to the women himself so as not to have a paper trail to Trump, or because he is notoriously cheap and irresponsible. So he had Cohen make a payment to Stormy, which was an illegal campaign contribution by an individual, and he had Pecker pay McDougall which was an illegal corporate campaign contribution.
So Trump directed these illegal acts in order to hide his personal responsibility but in doing so our incompetent president directed felonies to be performed for his benefit. Trump promoted the criminality and for which he should be held accountable more than Cohen or Pecker.
And to think Trump is leading our great nation based on ignorance, irresponsibility and amoral conduct.
4
I think this editorial is more about human behavior than about Cohen. In my circle of friends there are Trump supporters who haven fallen into the same trap. None of them have committed crimes on their own but they are certainly willing to look past the evidence of crimes being committed by this administration. And they are only voting for Trump supporting politicians.
It’s like having a friend who’s fallen in love with a bad boy/girl friend. If you try to tell them how bad the relationship is you will only loose a friend. You have to hope they will see the light beforehand it’s too late.
3
Cohen got wise because Cohen got caught.
1
Sorry, you attemp to, in your first paragraph, make Cohen out to be some guy who isn't all that bad. He some how just got suckered.WRONG! he is another bad guy as shown over and over again by his deeds. Trump is surrounded by a bunch of white guys with no morals and intentional set out to do evil.
1
Hillary was correct when she used the word "deplorable," only it reflected not so much the electorate but rather those in charge from Mitch McConnell on down. The GOP willingly and knowingly hitched their fortunes onto this caravan. Trump has received cover from them all as they continue to seek their misguided benefit of party over country. The 1% has been served very well.
2
"His sad journey is an extreme version of the country’s"
Please. This isn't the case of some honest person being led astray by the overwhelming feelings of power, authority and the national spotlight. Cohen knew what he was doing was in violation of campaign laws as well as perjury.
He apparently also knows he can claim to be a victim, blast Trump and gain some sort of acceptance in being used as canon fodder by NYT OP-ED writers.
1
The fact that Cohen committed a crime as a result of his relationship with with Trump was what saved him from a much worst fate. And this is because of the crimes he was charged with the most minor one as far as severity goes was the one related to campaign finance laws. The other crimes he was charged with and had nothing to do with Trump were bank fraud and making false statements to financial institutions in regard to well over 20 million dollars in loans.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/19/nyregion/michael-cohen-loans-donald-trump.html
The penalty for bank fraud and the relating false statements are up to 30 years in prison with the main factor in sentencing being the amount of the fraud. At 20 million dollars Cohen would have been facing 2 decades or more in prison. A 3 year sentence for a bank fraud of 20 million dollars is unheard of. One of the main reasons there are such severe penalties for bank fraud is so that it should not be worth it and for many people doing 3 years in prison for 20 million dollars is well worth it.
Therefore in truth instead of blaming his relationship with Trump for his crimes, it was only because he also committed a crime in which he was lucky enough to able to implicate Trump, and thus be able to provide Mueller with information useful to his investigation, that saved him from a very long prison sentence.
5
Call me cynical, but there's a nagging part of me that keeps doubting the reality of Michael Cohen's "coming to Jesus" moment. A lifetime of grifting and associating with felons and worship of clowns like the Trump family does not change overnight.
Cohen famously said that he would take a bullett for his idol, and his idol famously said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue with impunity. Talk of hand-in-glove. Consider this. Cohen's acceptance of 3 years in a country club prison (with a chance for leniency), may be his "taking a bullet for his idol.
Consider, too, that Cohen refused to enter into a cooperation agreement with the Southern District of New York Feds. To do so, would require him to admitting back to the first time he spit on the sidewalk. Can you imagine how many crimes he has committed in his lifetime. And how many of those were for his idol, whom he has praised with such laudatory and superlative adjectives I cannot even repeat them with a straight face, or without vomiting. (Okay, just one: "empathetic", but he may have mispronounced it). Okay, one more, something like "best president in history". Look it up. Most convincing should be the taped phone conversation to a journalist, if I recall, in which he threatened the person in such hateful and vulgar language it was cinematic in its sincerity.
This I can tell you. We are victims of a con in progress. Believe me. We are victims of a con in progress. That I can tell you. Believe me. A con in progress!
2
This piece doesn't say much and almost makes Cohen the victim. He was a crook doing shady deals before he every met Trump. He would still be engaging in corrupt conduct if he hadn't been caught.
3
Trump proves the adage that you can fool some people all of the time.
2
"I’m talking about the green light that we’ve given to indecency, dishonesty, cheating and, according to a growing body of evidence, outright criminality."
Hey, Sen. Hatch he's talking about you. Listen up!
2
I'm sorry - but the only reason that Trump is president is that he ran against Hillary Clinton - out of touch, arrogant, and corrupt. It was "Never Hillary" that brought down our country.
2
Ugh, stop with this nonsense. Stop pretending that Trump is somehow different than people like Bush, Cheney, and Reagan The only difference is that Trump says what they are scared to say. They are all equally corrupt, they are all equally morally bankrupt, and they are all equally war criminals.
If they were Iranian leaders we would have held a coup against all of them. There is no quantifiable variable that makes Trump worse than Bush, not yet at least.
To say that this isn't about left vs right is completely idiotic. Trump is not a disease of American politics, but a symptom. Trump didn't make Nixon adopt the southern strategy after the civil rights era. Trump didn't Bush Sr. and Jr. lie in order to create offensive wars that destabilized the middle east. Trump didn't make Bill Clinton and the democratic party sell out to Wall Street. He didn't make people sign NAFTA made middle-class workers vulnerable and out of a job, the same people that made Trump win an election against a different Clinton.
America made this bed by adopting Neoliberalism and Authoritarian conservatism as the two sides of the political spectrum now we suffer from it and the only way to get rid of it is to change the system that got us Trump in the first place.
3
In trying to explain Trump, people give him to much credit. He is nothing more than a not very bright sociopath.
Trump fans didn't get "hoodwinked" by him. He is just another foolish tool of the Propaganda Machine who stream ridiculous hooey to a gullible audience, not so much as they believe it themselves, but because its participants get to be famous and rich from loads of advertising dollars.
If there were no fame or money to be had, Rush Limbaugh would still be a disc jockey at a small Pennsylvania AM radio station and Sean Hannity a building contractor in Santa Barbara.
1
Cohen was always going to be a crook. Trump just gave him the opportunity to become a bigger internationally reviled crook.
The criminal mastermind is not Trump. It's the Republican Party, the font of greed, avarice, racism and lies that has REPEATEDLY run vile characters successfully for office.
The Republican Party must be sent to the ash bin of history.
2
Excellently said.
Your version neglects the fact that Michael Cohen was already neck deep in sleeze when he met Trump; perhaps each saw something of himself in the other. Cohen was an already shady lawyer, involved in insurance schemes, perhaps with the Russian mob but definitely with Russians.
I think the sad key to Michael Cohen's life is he was raised well, his father was a doctor, he went to good schools but he couldn't cut it. By the time he was in law school it was a school of last resort. He did what he could to move ahead with the tools he had. He could either be an honest nobody or a crooked somebody.
I'm sure he's filled with regret now -- but as the old saying goes, is he sorry or is he sorry he got caught?
2
Cohen got wise when his office was raided and he faced prison time .
1
"Didn’t Americans do that when they turned to Donald Trump in the presidential campaign of 2016?" Given Mr. Bruni's obvious intellect, I can only presume that what he's implying is, "Didn't [white] Americans do that when they turned to Donald Trump . . . ?"
CAVEAT EMPTOR. If only it were just Trump. How many politicians not hired lawyers helped Trump -- changing zoning rules, did he get tax breaks? so that his real estate empire could "thrive." Answer is many, many … and what are the same pols or their progeny doing today? Can we google De Blasio and Cuomo for starters and who on City Council or other? (Why is no one discussing automated subways, e.g.?)
Trump is louder so at least we know something about his dealings... but he has allies at all levels -- I don't just mean Putin and the Saudis -- to whom is Boeing saying "Sorry guys-- you are so corrupt we will supply you with no more implements of war"?
I think I need to change my user name to "Plenty of blame to go around" or in the words of "Pogo" -- "We have met the enemy and he is us."
During the N. Korean missile crisis I was happy that trigger- happy Hilary was NOT the commander in chief. People who prove themselves are just as dangerous as greedy people helping out their friends and supporters!!
So far as global warming -- buy an electric car, fly less (fewer destination weddings or Bali vacations , use birth control, adopt? - if you must have progeny.. Remember if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem??
Slogans to live by?? "Be best!"(better is a start)
I find it odd that our Mother Country and it’s rebellious child are experiencing an identity crisis at the same time, at about 250 years after the British troops began their occupation of Boston. The bad seeds were planted here by the importation of slavery, aristocratic notions and violent cultural habits. Both nations are divided by the flowering of these bad seeds. Xenophobia, racism and nationalism are driving Brexit and Trumpism. Recently, the bishops of the Church of England delivered an unprecedented national prayer of courage and reconciliation to Britain’s politicians and the British people. Who will pray for us?
Michael Cohen found his "moral compass" while staring down the barrel of a long prison term.
The average MAGA supporter is not faced with such a moment of truth. I am afraid they'll continue swilling from the snake oil bottle rather than swallow the bitter pill of their own dupe-ification.
1
There's a word for people who "blindly" put their faith in others, and continue to do so against evidence to the contrary: ignorant.
By the way :
"Mueller Team Scrubbed Peter Strzok’s Texts Before Giving Phone to Inspector General"
"On Thursday, the Justice Department’s inspector general released a report stating thousands of text messages exchanged between Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page could not be recovered after Mueller’s team wiped clean the phones it had issued them."
1
Hard to believe we are even trying to dissect Cohen's inner voice. He was a grifter long before he became Trump's puppet. #TaxiMedallions. This man is not a penitent; just a caught criminal.
2
One of this president's fixers has been legally fixed. What about the others, lawless lying Republican Senators, and their overt obstruction protecting this president who refuses to sit with Robert Mueller and answer simple questions? Is it because this president cannot tell the truth? Is he so pathologically and mentally unstable that he does not discern the difference? His supporters are generating total top-down corruption permeating and infecting America. It is fetid, putrid, and fowl.
We must never forget this moment in history, nor these enablers. This is the ultimate stress test.
1
December 15, 2018
The public image on Donald Trump in the media just can never be fake - what you see is what you get. Is his case to much of a good thing will destroy oneself consciously and unconsciously.
The people love me - and I am the greatest winner and leader for a greater USA and indeed the world - that's the deal -
Until now we Frank Bruni and indeed representative the knowledge light of all this journals NYT reporting - especially from 2016 to the present - so the lesson for him - i. e. President DJT is be careful when you believe your delusions - especially thinking all - all; news is f.a.k.e. - well a great part of the success for getting this felon mentality out of office is right here at the Historic record for America the New York Times - and just say what needs to say - think about what you read, see, and hear - and then read Frank Bruni, et. al and where journalist are always on fact and real to enjoy the reality of how life is and not bullied or twisted for ego greed.
1
Don't expect Trump to lose his core supporters. Way back when, I supported Bill Clinton despite his lies. Today, Trump backers support him because he lies. I was irritated at Ken Starr and the Arkansas Project. Trump Republicans are irritated at the media, government, Democrats, law enforcement, you name it.
Fair enough except for one caveat.
Imagine playing a game with your Trump supporting friend(s). The rules are simple.
Every time they name a Clinton lie, you give them a dollar. Every time you name a Trump lie, they give YOU a dollar. Who do you think goes broke first?
What bothers me personally, meaning inside myself, is that I am among the myriad numbers who is morbidly fascinated with this sordid, inhumane, selfish, malignantly narcissistic grifter. He is so destructive and so American. It pains me to find him and his ilk so in the middle of things even as it's hard to turn off the mainstream media that is equally fascinated with--and benefitting from--him.
1
Unlike Cohen, McConnell and the other GOP leaders in Congress have not been dazzled by Trump's trinkets. They know exactly what he is and what he is doing - because they are con men themselves.
1
In 2016, Mick Mulvaney described Trump as "a terrible human being." In 2018, Mulvaney accepted the job as Trump's chief of staff.
Why would he do that? He knows Trump is a terrible human being. He know's Trump is impossible to work for. He should have noticed that the Trump mess is unraveling before our eyes.
Seems we have an inexhaustible supply of suckers who should know better, but don't.
Cohen’s problem is he talked and lied. Anyone he speaks to the feds is crazy. Do a Louise Lerner. Take the fifth. You can never lie if you don’t talk.
"At one point or another, haven’t many of us done that?"
No. I think most people are honest and not greedy. I myself was fired from a job because I documented fraud rather than participate or turn a blind eye to what was going on. The only reason Cohen "got wise" was because NYSD caught him. Period.
2
Important piece...I see us as a dysfunctional family with an immoral bloviator, addict and sexual predator placed at the helm. As victims in this enabling family, we feel the pain because he doesn't.
1
"Michael Cohen Got Caught. Will Other Slum Lords?"
Take any ten rich Manhattanites, call a grand jury, and you'll find enough on them to put all of them away for life. You can only get rich quick by cooking the books, bribing legislators to write loopholes that allow citizens to plunder the Treasury by not paying taxes, use tax money to pay billions to the richest man in the world, etc, etc, etc etc.
Cohen and Madoff are not not the exception of the Wall Street Casino, they are the norm. Note how quickly Hillary and Gore became quasi-billionaires. How? By prostituting their democratically elected influence into criminal plutocracy.
Tell it like it is, Frank. It's sad for the country that so many of us got hoodwinked by hustler Trump and have been drinking his magic elixir until our stomachs ache. Note that New Yorkers, who knew him best, did not fall for his parlor tricks and legerdemain. They knew he was a flim-flam man without scruples. The rest--especially his fellow racists, fascists and oligarchs--were willing to follow the shimmering light wherever it led them.
There have always been grifters, thieves, thugs and violent outlaws in America who have eschewed hard work for the exciting, quick buck. The news is that one of those people ran for president and surprisingly won.
Whether or not Michael Cohen would have chosen the criminal path had Donald Trump never come along, we will never know. We do know, however that Trump has a gift for sensing weakness in a potential assistant or a foe and exploiting that weakness.
Ridding ourselves of Donald Trump and his henchmen as quickly as possible must be our priority as a nation. It will take longer to erase his legacy.
The penchant among powerful people and large corporations to engage in unethical and even criminal behavior in their dealings with everyday men and women, who are their employees or their customers, may be hard to undo.
Trump began paying Cohen to squelch Stormy Daniels long before he became a presidential candidate. In 2011, Trump paid Cohen to stop “In Touch Weekly” from publishing Stormy’s story by threatening it with a lawsuit. When news that Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 to buy her silence first broke, the news media ridiculed Cohen’s claim that he paid out of his own pocket. We now know Cohn billed Trump for the $130,000 plus a handsome fee for handling the nondisclosure agreement. Trump has the invoice and wire transfer to prove it. The payment was not a campaign contribution.
Paying hush money to influent elections is not illegal. Paying hush money to influence an election is only illegal of campaign funds are used to make the payments. The FEC has ruled that campaign money cannot be used for such things as hush money that a candidate would have cause to pay even if he weren’t a candidate—even if the expenditure enhances his change of election. This is why Trump paid out of his corporate pocket rather than out of campaign funds. The FEC has known about the hush money payments for more than two years but has taken no action because no campaign money was used.
1
Service to a malignancy such as Trump can only result in ruin, as Cohen is finding out. Malignancies must be removed lest they corrupt all, as we are finding out. Vote them all out when and while you can.
Mr. Bruni asks whether if many of us have been dazzled by someone or something to the point of disregarding warning signs, presumably like Cohen and the Trump 30 percent.
Well, I suppose. To err is human and all that. But there are dangers and then there are dangers. Selling one's soul for a bit of money and very little fame doesn't seem much of a bargain for Cohen.
For those of us who find Trump repulsive in every conceivable way, and always have, it is impossible to think what it would take to fall under his shabby, fifth-rate spell. For anybody with half a brain, Trump's mumbo jumbo is laughable, but not funny.
For anybody who has been awake for the last three decades, the lunge to the hard right by the GOP has been as obvious as it is frightening; Trump is just the next republican step down the road to dictatorship by the stupid and greedy.
People who put their money, reputation and their vote on Trump aren't just gullible, ill-educated or willfully ignorant.
They do not have the best interests of the country at heart. Like Trump, they hate so many other citizens for no reason except those citizens are the wrong color or gender or have the courage to say what they think which doesn't align with the hypocritical, lying, fantastical lunacy Trump peddles.
In Trump's view and that of his mob, the people are the enemy of the people.
2
Is there a collective act of contrition available to the current US administration for the death of the young Guatemalan asylum-seeking girl who died in US custody?
He is only sorry that he got caught.
It is the people who actually DO what Trump talks about. I can't dismiss the picture of the smiling border patrol guy pouring out the water from a jug left for the immigrants by a good Samaritan.
2
We'll see what he does and what kind of life Michael Cohen lives when he gets out of prison. That will answer the question "Does he mean what he says now?"
In 2016 the United States of America elected a "snake oil salesman" to the highest position in our system. Wow! What does that say about us? Millions of people were taken in by his lies and his bluster. Millions of people are still mesmerized by him. What does that continue to say about us? This flim-flam artist should have been put in jail years ago, but he was able to scam the system because he had enablers who wanted to go along with his lies. He still has too many followers. Pity us.
Sorry to have to remind America but the main reason that Trump is now our President is that, in a two-person contest, the one who was perceived as more honest won.
Just prior to the 2016 election, surveys showed that 32% of the voters believed that Trump was truthful, compared to 27% who saw Clinton as truthful.
In addition, the Trump campaign was diligent in visiting states, primarily swing states - by more than 50% when compared to the Democrats.
The other factors - Russian meddling included - meant that the body politic of the United States was fed an emetic. Trump promised that we would become sick of winning. He has accomplished in his first two years all that he is capable of doing. The tide is turning.
Finally, Trump lost the popular vote by about three million votes, so it isn't up to America to get wise.
What strikes me when I read the comments is that we truly have lost any sense of who we are. Maybe this is generational but from out I am quite willing to live with the fact that maybe Michael Cohen is remourseful. Trump is right now on Twitter losing his mind on the same topic.
2
If it is to be, it is up to me.
1
He's going to Club Fed, right? A prison nicer than the homes many of us grew up in. When he gets out, he'll write books and get rich that way. There is no justice in America anymore.
1
I'll reserve my opinion on Cohen's redemption until after he serves his time but not the likes of once principled Republicans like Hatch and Graham who saddled up with a con man that fleeced students, suppliers, and renters and who continues to fleece Americans with "official" visits to his properties.
1
People have been cleaning up Trump's messes since his childhood. His sense of entitlement and of his own importance have wreaked havoc for anyone circling his orbit. Mr. Bruni, this is one of your best op-eds. As you stated, Trump is "a comet ride, with all the blinding light and burning heat that goes along with that." I suspect that many of us wish for this comet to royally and spectacularly burn out, and that we can move on after the hideous years of this presidency. Let's hope Trump's base and the enabling GOP will realize that riding this comet will burn them, too.
1
Mr. Bruni commented: “For every leader there are at least 10 followers ready to trade the burden and bedlam of independent thought for a playbook that tells them exactly what to do”.
I believe Mr. Bruni’s article is not acknowledging the role played by Mr. Putin. I doubt that Mr. Trump would have the insight to understand the playbook that was designed and is being executed by Putin. I believe Trump was snagged in Russia’s trap and is willingly following the Russian playbook that tells him exactly what to do. It is a war between Russia and America. The winner is yet to be determined.
1
cohen didn't get wise and it's not a sad story. he got caught and got scared. he'd still be carrying trumps water if he didn't. it's a success story for those of us that act honestly. he's a criminal millionaire now and will be more so upon release from his present domicile with the inevitable book and movie deals.
we can only hope mr. trump will shortly join him.
1
Sorry, I don't buy Cohen's remorse and 'born again good guy'. Too many experiences with lawyers who delight in breaking the law, or riding just on the line for their own self-serving greed.
1
It was Mueller that helped Cohen get so wise,though it took some time !
1
I am furious at you my neighbors. Not only for voting in a criminal huckster. But for not fixing your electoral system so that a travesty could occur. For not fixing your governance so that graft and corruption could not take place. Because what your country does affects the entire world, us most of all. From the trade war to the impending global recession to my unfortunate countrymen who have been arrested in China for your country’s disastrous foreign policy. All of you have a lot to answer for.
2
He didn't get wise. He got caught.
1
So HRC had it right: a basket of deplorables.
No, not every trump voter but enough to carry the election to the #1 Deplorable. Cohen is just one facet of the corruption and incompetence for all to see but the 'deplorables' refuse to get off the train.
When will they disembark? And this includes the Grahmans, the Hatches who see results- judges, abortion-as a reason to turn a blind eye to ethical, moral and criminal actions. Cohen is only a minor player where we must question whether those 'deplorables' were a small part of our nation or much larger pool? Republicans still overwhelmingly support a despicable president. Why?
Cohen used the excuse of attraction to a strong patron and just plain greed. What do trump supporters see after horrible revelations of just plain sin? Do their aims, desires, interests align with Trump? Can't see how. At least Cohen fessed up but what about Trump's supporters? Do they not feel the swamp muck flowing into their very souls? Can they see they erred in supporting Trump? Looking at the public statements of Republican politicians, I'd answer no. Depressing. Looks like the HRC's deplorables hit the mark.
3
There's no question that by electing Trump, we've lost our way and in the process, we've done enormous damage, to democracy, to the earth and to humanity. Trump and his base are a cancer on our decency and we must stop the metastasis.
1
Well, the bill will come due for Trump as well. It's going to involve prison for him and his crooked family.
He never should have run. All the skeletons of the past years are coming out.
1
Many of us saw Trump for what he was long before he was elected. We tried to point out his corruption, blatant lies and grifter tendencies. Too many American voters didn't listen. I, for one, will take no blame for the present situation we find ourselves in. Those who voted for him...and still support him...will have this disaster on their conscience for a long time to come.
3
I’m not sure those who voted for him have much of a conscience. And the Republican legislators who continue to support him even less. Rich, isn’t it? Our evangelical brothers who claim to have cornered the market on morality support Trump more than any other demographic. What have we become?
2
Trump didn't make Cohen lie. His own lack of a moral compass was the culprit. Bruni's attempt to make him sympathetic won't work. Drawing an analogy between Cohen and the country is insulting to the country. Inferring Trump voters were duped by his "business acumen," as was Cohen, is a bridge too far.
1
Or more succinctly put, “There is a sucker born every minute,” as often attributed to, but never verified, P.T. Barnum.
People may change, as Cohen would have us believe, but only after they have been conned. But, “Another con is always waiting for another victim,” as said by an unknown reality TV artist.
2
The finest piece I've read explaining the hold Trump has on his base. They've sublimated whatever moral compass they've had to condone indecency, prevarications, and outright criminal acts that make up Trump's world. The bill for all of us because of these enablers - especially FOX, Mitch McConnell, and his power-hungry GOP gang - could be a fascist tyranny. What keeps me up at night is that so many of them are not only willing to accept it, but actually endorse it.
3
To put it simply, many in this country. more often than not, good people, transformed into the character in the movie Wall Street Gorden Gieco where "greed is good".
Time to learn from this page in history and move on by by removing Trump from the presidency
1
"I’m talking about the green light that we’ve given to indecency, dishonesty, cheating and, according to a growing body of evidence, outright criminality."
Yes, you've got it right, Frank. For too long, too many have gone along to get along, lulled into an electoral stupor. SC Mueller and his team, along with SDNY are doing the heavy lifting for us, setting off all the alarm bells. Now it's time for each of us to do our part.
3
Great essay.
Mr. Trump is a painful, disfiguring symptom of a sickness of the American lust for wealth, power, glamor, and privilege.
MB
3
Before you canonize Cohen, please note that he committed crimes independent of Trump such as tax evasion. He declined a plea agreement with the SDNY that may have mitigated his sentence because he was required to disclose all his crimes and those of his associates.
He was a perfect match for Trump because they are both criminals.
His defense that the Trump Tower devil made him do it is beyond credulity. He is repentant now ONLY because he was caught.
2
It’s high time for pro-Trump Americans to start reassessing their blind loyalty for a man who is a con. The excuse “I did not know” won’t wash in the court of public opinion after all the skulduggery that has come to light about Trump, the crooked business-man, and Trump, the corrupt politician. The U.S. is “man’s last best hope of mankind”. Surely America deserves better than a Donald J Trump - as does the rest of the world!
What a silly take on this whole affair. Much ink and many syllables to try to say the word "greed." That's all this is about. Cohen did what he did not because he didn't know it was wrong, not because he fought his tortured conscience, not because he loved and admired Trump.
Michael Cohen did what he did because he was greedy enough to suspend his moral judgment - assuming he once had some - to try to pick up crumbs that Trump could throw his way. He did not have Trump's influence to blame for his illegal business dealings unassociated with Trump.
Cohen's only mistake in his book was his failure to understand that in Trumpian "fixer" translates to "fall guy."
Greed is what landed Cohen in jail. And a weak man's need to believe that associating with Trump made him a bigger man. It didn't.
1
We have unfiltered social media platforms that are coupled with an unfiltered television network. This toxic combination does not allow facts and truth to breath.
Trump would get squashed like a bug hitting a windshield if he were interviewed by a fact-based journalist seeking the truth.
But dictator wannabes would never allow themselves to be within 100 miles of Chris Matthews.
Fox and Friends? Bring it on!
And that’s why the 40% of the country who still support him will do so till their last dying breath.
4
Cohen and too many Americans are flawed individuals who fall into the traps that tribalism offers. Lack of empathy, early life exposure and desperation can lead to individual and collective unconscious malicious behavior. Goodwill, love and empathy are traits that require a higher level of awareness. Other cultures call it enlightenment. We have a long way to go individually and as a society.
5
The question is once Trump is gone will the country turn to other demagogic figures? Will we turn to other politicians and leaders, of the left or right, who are as selfish, myopic, venal and unscrupulous as he is? That will determine our future.
2
Amazon has a holiday sale on moral compasses.
Bulk discounts are available for political parties such as the GOP.
2
How much longer will it be before Trump’s 60 million Trump supporters wise up and see Trump for what he really is? Saying “I did not know” won’t wash as an excuse.
3
cohen is not sorry for what he has done (think of the "fun" he had!), but he is definitely sorry he got caught.
4
"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever."
- Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States
2
The biggest mistake going forward for Democrats just may be the supposition that there's one clear set of American values (honesty, decency, integrity...). Values are personal, not national. Until we stop judging people who voted for Trump as lacking in morals, we stay right here in this massive swamp. Rather, we have to view Cohen as having betrayed the values he says he's violated. That's hypocrisy, and that we can judge harshly.
Compromising the lessons you bring forward from childhood and to your own is the screwy part. The whole "let Trump be Trump" rallying cry was far more clear-sighted than Cohen's knowing better and selling his soul and family out.
Trump doesn't, in fact, know better.
1
Mr. Cohen isn't especially cleaver. But within the population of folks who have actually bought the Trump con, he's a brilliant outlier. And the way Trump has exploited him is especially personal compared with the way he has exploited most of them.
Don't bet that many of them will see through the con anytime soon.
3
I have the utmost empathy for Cohen. Trump was like a father figure to him. I had a narcissistic father for whom I would do anything...he wasn't a criminal, and I didn't break any laws, but he was unethical in his blending of personal/professional life, and he was cruel to me, but I never could make the break that Cohen just did, though I tried....Cohen didn't have to cooperate, look at Manafort....but he did. I sense he is sincere in wanting to redeem himself. The Republicans in Congress are much more criminal than Cohen. They have transgressed their oaths to protect the constitution and act as a separate branch of government. They no longer work for us. They are now working for The Trump Cartel.
2
I couldn't help notice the picture of Cohen walking into court with ? his daughter using one crutch. All I could think was we were witnessing a reenactment. Michael Cratchit and Tiny Tina. The only thing missing was Michael lifting her up on his shoulder to complete the narrative. But that's where the story ends. Ebenezer Trump is not in his bedroom being visited by 3 spirits. No coming to terms with who he has become. Trump won't become a caring patron of the Cohen family. Because for the Cohens, just like for America, this story doesn't have a happy ending. Unlike Scrooge, Trump is long past the point of redemption. Humbug News I say.
1
Having college-educated siblings who support Trump, this lyrical sentence hits the mark: "what Trump represented to the country was what he offered Cohen: a comet ride, with all the blinding light and burning heat that goes along with that."
Close friends and I have done business w/ Trump or his companies and lost hundreds of thousands of dollars w/ him. My professional advice to a bank not to invest w/ Trump org saved it more than $100M. I know a man whose child he cruelly mocked on TV. Yet NOTHING I disclose to my family shakes them off Trump. And as for being a sexual predator, the males actually guffaw at me.
Such is the power of a con over a willing mark looking for tulip farms to invest in.
7
Michael Cohen finally got smart
Or had a dramatic change of heart
But either way he saw
He need not be in awe
Of the man who’s atop the org chart
1
Cohen stated that he hoped that he would be “remembered in history as helping to bring this country back together.” He is delusional. His choice to silence two women who had pertinent information for voters changed the course of history and the results can’t be undone. He continues to be truly remorseless and self-serving and that’s how he’ll be remembered.
2
There is one word that describes Donald Trump - cheater.
Those who supported him, voted for him, worked for him like Michael Cohen, work in his White House and his administration, those who have been indicted, those who haven't, those Republican enablers, the evangelicals, Lewandowski, Bossie, Scaramucci, the whole gang. What attracted them to him?
That he cheated throughout his life - and never got caught.
Just like the contestants of The Apprentice, they hoped his charmed life would rub off on them. Every one of them have gone down instead. And so will Trump - because the Presidency is too precious to us to be cheated on.
2
Some very smart and some no so smart people took a gander on Trump. By now, there can be no doubt in anyone’s mind that allowing Trump to reach the Presidency has been an act of folly of historical proportions. Now all that remains is the hope of an orderly denouement from this farce of an administration before we all lose our sense of honor, decency and justice.
2
Bruni is talking about the GOP, but America, yes, too, because we all allowed this predicament to occur. The top 20% of income earners looked the other way while robber barons were decimating the land and the economy. Content with their upper-middle-class lives the top 20% ignored destruction of working class jobs and tut tutted the rise of hate and fear mongering at Fox News/Rush Limbaugh propaganda media that preyed on bigots and left-behinds. Trump is the end game, but the plus side is that so much of the destruction is now being laid bare in public. Yes, the bill has come due and now we must pay it.
2
Cohen is shedding crocodile tears. Next he will turn to Jesus.
Frank is a polite diplomatic sort of fellow who shelters the severe shortfall in conduct by a segment of this nation with the general umbrella of "we" and "Americans."
The simple truth is that no reasonable person of average intellect could have ever thought Trump was acceptable for the office of the President of the United States for any length of time under any circumstances. In one sense Trump has been honest, even if only by accident: he revealed his character and quality as a human being with every action and utterance throughout the campaign. The people who voted for him all failed the reasonableness test. Or they were deeply cynical nihilists like Steve Bannon.
And it's not just bumpkins in the sticks who failed this test. I personally know of a wealthy investor in the very liberal Los Angeles enclave of Pacific Palisades who not only voted for Trump but actually donated to his campaign! I personally know of several licensed and practicing lawyers who voted for him. These people all failed the reasonableness test. I can never respect them again.
Things have learned to walk that ought to crawl.
2
No, Moses
Green light, Gatsby, yearning for the unattainable/unknowable, covering up our unmet desire with materialism and our own created reality. If Trump is Daisy and we are Gatsby, then ......
1
One Trump "mess" that will take a generation to clean up is the federal courts, not least of all the supreme court. In creating this mess there have been those pernicious and opportunistic manipulators like Mitch McConnell who took advantage of Trump's accidental presidency to further their own ambitions.
3
Cohen wasn't dazzled by Trump. He wasn't in awe or inspired or felt anything but greed. Trump would more than quintuple Cohen's salary. Cohen's loyalty is only to his own wallet.
2
"Maybe his words are simply strategic — a bid for sympathy, lenience and redemption ... . " You think?
Listen, there is absolutely no reason to think of Cohen as other than the shabby gangster he has always been. Cohen refused to divulge critical information about Trump's money laundering -- the core of Trump's criminal activity -- because doing so would have endangered the ill-gotten gains he and his father-in-law derived from their own money laundering. This why Cohen refused to enter into a plea deal with the Southern District prosecutors. A plea deal would have required him to come clean about the full extent of his criminality - and that would have exposed his and has father-in-law's money laundering, using their taxi businesses, for the benefit of Russian gangsters. So Cohen is going to jail for a mere 2 1/4 years (deducting for good time) and when he comes out all his money-laundering millions will be waiting for him. Right behind all those hang-dog faces he's pulled for the media is a cynical smile. And his country -- the rest of us -- are deprived of getting the goods on Trump's own money laundering for Russian gangsters, criminality Cohen facilitated -- indeed, the reason Trump hired him. A sympathetic figure? A patriot? Not exactly.
2
The issue for Cohen is not Trump. It was his own ego. Young hotshot who forgot his values. Any fault is his own.
1
I am shocked and disappointed that, after two years of this criminal circus of iniquity, a core of Trump supporters remains. Are these the values they want for their children? Does this regime exemplify what we were taught should differentiate America from every other nation on earth? How have they become so cynical?
3
Trump laundered Russian money beginning in the 80’s. I think he ran for president as a publicity stunt. He was hoping to leverage his image so he could play with the oligarchs and build in Moscow.
Putin put his thumb on the scale, and, oops, Trump won. Likely, there was NO quid pro quo, but there IS a meeting of the minds. Putin owns Trump.
Russia rises every time the USA staggers around the stage bleeding from self-inflicted wounds.
Trump is the best thing to happen to Russia since vodka.
4
We have educational, religious, financial, parenting and other systems focused on authoritarian principles. This is where our getting wise must start if we really want any kind of democracy.
It's an archetypal story going back to Paul on the road to Damascus to Darth Vader that we always have the choice to emerge from "the dark side" and into the universal truth that redemption can be found in this life through atonement in confession, honesty, humility, and repentance by repayment of our debts. Michael Cohen is on that path, and he and hopefully the nation will be better for the light he is shining on the darkness that has descended on all of us.
1
I would like to know why Mitch resisted President Obama in warning US citizens of Russian interference before November '16 elections. I want to know why, knowing that DT is Russian candidate Ryan and other GOP leaders accepted him as their nominee. Cohen "got wise" only when he got caught and had no other option - these so called leaders of GOP, have not been even investigated. And they are getting away with the murder of our democracy and the destruction of our institutions.
2
@SM
Mueller has huge tentacles and he may well take note of the likely criminal actions of GOP politicians.
However authentic or self serving Cohen's afterthoughts may be, let's hope his conviction becomes part of a turning point to a buried path, one so buried it no longer can be seen - the one where there is such a thing as government that seeks to be fair-minded and govern in good faith, rather than to plump the narcissistic feathers of those who have grabbed power.
1
The Russians have succeeded; they have subverted our government from within and divided our citizens . The infection is rampant and, so far, does not respond to logical, moral, or legal arguments. As we watch, listen to, and read comments from Republicans in office, right-wing pundits, media hosts and everyday Trump defenders, there is an obvious absence of conscience, consequence or insight.
Trump's artless attacks on all critics personally and politically, with no consideration of underlying crimes, is still fooling some of the people all the time, to the detriment of all the people, for some more time to come.
.
2
What makes you think he had a moral compass before he met Trump? I don't think he did.
1
I want to thank you and the New York Times for helping to make 2018, in the words of another article in today's edition, a year of dissonance. I'm looking forward to 2019 being even more fractious. As the new House takes its seats I expect relentless reporting on Trump's impeachment prospects!
One of the prices that we Americans are paying for the chicanery of the Trump Administration is a decline in our mental health. I see it around me every day, and in this regard I am guilty of my own charge.
There is a national depression afoot through which everything we see is colored by the malfeasance of the Trump Administration. We see movies like "The Favourite," drawing bleak parallels to the humanity-scrubbed court intrigues of today's White House.
We read novels and nonfiction accounts of the horrors of Nazism, murmuring fretfully to ourselves, "Hey, that's not too far removed from what's Happening here today." We are as tired of it as we are outraged and that's not good for us, individually or collectively.
3
Trump is where the world of business collapses into the world of organized crime. We want to believe American business operates differently from the Russian mafia and the Saudi royal family. I no longer believe there's a firm barrier there.
We've got to get that back. It won't be just the government that needs fixing. All the people who supported Trump because they thought he would be good for business need to rethink what "good for business" actually means.
1
"Trump looked at America and correctly saw an anxious, uncertain populace that was ripe for facile answers, scapegoats and a narrative of unjust victimization." - Another great column Frank, however the above statement does not apply to all of America - at best, it only applies to those who voted for Trump - the rest of us knew very well that Trump was extraordinarily unsuited for the presidency.
With such a large plurality of voters so gullible and uninformed/misinformed, there is a powerful lesson here from the 2016 election for the Democrats - let voters pick their candidate - not the DNC or Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
1
Speak for yourself, Frank Bruni. "We" weren't all conned by Donald Trump, and Michael Cohen isn't "us". It's true millions of voters bought into or were led into accepting his belligerent rhetoric and empty promises. And others, like members of the political press corps, who should have known better, didn't take Trump's campaign seriously enough to look past those over-hyped Clinton emails. Of course, the "us" who are most responsible for foisting Donald Trump on a largely unwilling public are the leaders of the the GOP. With visions of tax-cuts and deregulation dancing before them, they promoted him as the party's standard bearer and did all that they could to get him elected, from suppressing crucial information voters needed to manipulating fears about change to suppressing actual votes. Michael Cohen may or may not be sincere in his repudiation of his old boss. But he's no stand-in for the public as a whole. It's worth remembering at this moment, that the majority of voters wanted someone other than Donald Trump to be their president.
3
Journalists are making the same mistake Mr Cohen made. The only thing that will make He Who Shall not be Named go away is if he is ignored. He never would have become president if it wasn’t for the symbiotic relationship journalists have indulged in. Until we are willing to forego a couple of easy trips to the bank, we are complicit.
2
Don't cry for Michael Cohen. He will come out of jail as the celebrity he became, richer , and all the scandal will be a thing of the past.
2
While Mr. Bruni’s overall description of our malaise is spot on, he makes - imho - a crucial mistake.
“In our case that meant condoning Trump’s racism; indulging his corrosive conspiracy theories and self-preserving lies; permitting his demonization of institutions and people and whole countries; interpreting cruelty as candor and provocation as strength. Too many of us assented.”
Many many - if not most - Trump followers did not condone Trumpist views to better themselves, but held these views quite independently of Trump and before him. Trump’s amoral rise just gave them the permission to express them and openly live them.
Cohen knew what Trump was. And probably never completely trusted him. Why else do you tape conversations, phone calls? Has he seen the light? We'll get more of his conversion when we read his book.
1
Michael Cohen was dazzled all right -- by the money. It has been reported that he shot from $60,000 annual income to $500,000 as Trump's "fixer." But there is only so much money can buy, and jail time wasn't part of the deal.
The process of selecting candidates for President via the Primary system enabled the likes of Trump to win the nomination for the Republican Party. No matter how hard that Party tried to dispense with him, uninformed, uncaring or willfully blind Primary voters selected Trump.
In primary elections other than for
president, we frequently witness the ascension of the most radical candidate elected by the fringe voters of their Party. How else does one account for The Freedom Caucus and the Tea Party?
Want to fix politics in this country? Overturn Citizens United to get dark corporate money out of it, and either return to political conventions to select the candidates, or force all primaries to be open so that anyone can choose to vote for their most favored candidate, or against the one they most fear.
1
The Trump administration and so many members of Congress have lost all credibility and cannot be trusted with the truth, facts or respect for the law.
Unfortunately for Cohen, he did not get wise. He unfortunately did not play his cards right at all.
He managed to alienate both 1. Mueller, who anyway gave him a harsh sentence even though in the end he cooperated, and 2. the President, who most probably would have pardoned him but now there is obviously no chance of that.
It is not illegal for a candidate to enter into non-disclosure agreements with his own money. Ask Alan Derschowitz, Harvard Professor Emeritus.
Cohen was charged for crimes unrelated to Trump - giving false statements to the special counsel, income tax evasion, and money laundering regarding his taxi investments. To reduce sentences on these crimes, he sang against Trump.
The investigation is supposed to be focused on Russia interference and collusion. Collusion would be fatal politically but is not a crime, again ask Alan Derschowitz, Harvard Professor Emeritus.
This investigation is going down the same road as the Clinton investigation and impeachment. The Republicans overreached there, and the Democrats, not having learned from history, are overreaching here.
Flynn, a war hero and a man who served his country his entire adult life, was set-up or framed by Comey, who admitted as much on tv, again ask Alan Derschowitz, Harvard Professor Emeritus. Wait and see on Tue how Judge Sullivan rules at the sentencing. The smart money is on 0, because the FBI acted inappropriately in the Flynn case.
Frank, you are only half right. Yes Trump is as a person not fit to be President. Yet is what is remarkable for me is that his record on foreign policy has been outstanding. His opening doors in North Korea, his use of tariffs to reopen trade talks with China, his renegotiation of the NAFTA treaty, his rejection of the Iran treaty which was a bad deal, and his support of Israel are all stellar.
I cannot explain it. But I think you are a writer should deal with this contradiction.
"He needed a guide. So he disregarded all the warning signs, ignored all the bad stuff. It was so much easier to believe. . . . Didn’t Americans do that when they turned to Donald Trump in the presidential campaign of 2016?"
No. Democrats did that when they pushed Hillary. They did it first to themselves, and now to the rest of us.
They see Trump's many faults, but not their own.
To see just the newest facts, Republicans demonize the Other of Mexicans, but Democrats are demonizing Russia and destroying the long-tended relationship with the world's other big nuclear power. Both are foolish, but which is more harmful?
Trump didn't even win. Hillary lost. And you keep on pushing it.
The reasons people are angry with Russia are COMPLETELY different from the demonization of Mexicans. When Trump and friends act as if a horde of murderers and rapists are are coming to kill us all, they are purposefully lying. When people say Russia is up to no good, they are talking about targeted nerve agent killings, hacking, placing their agents on our soil to infiltrate political organizations, promoting misinformation to eh U.S. electorate and seeking to play one man’s greed to influence U.S. policy in there favor. I say “people” and not “Democrats” are saying this because many of the law enforcement and intelligence analysts saying this are, in fact, Republicans.
Those are very good reasons to be negative towards Russia. By contrast, the rabid animus Trump has exhibited towards everyone south of Texas is so obviously dealing in lowest common denominator, racist rhetoric as to eclipse any legitimate concerns about border security.
1
It's less that he got wise than he got caught. Getting caught has a remarkable sobering effect on men like Cohen and is likely to give pause to many in Trump's syndicate. Up to now the key to Trump's survival has been spreading money around. It's hardly surprising that he admires Putin's operation.
1
Trump and Cohen have left many victims in their wake. Their actions affected real people, and their scope of damage is even larger now due to the amount of power and influence they wield on the biggest stage of all. That must not be forgotten in all of this.
5
The bill has already come due for too many of us. Soybean farmers. Auto workers. Plant workers at Harley Davidson and Carrier. Those of us who care about clean air and water and the fate of sage grouse and polar bears. Unless rulings are overturned, so too will those of us with pre-existing health conditions.
Virtually every day the bill shows up for another group. When will it show up for a group of fewer than 55 who, in the words of Orin Hatch, "really don't care" because Trump is doing a "good job as president"?
13
I don't know how much of his ill gotten gains are protected by his actions of late, but I would think he has taken careful steps to make sure they are untouched in some way or another, so my "admiration" for Mr. Cohen is less than enthusiastic.
As for falling for the Trump scam, there were some of us who didn't. I remember writing an op-ed to my local paper saying a part of my country died on election day. We have been screaming about it ever since and at one point my neighbor wanted to fist fight me over it.
I suppose that is the saddest legacy of the Trumpism era, the division he has sowed, quite deliberately.
We would like to think the jig is ump, but there is a nagging feeling that he will press the right button and he will wiggle off the hook.
Whether or not Cohen is sincere is immaterial at this point; whether or not Mueller has the goods is what matters.
No matter the end game, the country has been wounded, perhaps mortally and it will be a long time recovering.
7
For as long as the majority of Americans continue to see the political cleavages deepened by Trumpism as a basic moral conflict between good and evil, American will not "wise up."
Trump is the highest expression of tribalism, a universal human trait, almost certainly genetic, that is the opposite of ethics, and incompatible with the rule of law. Electing a tribalist president has deprived the country of an actual president -- someone who is tribalist only to the limited extent of representing all the people, and the entire nation.
Trump is the authoritarian leader of a gang, a position that he holds only for as long as he rewards the members adequately, often illegally, and with a spirit of contempt for the country as a whole. Trump did not invent tribalism, but he definitely was propelled upward and to the right by the rapid legitimation of bald tribalism within the left.
5
Trump world reminds me of the mob world in Goodfellas. And I think the attractions that Henry Hill described are probably some of the same attractions that seduced Cohen and many others...the sense of being above the rules, the best seats in the house, the profound sense of belonging based on ethnicity etc. Americans have always been enchanted by the criminal (I'm sure there are interesting reasons for that), first daring outlaws and later the Mob. Comey has said that the Trump administration has reminded him of some of what he saw when prosecuting organized crime. Given our long enchantments, it might have been inevitable that we would elect a Boss President.
10
The Mueller investigation into possible unlawful collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia has produced three misdemeanor convictions, none of them for collusion. All are for making false statements to FBI or congressional investigators.
Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to telling the FBI that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador, even though the conversations were lawful. However, federal Judge Emmet Sullivan will probably overturn Flynn’s conviction now that the Justice Department and Flynn’s legal team have produced documents that reveals the interview was an entrapment. Flynn is expected to serve no jail time even if the judge doesn’t overturn the conviction.
George Papadopoulos served 12 days of a 14-day sentence for lying to the FBI during a post-election interview about the sequence of his interactions with a Maltese professor, which were perfectly legal.
Michale Cohen got a two-month sentence for lying to Congress when he testified that Trump Tower Moscow negotiations ended before the 2016 Iowa caucus, even though there was nothing illegal about the Trump Tower Moscow project.
A two-month and 14-day sentence for crimes that would not have been committed if there had been no investigation isn’t much to show for a two-year investigation.
1
Any comments on the article itself?
@William Case
Paul Manafort
Rick Gates
Lies can be helpful to investigators. Put them at your back and you often find yourself looking in the direction of the truth.
This story is still in its opening chapters.
@Daniel B
My comment points out the Trump related crimes the authors references are misdemeanor offenses.
Cohen’s a wise guy who obviously wasn’t as wise as he thought. When surrounded by an atmosphere of power, greed, corruption and the usual grab bag of nefarious activities, he thought, but never truly believed that it was all too good to be true. Only by putting his loyalty to his boss ahead of his loyalty to himself and his family, did he finally realize the sad consequences. Perhaps he still thought everything would work out to his benefit once he received a pardon from the Pardoner-In-Chief. And we all know how that turned out.
As far as his personal redemption for the future is concerned, Cohen might consider the story of Charles Colson, one of Nixon’s Watergate Seven, who turned his life around in many remarkable ways once he put his mind, his energy and his soul to it. While nobody’s perfect, many people deserve a second chance to prove themselves to themselves and to those around them.
1
Who is this "we" you talk about, Mr. Bruni? More than half of the voters did not vote for this president. And as you say about Michael Cohen, "Only a small minority of people would do quite what he did and break laws for the boss or benefactor to whom they’d hitched themselves." But the people who voted for 45 allowed our laws to be broken, supported Republicans in office who allowed norms to be broken and our reputation to be shattered.
This is no time for false equivalency. This is a time to look at the problem truthfully.
12
Michael Cohen didn't get wise on his own. He got wise because he was forced to and it no longer paid him to be a fool.
Will America get wise? It's a bit more difficult to indict and penalize an entire country. The nearest we can come is to penalize those fools of our elected officials who prop up a criminal president. We did it to some extent last month. We need to finish the job in November, 2020.
14
Hmm. I don’t know about that — as regards Michael Cohen, that is. I admire your ability to turn and view him from a different angle, and I own a temperamental inclination to enter into that view. But, really,....
His inner voice? What was he thinking, ought to have known better, succumbed to temptation? I’m afraid the truth is that there’s exactly as much to this man as meets the eye. What meets the eye now is a rebranding campaign. I know it can’t do him much good and may therefore be half-sincere; the sincere half arising from a wistful longing to be among the basically decent everyday stiffs who aren’t going to prison. But the point at which he might have become the kind of person who balks at wrongdoing must be a long, long way back up the road of his life.
With the American people at large, who are the main subject of today’s column, it’s revealing to see which ones seize on the Trump-era excuse to be nasty and cynical, which don’t, and which eventually catch themselves going wrong. Michael Cohen just doesn’t seem a part of that morality play.
Still, in this holiday season there is an undeniable temptation to imagine a lifelong wrong’un with an inner voice.
2
Mr. Bruni, you give Cohen way too much credit for now seeing the light after his wakeup call. Cohen is a self-serving crook. Remember, he also pleaded guilty to financial crimes that have nothing to do with Trump. He refused to enter cooperation agreements with New York prosecutors and the Special Counsel, probably because he does not want to have to expose himself or his father-in-law to more legal jeopardy. His statement to the court at sentencing was phony and laughable. And, his sentence of three years suggests that the court felt this way also. So it is with the people who still support this corrupt administration. They are in it for their own immediate interests. They couldn't care less about this country -- our place in the world, our moral responsibility as a democracy, our responsibility to help the weakest members of our society, our need to lead so this Earth will survive for future generations. Yuck.
11
Television and, by extension, the computer screen have succeeded in turning the brains of a significant number of Americans to mush. They turn to the glitter like a moth to a flame. Charisma sells, knowledge and wisdom are boring. Policy is nowhere in political debate. Lies go unchallenged.
The United States can become a third world dictatorship, it is headed that way now. It's a great time to be a wealthy Republican. A bad time to be anything else. We gather in our equivalent of the Roman coliseum and entertain ourselves into extinction.
9
When you have the Catholic Church and evangelical tugging at the GOP and demanding they receive their yearly tax free status I don't see much incentives for the supporters to change. Abortion is wrong but God will deal directly with those bad people doing it daily. It should not be in our election. Our constitution was written so we don't mix religion with politics but the churches above have been doing it for decades and now need to loose their tax free status. You complain about Russia interfering with our elections we got bigger problems the churches I mentioned above are just as guilty.
12
A beautiful piece. Absolutely marvelous. A highly accurate
summation of the rot that has settled over our country.
Over 50 years ago I immigrated to the US literally believing that it was the shiny city on the Hill much before President Reagan ever pronounced that description. I literally believed that it was indeed the land of the free and the brave.
Now the brave, a significantly large number of them, appear to be behaving like the Zombies who have voluntarily handed over their values and future to a con man, a scammer not so well camouflaged or hidden that one cannot see through him.
The lights of the shiny city are dimming. How else would you explain the behavior of members of the august US Senate that say they don't care about what Trump has wrought or that his moral decay doesn't bother them?
Well, gentlemen, the scammer's schemes matter to this first generation American citizen. He has no intention of leaving the country of his choice any less shiny than he found it when he arrived here in his 20s. We all have the duty - yes, even a sorta sacred compact with ourselves and our fellow citizens - to leave the country as big and beautiful as we found it when we landed or were placed here. For me personally, I see no other option than to do all I can to honor the compact I have carried within me all through my long 50plus satisfying years in this country. I don't intend to sit silently or sulk quietly in a corner until I see America shining again, bright as ever.
17
Wouldn't you think that a man who constantly surrounds himself with opulence would want only the best and brightest running his empire? But no, he hires a Droopy Dog faced actor from a fourth tier law school to do his bidding.
Trump is used to giving out marching orders and then having his minions drive the results. Elon Musk, Michael Dell, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg have this option as well but are better versed in when and how to use it by a cadre of professionals which surround them.
Michael Cohen was willing to compromise himself along with any principles he may have had to serve Trump and collect his crumbs. Mr. Cohen could not find it in himself to do right by the law in paying taxes on $4 million in income either, while which had nothing to do with Trump stands as testament to his character. Lying to Congress only deepened the wounds, the coup de grace came when he wanted to come clean after he had been caught.
The worse thing that Democrats can do is buy off on the premise that now he's telling the truth. What Mr. Cohen has done and what he failed to do is now well known and the sentence for his trespasses rendered. The only public role left for Mr. Cohen to play is that of a piranha. He has to come up with new revelations in order to keep the light on him a little longer. Certainly the Democrats are better than using Cohen as their flunky as Trump did; or are they?
3
Bruni draws a grand generalization about how the nation laid the groundwork for Trump and Cohen through a green light given to indecency, cheating and ultimately criminality. But he has never defined any of these in his opinion piece, he doesn’t say whether we should hold our legislators or our entertainment industry responsible. Ultimately, the undermining of commonly held definitions of words is what leads you astray: up becomes down, family values becomes the imposition of patriarchy and not the caring for family members, National protection becomes “who asked you to travel 3000 miles with your child to bang on our door . . .are we responsible for the death of that child? There are always people who blame others for their morally poor choices but ultimately we are each responsible for our own. Cohen knew that going in. He is hiding from his shame. That there are any Trump supporters at all today is just national hiding from our shame.
3
Nixon ruined a lot of lives, only John Dean rose from those ashes. Nixon was the only reason all these folks went down; their criminal acts arose from their loyalty/sense of duty to him.
Today, same thing. These people aren’t criminals per se (maybe a few are habitual liars). Without Trump at the top (bottom?), there would be no deeds resulting in investigations, prosecutions, pleas, etc. Moreover, what Nixon did is mere hijinks compared to Trump.
Trump will continue to claim that he has nothing to do with this “stuff” that he has everything to do with. If he weren’t able to wave possible pardons at those who are going down for him, we would, instead, be hearing from them that Trump has everything to do with it.
Personally, I’m hoping Trump isn’t impeached, because we would be left with Pence. But, if indictment is off the table while Trump is in office (the Constitution doesn’t say that), impeachment must be on the table.
7
Currency corrupts, and business is all about the aggregation of currency. I've never had an employer who didn't tacitly expect or outright demand that I obfuscate, lie, cheat, and/or steal on their behalf. I suggest the question for everyone participating in this insanity of an economic system needs to be, "Where's the line for myself – how willing am I to trade my personal beliefs and ethics for the so-called "security/success" I'm being offered in exchange?" He did what his boss told him to. I know I've been there; I imagine you have too. And I imagine this type of behavior will continue forever – or at least as long as we have a culture based on competition rather than cooperation. It's a spiritual crisis, imo.
2
@andrew yavelow. I am a couple weeks away from retirement as a lawyer for a mid-sized company. In all my years of service my employer never expected or demanded--tacitly or otherwise--that I obfuscate, lie, cheat or steal on its behalf. And I certainly never volunteered to do so. I'm sure I'm not the only one who can say this, and equally sure that we are not at all rare.
8
@Flaminia I'm happy to hear that.
@andrew yavelow: while I certainly do not endorse it, even as a much lower level employee (nothing remotely like an attorney, who swears oaths about doing stuff legally)....I was asked to lie, cheat and deceive. Even in college, working weekends at a shopping mall kiosk....I was asked to lie about merchandise being "factory original" to get gullible buyers to pay full price for poor quality imitation goods.
Whenever I spoke out, or refused, or "blew the whistle" -- even on the most obvious corruption, double-dealing, outright bribery -- it was MYSELF who was in hot water....who got disciplined or screamed out ("for not being a team player!") and in several cases, fired on the spot. In others, simply demoted or put on a kind of "double secret probation" where I was no longer invited to meetings or kept on email lists about important projects.
Whistle-blowing is a very, very excellent way to ensure you are jobless, or working at a Dollar Store the rest of your life.
1
Whatever his motives at this moment - and they are most likely mixed - the undeniable truth of Cohen's words is a jarring and welcome relief.
10
Many commenters say that Mr. Cohen had no moral compass to lose; others that Mr. Trump's wrongdoings existed before Mr. Cohen could lead him astray.
Regardless, Mr. Cohen has at least now given lip service to the ideas of truth and societal norms. Mr. Trump has yet to sign on.
8
You could make your article more bipartisan by acknowledging that there are Democrats who voted for Trump and still support him as president. The appeal you make is on target but needs to avoid partisanship.
3
@Bob -
Per Gallup, Trump's "approval" among Democrats has hovered around 5-8% for the last 2 years. So, yes, there seem to be a few (though I've never met one who'd admit to it). Incidentally, his "disapproval" among Republicans hovers in the same 5-8%.
So there seems to be a group of voters, about 15%, whose views diverge from their party affiliation. Could these be the "swing voters" we often hear talked about?
https://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump.aspx
1
@Bob
3M more of us Democrats voted for Clinton than any Republicans voted for Trump. We won the popular vote; we lost the gerrymandered Electoral College. Trump was not elected, he and was appointed. The EC is an artifact from the Civil War, a gift to slaveholders to keep them in the Union during Reconstruction. We can and should get rid of it. If the GOP can't field a candidate capable of winning a national election due to their terrible big donor policy dictates, their problem. We now have a majority Party kept from power by voter suppression, gerrymandered voting districts, corrupt paid for State legislators, and corrupt State Governors, i.e. Kemp et al. No free Republic can be sustained without the rule of law. The alternative is what we see in Venezuela, Hungary, Roumania et al. The alternative to that nightmare are the Parkland kids and their cohort. They will soon be voting with the support of their parents and teachers. Add the Sandy Hook parents. Finally add in those of us who remain from the sixties. Paul Ryan counted the votes and went home. Nancy Pelosi counted the votes and stood Trump down. Trump is not as smart as Nixon, so Mueller will have to bring him down. My bet is on an incorruptible former Marine.
Why does the article need to be more bipartisan?
Michael Cohen's wisdom was a child of necessity. He danced, he was caught, and it became time to pay the piper. Is there any reason to suppose that he'd have had his crisis of conscience without having been swept up in the Deal with the Devil that so many in Trump's orbit have made?
But in fact he represents an aspect of the American character that's been with us for a very long time. Today we revile the "Robber Barons" of the 19th century, but during their time, when vast fortunes were being amassed and financial empires built, a large swath of Americans admired those barons for their cunning, their cleverness, without a thought to whose backs those empires were built upon.
For a time, the likes of Al Capone and John Dillinger were widely admired here simply because they got away with it. Americans could hardly wait to see newsreels of their latest exploits. Even the fictional character Gordon Gecko of "Wall Street" had millions of Americans nodding their heads with him when he pronounced that "greed is good".
And to this day and for the foreseeable future, Wall Street is still spouting Geckos like weeds between the sidewalk cracks.
For as long as we use wealth as the summum bonum of success and virtue in our system of values, so will the Capones, the Geckos, the Trumps and - yes - the Cohens of our society continue to flourish - at the expense of all others unlike them.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
19
I think Trump voters are pretty strongly into self-deception, denial, and adherence to alternate realities. Sadly, I think it will take a major economic downturn to get some of them to confront reality.
20
Michael Cohen did not get wise, he got caught. If Trump hadn't become President, he would probably continue his illegal activities. Moral reckoning usually comes after sentencing, not before.
26
Granted Cohen’s a sinner, nevertheless he can help to serve the same political function as did deep throat—providing info we need to bring down a mafioso-like Presidency that’s doing even greater political, cultural, and environmental harm than did Nixon. At this point maybe a little forgiveness is in order.
9
You shouldn’t talk badly about mafiosi. Most of them were decent men when they weren’t working.
Mr. Bruni is spot on when he states, "I'm talking about the green light that we've given to indecency, dishonesty, cheating, and, according to a growing body of evidence, outright criminality." I would add "corruption in high places" to that list. And yes, the bill "will come due for the country, too".
Many absolve themselves by stating that since they didn't vote for trump, it's not their fault. Yes, it is their fault, and mine as well. I have not taken to the streets in protest enough; or written enough letters to The Times or The Post to object to what is happening; or called my republican Senator or Representative enough to point out the indecency of their lack of courage; or withheld my own personal spending enough to punish corporations which are in bed with the republicans; or donated enough money to people and groups who are working hard to get America back on track.
Until we march in the streets by the millions, literally put ourselves at risk of losing life and property, sacrifice everything we have for our grandchildren....trump will continue on his perverted path and take the country down with him. As the bumper sticker says, "Freedom is not free" (right-wingers likely never thought they'd see it used by a lefty!) and we cannot continue to rest on our ancestors' accomplishments while we watch America disintegrate.
Perhaps the Texas ruling on Obamacare will be the spark which ignites the majority. Game on.
16
If not Cohen, trump had a really long list of cohen juniors, like those lawyers in brooklyn who aided and abetted the medicare and medicaid government fraud scams going on way back and continuing to this day.
6
What you should keep you eye on is the conservative Repubicans in the Senate. Should they turn against Trump, this president will be impeached and removed from office. That is exactly what happened in the spring of 1974 with Richard M. Nixon. When Barry Goldwater had a private conversation with Nixon explaining to him his predicament, Nixon resigned a few months later.
8
@Jean W. Griffith
I doubt DJT would resign. At most he would “decide” not to run again. But it is more likely he would double down on his fear mongering and lying, believing his base would never permit him to be impeached. If the GOP in the Senate can’t find their patriotism and consciences, there is no good ending. I’m not referring to the well known senators, like McConnell, Graham, and Cruz. They have made it clear they are spineless sycophants. What about Steve Daines of Montana? Deb Fischer of Nebraska? Jim Risch of Idaho? Todd Young of Indiana? All the other GOP senators who aren’t in the headlines? Have they no morals? No loyalty to the Constitution? No shame? What will it take for them to put country over DJT?
The cynic in me says Cohen is just acting, but the humanist in me sees a man beaten down and going the only way to true redemption...the truth will set you free.
230
@RVB Neither, really. His remorse is probably genuine, but temporary. After his term is served, he'll likely leap at the next enrichment opportunity (should it arise - very unlikely) - regardless of moral considerations.
5
@Unconvinced
I agree with your pronosis but the remorse is too self-serving and characterizes his life.
2
@Unconvinced
I'm really waiting for Flynn's first 302. Judge Sullivan's is about to lay a hammer on Mueller. Giuliani said on ABC this AM that it's dangerous to defy a Judge that reversed Ted Stephens conviction.
What are you talking about? Half of America has been screaming since way before the election: what is wrong with this Trump guy? He’s such a liar, it’s so obvious his misogynistic intent. Tons of columnists have spilled ink for years now, and psychiatrists signed a letter to say, Hey this guy is clinically problematic, not just figuratively. Half America has been woke for years, including this columnist. We have been woke.
16
@Electroman72-trump would not have to shoot anyone on 5th avenue or anywhere to lose a vote. his base knows he was/is a liar and schemer, but his Base did/does "trusts"him still...
1
Frank: You usually are right on, in my opinion. This is hardly discussed but most of Cohen's three year sentence is because of massive tax evasion in matters having nothing to do with Pres Trump. That is affront to every hard working American who does not cheat on taxes. No Frank, Cohen has not seen the light. Not one word of contrition from him on tax evasion. Don't let him off so easy.
17
Trying to find a logical explanation for Michael Cohen's crimes is certainly a challenge. I find the concept that Cohen was "dazzled by the comet ride" or "hoodwinked" to follow Trump's directives a bit naive. Cohen was hardly an innocent when he joined Trump's team, and had lurked on the edges of criminal behavior long before 2016's election.
What motivated Cohen would be hard to pin down. Certainly some of the traits of psychopathy were present--i.e. inability to feel remorse, and lack of empathy. Did he ever wonder how his actions would impact Hillary Clinton? I very much doubt it.
Probably greed was a primary motivator for Cohen, and the illusion that he was attached to something really important--Trump--was enought to give himself permission to commit the sordid crimes asked of him by Trump.
16
Mr. Bruni attempts to persuade Americans that crime does not pay using Trump fixer Cohen's recent plea bargain as a cautionary tale.
He forgot to mention that this warning need not apply to
politicians, CEOs and the 1% for whom crime pays quite handsomely, thank you very much.
Granted, for the 99%, crime remains a risk, particularly if your patron is Double Cross Donnie.
11
Thank you, Frank Bruni, for speaking this truth today - powerful!
6
The buck stops here- with each one of us.
149
@JK You're dead right. Everything Trump does - with the apparent ok of the GOP! - goes against my basic values and I know I'm not the only one who feels that way. In the end we'll all be left holding the bag and will faced with cleaning up the wreckage that man and his enablers have given us.
14
@JK
Always has and always will. The difference is whether one cares about that or not. Trump really doesn't care. He sold his grandmother a long time ago and now he is selling the country. He has no qualms about either.
The buck has no meaning for people without a moral compass. The only thing that counts for them is themselves.
10
@JK Except that Trump actually LOST by nearly 4.000.000 votes, so the buck did indeed stop, but the crooked electoral college gave it away! They are the ones that should be investigated as well as abolished!
14
Media were initially enablers as well. It was great for publications and media like CNN.
increased readership and more viewers. No one thought he could win. He had been a fraud and con man for years, but he still received a TV show. No one seriously investigated his business dealings. There really is no doubt Trump and his family routinely committed an array of tax fraud and probably money laundering. However the Republican Party, and many Americans, businesses and politicians put personal profit over integrity and honesty. Our Republic has been forever tarnished and it will take decades for us to recover
27
Bless you Michael. I hope you're dancing. I feel better. I've been waiting for someone to speak up. It takes courage. Stay safe.
5
"the green light that we’ve given to indecency, dishonesty, cheating" you say.
You fail to ask "where did the green light come from?"
It came from the pure parts of capitalism, with its greed, authoritarianism, top down decision making and lack of authentic, honest thinking; its main driving virtue of course is the profit motive. No compassion, no "there but for the grace of god go I, no participation of the workers in decision making, no unions allowed. Horrid disparity in wealth caused by a corrupt political system of buying politicians.
That's where the green light came from.
14
Starting with st Ronnie and broadly embraced since.
1
Cohen had entered the world of shady and illegal practices long before he met Donald Trump. The Southern District of New York made that crystal clear, stating that he did not cooperate completely. His propensity toward malfeasance was a prerequisite rather than a result of his relationship with Trump. While he certainly has fessed-up to his wrong doings with the Trump Organization and Candidate, his previous and concurrent crimes or misdeeds could have demanded a longer than a three year sentence. His future looks bleak, regardless of when his incarceration and subsequent probation period terminates.
9
Trump is another version of Bernie Madoff. Considering the tens of million Americans that treat him as their idol regardless of the facts at hand, the Trump presidency is arguably the biggest fraud, and the saddest chapter, in American history.
22
Some people refuse to face the fact that they made a mistake. That is the main problem with Trump supporters.
17
@Jack Strausser-yes. they made a mistake. they refuse to accept that fact. they know trump is a total sleazy liar. but, they "Trust Him"...
1
Cohen finally got caught and now wants to be the martyr. He, like Trump, has spent a lifetime as a criminal which is why Trump turned to him.
8
Cohen did not plead guilty to paying hush money to influence an election. That is not a crime. He pleaded guilty to paying a campaign contribution in excess of the $2,700 limit for individuals. This is a misdemeanor offense punishable by a fine based on a percentage of the illegal contribution amount.
Cohen is fortunate—not unfortunate—that he wire-transferred $130,000 from his account to Stormy's Daniel's lawyers account count rather than arranging its transfer from Trump account. Had he not, he would have had nothing to offer prosecutors in exchange for reduced sentences on felony charges for tax avoidance and bank fraud. Thanks to his relationship with Trump, Chen will be spending fewer years behind bars.
5
Keep waiting for Trump-Kushner business enterprise to be classified and prosecuted as the RICO target domestically and internationally it really is. Until that is so we will underestimate the powerful malignancy it is. We will remain unprepared and unprotected for the strike back that it is capable of reaping upon our Constitution, our society and posterity.
16
Humans, which loosely includes republican politicians, can believe whatever their checkbook tells them to believe. Therefore, they can vote for legislation that pollutes streams and rivers because of some obtuse study that claims otherwise.
When a member of the public was confronted with the cost of Air Force One each weekend Trump flew to Florida to play golf, the person said: "I'm sure he's using his own money for gas". There is no accounting for sheer ignorance.
Based on the number of people who still believe in religion which has caused more deaths and violence than all wars combined, evidently human development has much further to go.
It's unlikely Climate Change will wait.
13
"The bill came due for Cohen. It will come due for the country, too." And we, and future generations, are still paying the bill for the last Republican administration. A bill enabled by the propaganda of giant right wing media empires, "both sides" pundits who have never been right about anything but are still employed, even here, and bigoted, uninformed voters so easily manipulated and exploited by those who collect the receipts: the war profiteers, rich sociopaths and wealthy donors who support the Republican Party.
12
The media bears responsibility for not having exposed Trump during the campaign. His years in Atlantic City were there for everyone to see. He built one casino that was so far in debt it could never climb out and went bankrupt one year after opening. His other three were financial shambles. He stiffed every vendor, contractor, investor, and bank and was in court with thousands of lawsuits from those people trying to get paid for the work they'd done or the money they'd loaned. By just looking at what he did in ONE place -- the media could have exposed what a conman/criminal he is. No one ever exposed the fact that Trump had no casinos in LV because Nevada wouldn't give him a license to operate one. Think about that -- the state that has entertained any number of felons, criminals, mobsters etc. didn't want Trump to hold a casino license.
The media aided and abetted Trump his entire life and he's repaying them with demeaning them and calling them the "enemy of the people" -- he may be right but not for the reason he says it -- the media was the "enemy" by not having exposed his lifelong corruption and hatefulness.
22
What’s to “expose”? Whether people knew the details or not, the case against Trump was made abundantly clear throughout his utterly filthy campaign. Trump himself revealed (and continues to reveal) his immoral and even outlaw nature with every breath.
What? Does someone need an exhaustive report on the Central Park 5 or his housing discrimination cases back in the day to know Trump is a racist? The man’s opening act was to start slandering Mexicans.
What kind of in-depth reporting is necessary to know Trump is a misogynist? We all saw. We all heard. Everything prior to 2016 merely supplements present-day knowledge.
Do we need better fact-checkers? I’m all for that in general, but it’s not necessary in Trump’s case. I may not know the precise numbers and figures in every single case, but all one NEEDS to know (and DID know during the campaign) is that Trump is a reprehensible, unprecedented liar. He is so untrustworthy it should be on him to establish the truth of his assertions, not for the public to assume that, for once, the smirking liar speaks truth.
Frankly, the only thing the media needed to do in the last campaign was keep the cameras rolling. Which it did. Trump’s nature could not have been any clearer and I will laugh in someone’s face if they tell me, “OH, if only I had KNOWN he was such an ignorant, liar with no respect for the law! Why didn’t anyone tell me before I voted?”
There’s no one to blame for Trump, but Trump and those who follow him.
The media was afraid to lose the cash cow and the advertisers. The media was a coward.
There is a lesson to be learned from the incident in NYC well before the election where the residents in a Trump building were trying to get his name taken off. In comes the fixer Mr. Cohen and the name stays. People in Manhattan were clued into Trump's awfulness a long time ago and that is why the residents didn't vote for him. Maybe those in the mid-west and south didn't know him as well, but there was plenty of evidence during the campaign that Trump was an immoral human, that he lied, that he cheated and on it went so to my way of thinking anyone who voted for him had a faulty moral compass. Sitting in his shadow is the holier than thou Evangelical Mike Pence. Where's his moral compass and other religious leaders? You voted for him you are in the swamp with him and all the others who keep circulating though his administration. Cohen is 'woke'. When will 41% of the American people get 'woke'? Soon I hope.
12
We are a country founded on stealing and enslavement. We are a culture of liars and cheaters - if you can get away with it, and especially if you can make money at it, you are vaunted. Just look at our sports culture as an example - cheat until caught and have a tantrum and and disrespect the decision-maker. And that's all done publicly. Just imagine what people do behind closed corporate doors when nobody is looking and your own net worth depends on it. And all of this is made easier because we're all in it for ourselves due to some mythical sense of trailblazing pioneers, with no real sense of community or country because government has become so vilified by half the country that quality people don't choose to serve in public leadership roles. No easy fix, and our violent entertainment culture doesn't help. Oy.
4
Great point. David Callahan made a similar argument in his book The Cheating Culture.
Cohen once said he’d take a bullet for Trump. It seems right now every Republican senator would as well. Orrin Hatch says he doesn’t care about Trump’s criminal behavior. The campaign finance laws are too complicated, so what Trump did is excusable. Cohen says he lost his moral compass. I believe him. For years and years I have felt Trump was a charlatan, a shallow creepy, self-aggrandizing fool who deserved no one’s interest much less respect. Yet he conned a lot of people in this country to vote for him, which says a lot about how many unthinking people there are in this country who want to blame others for their self-created problems. I believe Cohen has woken up and is gaining back his self-respect. I can’t say the same about Republicans in Congress. This country is in a deep hole. The recent election shows we might be starting to crawl out, but it’s going to be difficult.
As an aside, I have been reading Hillary Clinton’s book What Happened, and that makes me more disturbed than ever about this grifter who sits in the White House. A better title for her book would be What Didn’t Happen. She had really good ideas for addressing the problems in this country. Everything she wanted to do, Trump has done the opposite. And we are worse, far worse, because of this. If I could shout one thing right now, it would be “Get rid of the electoral college.”
10
@John Woods: Read the book "Shattered" instead.
Whatever you think of Hillary....she ruined her own campaign with arrogance and bad advice. (Bill gave her some good advice, but she ignored it!) She relied on "experts" and "analytics". She refused to travel to "boring" Midwestern states, preferring fancy $$$ fundraising dinners with the 1%. She embraced Harvey Weinstein! She campaigned with Lena Dunham! she called 50% of the registered voters in the nation "deplorables".
Even if she is a genius with great ideas....first you must win, which means "don't put your foot in your mouth and offend the people whose votes you need".
Also: you can't "get rid" of the Electoral College. It is baked into the Constitution.
1
Will America get wise? Does that mean elect a flaky progressive and permissive liberal Democrat to the presidency? I hope not. Thank you.
1
I hope not either. But I would like to see America elect someone presidential.
1
No S.B., will heretofore complicit and compromised Republican Congressmen get “wise” and finally honor their oath of office, voting to impeach and remove this corrupt and criminal, dangerous Fake President? Better a “flaky” President than one bound for a much-deserved stay in a federal prison. Impeach, Convict, Remove; Indict; Convict; Jail: Trump’s Legacy!
@Southern Boy- a job opening or two or three now in trump office and cabinet. please apply in person.
1
The recordings that Cohen kept throughout his career with Individual #1 tell it all. Cohen kept an insurance policy and he cashed it in. In truth, the avarice that reeks in the GOP right now will get rinsed away with the same sort of false contrition that Cohen shamelessly paraded across our TV screens with his crutch wielding daughter at his side, a pathetic mockery of Dicken's starving little Tiny Tim. When the orgy of corruption that has filled Washington to overfilling spills out into the light of day, senators and congressmen and cabinet members will all find ways to deflect blame to Individual #1 while they skulk away from the limelight with bags of tax dollars, insider trading dividends, corporate perks, foreign "investors" contributions, and so on. And they leave behind a Constitution rendered impotent from neglect, a terminally listing partisan judicial system, hate groups ranging the country unchecked, and a population so utterly disillusioned, confused, and abandoned by it's corporate, government and media leaders that we may never recover whatever it was that was once great about this country. Neither the three branches of Government nor the fourth estate seem able to check themselves, let alone functions as checks each other.
9
"Only a small minority of people would do quite what he did and break laws for the boss or benefactor to whom they’d hitched themselves."
Rather than disagree outright, I strongly recommend a look around at how those we are surrounded by conduct themselves.
And maybe a few minutes in front of our own mirrors to evaluate just what we are prepared to do - to keep a job. to keep a democracy, to get our way.
4
"Americans erred in laying ourselves open to Trump", and especially Evangelical leaders. Like his father before him, erring when he stood by Nixon throughout Watergate, Franklin Graham continues to make excuses for the likes of Trump. When is he going to recognize his error? How many people has this been 'a stumbling block to faith' for? Why would someone with such a legacy ever hitch his wagon to the likes of our 'so-called' president. God calls us to live a life of righteousness and compassion for others and Trump has publicly shown himself in every way to be the exact opposite. The only person he has done right by or for is Putin and himself!
7
We should be careful to assume that this is only a Republican problem which is often the supposition on these op-Ed pages. One only needs to study the string of Illinois Democrat governors in prison; the shenanigans that routinely envelop NJ Democrats; the escapades that have brought about prison time for the likes of Albany’s Sheldon Silver to the patently obvious pay-for-play malfeasance at the Clinton Foundation.... and yes the misdeeds within the Trump orbit.
We should be just as worried about the larger decline in national morals & standards and that somehow leads people like these to behave the way that they do. We also need to examine the double standard that continues to encourage half the populace to blindly ignore the behavior of the people they support.
7
@Alan
Calls to examine problems caused by both parties are much more credible when they use the proper name for the major party that is not Republican. "Democrat" is a noun, never an adjective; while "NJ Democrats" is correct, "Democrat party" is not. "Illinois Democrat governors "would be better expressed as "Illinois Democratic governors", although here it could be one of those awkward noun-as-adjectives, such as "woman judges".
But if there's any example of true bipartisanship, yes, it would be the former Illinois governors who haven't gone straight home (or home, straight) after their terms.
2
Alan, your citation of Illinois governors is valid but I am not aware of any "pay-to-play malfeasance" by the Clinton Foundation which is a highly-rated non-profit organization. Do you have evidence to support that accusation or are you just peddling right-wing propaganda always demonizing the imperfect Clintons?
The Flannery O'Connor story A Good Man Is Hard to Find has a character that is described as "she would have been a good woman....if it had been somebody there to shoot her every day of her life".
Cohen *found* his rusted out moral compass only at the hands of federal prosecutors with piles of taped conversations from his own home- the prospect of years in jail and a ruined life were probably a lot more motivating than his vestigial conscience. And Trump is a million times worse.
Although, if Trump plays his cards right he can be the "sinner preacher" the religious nationalists so love. A local preacher here was puffing meth and seeing prostitutes. Make a "mistake", beg God for Forgiveness, Lots of Remorse and Tears, Next Act: the repentance tour. Very lucrative.
11
Yes a lot of the people who work for the government were drafted, it was accept the draft or lose a job, a job many have invested a lot of time and effort in. Then there is the large portion of people who volunteered and did so for the various reasons people volunteer. Some volunteer for the excitement, some for the glory, some for the money and some just for the chance to be mean and hurt those they see as the others. The others, those that have been demonized and dehumanized so it makes it easy to attack. but for most of us are just hostages to the indecency, dishonesty, greed and criminality. Most of us are hostages but Cohen, well, he volunteered.
4
Cohen just did what lawyers do: try to persuade someone that their client is either worse or better than he/she really is - and the more they are paid the harder they try. Cohen's not the problem, just a symptom - it's the profession.
4
@Paul Adams and the NY Bar.
Perhaps this is what Trump meant when he touted "Make America Again"?
We form our tribes in different ways and if there is anyone who is a skilled magnet that can draw out the poor qualities in a person (s) it is the leader we have in place.
Our greatest hope is that we reboot and fill our leadership team with folks who excel at quality and integrity.
5
That about sums it up as well as I have ever read except for one problem. Cohen comes from and married into families that have had long and dubious records of association with (at the very least) mobsters. Remember his uncle, the social club owner? His father in law has close ties with all sorts of scummy characters from the US, Ukraine, and Russia.
But I don't mean to let the rest of us off the hook. Enough people fell for Trump's lies and fantasies for him to be elected president. He tapped into that deep well of economic anxiousness and racism that so many Americans felt. He was also a master of pretending to be what he is not with his TV persona. Until we realize that reality TV (and that includes Fox News) is not real we will continue to fall for empty promises and dim crooks who appeal to the worst of our natures.
I remember when I was a teenager I would complain about this country to my parents. While the problems I pointed out were real (segregation, the war in Vietnam) they would retort that, yes there are problems, but they are nothing like what they had endured fleeing for their lives in Germany. They may have underestimated some of the US's problems but one thing they knew was that Americans can choose to fix their problems and that gave them hope. Now we just have to admit what a terrible mistake we made and get out and fix it by electing smart and honest people in 2020. We've made a start but we are a long way from fixing the problem we created.
10
Just don’t compound the mistake by chasing Trump out of office only to be replaced by an even more corrupt Clinton or a communist like Sanders. Your family escaped the horrors of Europe once. Let’s not repeat those mistakes again.
1
To understand how the stage was set for the GOP, and a demagogue like Trump, to take advantage of the power of fear and hate, we must answer the question : What would the highest individual and corporate tax rate be if religious, race, guns, and social issue conflict were not dividing the majority.
There is a tribal element to human behavior that is fanned by those who accrue profit and power through division. They know that minority rule demands division of the majority and less cohesion.
It is amazing how the years of work of Ruppert Murdock, the Kochs and Vladimir Putin resulted in the election of a grifting con artist and possibly the destruction of the American democracy.
7
Cohen was his personal lawyer for ten years and it was well know how Trump was and how he ran his businesses so I have to agree with many posters that his "come to Jesus" moment is too little and far too late.
I mean honestly where was the NY Bar in all of this?
Trump and his many associates have much to fear now as Cohen's criminal conviction was not just a crack in his wall, it was a complete breached.
Sadly half the country will stick by him, and no matter the actual outcomes for the President, his family and the numerous business and political associates that have always put personal power before country.
As we all know many of us, myself included, are intrigued and mesmerized by the anti-hero, the Tony Soprano's of the world who kick and fight and do whatever is necessary to make their mark in the world and get their shot at the American Dream...no matter how perverse.
It is that escapist fantasy that allows us to resit the status quo, our own short comings and personal failures without actually ever do anything to change it.
We have enable this belief system and Trump has know this his entire adult life, as I am sure Cohen did too.
2
I would be very careful cueing Lion King music and holding Cohen up as an example of anything - except a rat. It is important to remember that Cohen is not a "cooperating witness" with SDNY. He refused to sign a full cooperation agreement - declining to confess to all crimes he has knowledge of. He did cooperate with Mueller to tell what he knew about Russia and pled guilty to lying to Congress. But I wouldn't hold Cohen too close or raise him up in your arms, because you have no idea where that rat has been.
5
"The bill came due for Cohen. It will come due for the country, too."
With exorbitant interest, I'm afraid.
9
Frank points out: “For every leader there are at least 10 followers ready to trade the burden and bedlam of independent thought for a playbook that tells them exactly what to do.” In Trump’s case, far more than 10. For starters, count the Congressional members of the GOP.
13
First Michael Cohen got caught, then -- and only then -- he got wise. For others who are in thrall to Trump, it might take the same sort of comeuppance. But let's hope not. It's said that "experience is the best teacher." But if you are wise, someone else's experience is the best teacher. You see what happened to them and you try to make sure it doesn't happen to you. Those who are still hopeful that Trump can lead this nation toward greatness or success should look behind him and see the financial, personal, and human destruction in his wake -- and take a lesson before it's too late for all of us.
7
"Every one of us wades through his wreckage of norms, is unsteadied by his assault on truth, braces for whatever happens next and knows that it may have much greater and longer consequence for us than it does for Trump."
The worst of it is that most of us--3 million more of us--knew better from the beginning but was stepped on by an archaic process that has given us a disastrous president two times in the last three. These are appalling odds that have wreaked havoc on this country.
16
@Morgan: The whole Trump experience is a vestige of the cancer of state-optional slavery the US has never fully expunged.
1
Two quotes stand out in this piece. First, "...con men like Trump can spot them a mile away.". That explains the support for Trump, the con artistry and those who are gullible marks that persons like Trump prey on.
Second, the last sentence concerning the bill come due for America. That bill is becoming past due as the cost, the cost in lost ethics and morals and the rise of racism and toxic political radicalism begins to rise dramatically.
Yes indeed, we have been conned and we will now face the consequences.
12
Reading the Comments, it would seem that Bruni’s opinion piece is about Cohen. I think rather that Bruni is reflecting on the state of politics in America today. America is Cohen writ large or at least a significant part of America. Well done Frank Bruni.
16
I agree. I think people can't past the headline. The article really isn't about Cohen.
At this season, I'm reminded of the chorus "All We Like Sheep", from Handel's Messiah, the text of which is Isaiah 53:6: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."
5
Trump lies to people and shows them a bright future with anything they were looking for.Cambrige Analytica make the list of goodies that Trump seels in different part of different states to fit their different requests.Trump promises anything to anyone and anywhere.Trump defraud the voters and sold them a "fake program"...Trump is guilty of steeling the election with modern tools of humanbeings manipulation and propaganda! Trump deserve to be impeached, indicted and disposed of according to law.The GOP deserve to be eradicated and, after that, all of its big donnors examined and treated according to such examination; in such extreme cases indicted and kicked out of your country.Best
1
He displays all the "truth" of a Stalinist show trial witness. Mueller's gulag makes him sing the Stalin song of the state. Deep-swamp at its best. The truth lies behind the "holy" Langley wall--criminals all, to be trusted as much as Brutus.
3
Michael Cohen Got Wise. Will America?
You tell me Frank. Is the Special Counsel, FBI and SDNU going to target all of us?
1
Why? This really is about how Trump voters need to find their moral compass.
5
Tragically shallow analysis by Bruni, who clearly didn’t dig very hard into the subject of his column. Shallow, because there really IS a fascinating and instructive narrative in Cohen’s rise and fall.
Cohen didn’t lose his moral compass to Trump; he surrendered it decades before, when he chose to walk down the paths of his Russian mobbed-up uncle, and father-in-law, rather than the meritocratic one of his Holocaust-survivor.
As a young man, Cohen stood at the conjunction of major conflicts torturing the US, today. He was from an immigrant family, deciding how to make it, here. From all doctors and lawyers in his family, and the Long Island town where he grew up, he could see that the spoils of this unbelievably wealthy society went to the professional elites. But, because of his dismal grades, and pathetically low-status law school degree, he also had one foot in the world of the “losers” who form much of Trump’s base.
In classic Great Gatsby fashion, Cohen leapt at anything that he make him big. But his first attempt — a taxi cab empire — was disrupted by the new tech, gig economy.
It was only very late in the game that Cohen stumbled on a new, crooked father figure who could put him on easy street. And, for a while, Trump even seemed to deliver.
Like Nick Carroway, another Long Island wannabe, Cohen was inevitably betrayed by his Gatsby. But, Trump didn’t fool Cohen. Like many American failures, he let himself be fooled.
9
@Neal Shultz As you describe it, this story has the makings of a great American tragic novel, or "non-fiction novel" like Capote's In Cold Blood. You should write it.
To whom are you talking ? What ''America'' was seduced by Trump such that they could be 'misled' or 'disappointed' ? Certainly not your average NYT reader. Were YOU ? Come on, put a name on it. FOX NEWS
19
"Michael Cohen Got Wise. Will America?"
FB
No.
7
Got wise ?
Seriously ?
Sitting in front of a camera and acting contrite for ten minutes, is getting wise ?
A sob story of how "I wuz drug low yer honor, by dat evilole man..." is getting wise ?
Please.
He is a crooked lawyer who got caught and will do his time (some of it anyway) and then live a really comfy and wealthy life. With no more feigned contrition in sight.
7
Michael Cohen didn't get wise. He got caught.
7
Everyone seems terribly convinced about some kind of awakening on the part of Michael Cohen, based on an interview with George Stephanopoulos. Watch again. Michael Cohen deserves an Oscar for that performance. Stephanopoulos should turn in his "journalist" card.
3
Let's not reinvent Cohen as some sympathetic character. He knowingly did wrong for years and he's paying the consequences as he should.
Michael Cohen got wise? Nah. Michael Cohen got scared.
10
Trump in Prison Blues
(with apologies to Johnny Cash and "Folsom Prison Blues")
I hear that train a comin'
It's rollin' 'round the bend
It's loaded with subpoenas,
'Bout God knows what or when...
I'm stuck with Mr. Mueller
And now with Adam Schiff
And my greedy grovelin' Congress
Just went right off a cliff.
When I was just a baby
My mama told me sonny
Don't listen to your father
He sold his soul for money.
But I cheated, lied, and threatened
And daddy said, "That's great!"
But I've burned my bridges bigly
And now it's just too late.
13
I don't know if Michael Cohen is being honest or not when he says that he is hoping for historical redemption. I hope so. It takes a lot of courage, strength and concentrated effort to turn away from the corrupted lure of the Dark Side and to embrace truth and honor and decency and integrity after X-many years. I hope he can do it, and more than that, whether he is being honest or not, I hope that the other slavering and opportunistic sycophants who is still in Trump's thrall will find the courage to follow his example.
5
“There are none so blind as those who will not see.” So said John Heywood in 1546.
6
Honestly, what a load of codswallop. Birds of a feather flock together. This man knew exactly who and what the great grifter was...and a good businessman wasn't part of Trump's past or present. He just wanted on the gravy train.
I would really like to read a factual article that goes in depth (or even outlines) Trump's history, starting in the 70's. The American public needs to be informed...those living in and around New York are aware...
9
So – let’s see:
1. Live in sanctuary city – check
2. Buy into real estate and real taxis, and avoid things like the Internet and Uber – check
(as Mark Twain said: “Buy medallions. They’ve stopped making them”)
3. Make friends with all the neighbors, especially the ones that are away a lot of the time – check
4. Make sure your pre-check membership for the gov’t’s “catch and release” program is paid up through 2020 – check
5. America’s skating on thin ice these days, so show your patriotism by apostling for a savior who fixes public-sector ice rinks as a hobby and didn’t complete his MBA because he came home to look after his father’s business – check
.....
Only thing about making a top-5 list heading into the cold and cruel season of year...
You need to check it twice...
And then double-check it again...
1
Cohen is a child that has been put in time-out for the next three years.
4
So the ‘fixer’ is going to the big house, while the ‘fixee’ is staying in the White House.
9
Oh please. If the kind of behavior you described here bothered you, you would be screaming about the Clinton's. You would be appalled at the behavior of Comey and Brennan. This is yet another anti-Trump guy finding nothing to complain about.
2
@Shane
Messing with an American election is always going to be "something to complain about" for American citizens who care about the country.
The law is built in to do something about it whether we have crooks and schemers at the wheel or not.
13
Shane, Comey, Brennan and the Clintons- all flawed individuals - are all virtuous angels compared to Trump as history will demonstrate overwhelmingly. Wake up! You have been conned!
Frank you're being naive.
Donald Trump is in the white house because the guy before him was black and effective.
And always remember rural white voters and rural southern voters are racist, plain and simple.
15
Sad and oh so true Frank....
2
Trump World is boring and shallow, a slow death every day.
7
You can't fix our current stupid electorate, you just have to wait for them to die out--maybe opioids will be a catalyst. I am a white male, I've grown up around racist white males--you can't change or fix them--but they will die out soon enough, most of them are already old--like Trump. I hope he has a massive heart-attack, America would rejoice.
12
Now everyone believes Cohen? Cohen would tell the FBI his mother was a drug mule if it would reduce his jail time. Maybe he didn't lie, this time. So we have spent 25 million on a 150k hush payment? That everyone knew happened. That would have occurred regardless of whether he was running for President? Maybe we'll have more, maybe even Russia will be involved. Maybe not, I'm not Joy Behar and know everything. Let's let it play out and leave out the emotion driven insult columns.
Let’s not be fooled by the now penitent Michael Cohen.
The fixer got nabbed, perhaps he’ll find his missing moral compass in jail.
2
Oh, come on. Michael Cohen never had a moral compass to lose.
3
Let's face it. There are and will always be two sides to every story and this is no different. And it boils down to money and what it can buy: power, prestige, silence, etc. So, Cohen says he was sucked in. Dangle enough money or the promise of money and little effort on the part of the dangler (Trump) is necessary. So now all of Cohen's problems center on Trump. Never mind his other legal and monetary problems - can we all say deflection?
The bottom line is Cohen acted like an immature groupie with a law degree. A famous person has dalliances with other women while married (adultery?) and he fixes with non-disclosure statements. Hardly tampering with an election. If Trump had not been elected president, I doubt anyone would truly care.
I find the article amusing regarding the loss of a moral compass. Certainly the congressional shush fund used for paying off women and presumably men with tax payer money indicates that the Congress, D, R, and IND have all lost their moral compass. It would be interesting yet familial destructive to see their names in print. There may even be a few condemning what has occurred who are guilty of the same dalliances.Sad. But again, this is really only a topic of concern bedaub it involves Trump. Nothing is said of the man who released funds to clean up the Pacific ocean of plastic; revitalized the economy; personally confronted North Korea; put the embassy in Jerusalem; made USA an energy exporter; etc. Only his failures get press.
1
After reading so much about Michael Cohen, Zi have decided that I need to hire a fixer.
1
America was born of a lie. Columbus called them "Indians".....and so they died by the whim of a lie.
Slavery was a lie. Jim Crow was a lie. John Wayne was not his name. He was never a cowboy; never a soldier. Joe McCarthy was a liar. His mission was a lie. Big tobacco lied. Vietnam was a lie. Watergate was a lie. Jim and Tammy and Jimmy were all lies. Jose and Mark and Lenny and Barry were all baseball lies. The NFL was a tower of steroid concussed lies. Music lied in lip-sync form. Wall Street lied. Enron lied. Cosby lied. Weinstein lied. Arnold lied in his second language.
All of these were, at one time, considered as American success stories. If we look closely, and truly consider anything we see in American life that doesn't make a lick of sense, then we can absolutely know that money is being made on the dysfunction. Now excuse me while I go feed my Pet Rock.
9
@Wiley Cousins
Least we forgot Exxon's suppression and cover-up
of climate data that affects all of humanity.
Hateful crimes against humanity.
From day one the "settlers" were white supremacist.
Michael Cohen has the Charles Colson role in this drama.
Colson, for those who were born after Watergate, was known as Nixon's hatchet man. He went to prison for obstruction of justice; and while there, found Jesus.
6
I kept thinking as I read this column that most of us saw through Trump from the very beginning. Never forget that a majority of voters voted for Hillary. She won the popular vote by nearly three million. Only an antiquated quirk in our electoral system gave the election to Trump. In a true democracy, the outcome would’ve been different and better.
15
While much of what Stephens says is correct, there is a worrisome tone to this article. Repeatedly, he uses the first person plural, as in, "Too many of us assented." But this misses the fact that well before Trump was elected, a majority of Americans saw him to be a shameless grifter, and even his election was accomplished with less than a majority of voters. Collective responsibility in Stephens' mode only weakens the blame due to the minority of foolish people who followed this Pied Piper.
9
Hold it Frank, Americans didn't err in laying ourselves open to Trump. Most of us voted for the alternative. It was the crazy electoral college that gave us Trump. But, it is tragic that up to 40% of Americans are still politically blind.
18
Another slice of reality gets rewritten in our brave new world--the lawyer who makes a show of turning on his client. The multi-faceted jewel of shamelessness gets yet another facet.
1
The bill has come due. The bill is Donald Trump and the contemporary Republican party. 40+ years of half of Americans ignoring their constitutional franchise and competing for stuff rather than nurturing their community. 40+ years of selfish scrambling. 40+ years of nurturing hatred towards our own government, a bizarre and telling form of self-loathing.
After all this time of a disengaged, ignorant, selfish, and lazy polity we have the bill, Frank. I doubt we'll be able to pay it and will, instead, lose our governance to the corporations we've already allowed to take over our country. Trump is nothing; give him no credit. We built this.
9
@David F You've nailed David, you've nailed it. Every once and a while something great appears, but for most part, ignorance and disengagement prevails.
“dishonesty, cheating and, according to a growing body of evidence, outright criminality“
Describes not only Trump, but the Clintons.
The Baby Boomers have enriched themselves, undid what the Greatest Generation built in terms of morality, civility, a sense of duty to a greater good, and we all let them.
2
The column puts too much emphasis on Trump and his appeal. The more accurate story is the deliberate path of subverting democracy, racism, xenophobia, etc., that the Republican Party has taken: Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, Gingrich, especially Bush II, Chaney, Mitch McConnell, hundreds of dishonest GOP judges, and especially the eight hacks (Scalia, et al.) chosen by GOP presidents from Reagan onward to sit on the Supreme Court. And let us not forget the gerrymandering and voter suppression actions of state GOP parties in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Ohio, and elsewhere. Trump is simply the culmination of the actions and policies of the Republican Party.
13
Frank, around 3,000,000 more voting people chose to not vote for trump in 2016. People that support trump are haters of the "others". Frank's column is quite insulting to the majority of people who fight against trump everyday. The several criminal investigations, beginning even before trump was sworn in clearly demonstrate the rejection of the trump stench, however, the wheels of justice turn slowly. Remember Frank we have not been beguiled by trump and the wheels are turning each day!
As an aside, Bill Clinton supporters, of which I am not, to this day think his perjury was fine, although he should have done time for his perjury. Bill's message to the people, that perjury is o.k. lingers and corrupts to this very day. Bill's behavior assists trump with his sex scandal, by preventing democrats from being able to take the moral high ground.
4
I’m hoping that the 63M Americans who voted for Trump are beginning to say their mea culpas today, for dragging the rest of us through the proverbial mud. Trump’s villainy was well documented long before the election, available in full view to anyone paying attention. My wife interviewed him in NH in 1988 when he first stuck his toe in the presidential waters, and she had his number even then. “Just a big bloviator,” she said. How prescient!
11
I don't think Cohen got wise; I think he got caught.
He was not on a "comet ride." Cohen was in the very lucrative business of being the chief fixer and payoff guy to a crook. Mob lawyers do well, too.
Cohen got caught and now is trying to excuse himself with a fairy tale of being dazzled. He wasn't dazzled. He was crooked. Trump is crooked, and he is surrounded by crooks. Trump is the character in a movie about white collar crime, who gets a visit from a couple of crisply suited FBI agents, who leave, exclaiming "He's bent all right. The guy is dirty." We have a stock character from Hollywood's chest of cliches in our White House.
I just don't feel any sympathy for Cohen. He is a rat. A very useful rat right now, but a rat.
4
I think the shortcut to what is perceived as a glamorous life is exactly what the Trump brand stands for. Sad.
4
Could it be that many of these Trump appointees did not have a "moral compass" to begin with? It seems to me their " business acumen" is another phrase for crooked. And for those who hang in with this group through thick and thin, I suggest turn the channel every now and then to get a fuller perspective.
4
Unlike many of the other commenters, I feel sorry for Michael Cohen. Is Michael Cohen Paul Manafort? Did he accept responsibility for his actions in court, or is he angling for a pardon, sitting in jail, refusing to cooperate with investigators ? Did he get complete immunity, like the CFO of the Trump organization, or the head of the National Enquirer? Is he now saying the FBI tricked him, like Michael Flynn? We can sit back and be self-righteous in our judgments, but the fact is that the truth is never going to come out about Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and subsequent attempts to cover up what was done unless people involved cooperate. And if someone now says he's sorry, and that he's trying to make amends for what he did, I'm willing to believe him, until he proves me wrong.
7
Putin's biggest accomplishment is exposing American credulity, shattering our self-importance and our myth of exceptionalism and exposing our naivete and idiocy for the rest of the world. But have we truly learnt anything?
8
Trump surrounds himself with criminals. And Republicans are anti-democracy.
America is mediocre because Americans aspire to criminality and are anti-Democratic.
7
With all the convictions and the everr-expanding web of those in Trump's orbit growing daily, it seems that it's premature to say, "Only a small minority of people would do quite what he did and break laws for the boss or benefactor to whom they’d hitched themselves." What does seem true is that "only a small minority of people would do what he did and break" with Trump, confess his crimes, accept his punishment and seek a measure of Jewish "teshuvah" requiring atonement. This is a universal moral code that Cohen has now embraced and the nation may owe its very survival from the dark reign of Trump to him for emerging from the "valley of the shadow" of Trump into the light of truth and justice.
5
Interesting piece but I don't think wise guy wannabe Cohen got wise. He simply got caught.
And that is what will happen to his one time man crush.
It won't be this year and probably not next year but I would bet the proverbial ranch that the apprentice President will be hauled off to prison at one point in the next 5 years.
And to answer Frank's question?
Will America get wise? Perhaps but only after exhausting all other options...
4
Has America ever been wise ? Most folks don’t bother to vote because they are always given two bad choices and even if by chance there is a decent choice, the terrible, corrupt political system negates them. As a citizen, if you attempt to educate yourself politically, you will be depressed most days. So most don’t bother to watch it. As an example, when Trumps Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of Plan Parenthood, I knew immediately that Obama Care is gone, probably by the end of 2019. Good ole Texas is seeing to that. At the end of the day, you can vote for all the progressives that you want, but the wealthy right, still control the legal system and Democrats just become people with ideas. We will feel for generations , the damage that this Illegitimate President has brought, through the Supreme Court, Foreign Affairs, racial divide and the economy after his tariff roll back fetish.
5
Cohen is a New York lawyer.
He will say anything to save his own skin.
Mueller bends him over on his personal transgressions that had nothing to do with Trump and all he needs to do is say the right words and Mueller will show him “leniency”.
1
Abraham Lincoln, a lawyer's lawyer, once urged a class of law students to "resolve to be honest in all events, and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer." Mr. Cohen fell into the trap of wanting this marquee client so badly, he lost sight of Lincoln's sage advice. The only thing a lawyer has is his or her professional judgment and reputation for honesty and trustworthiness. Once lost, so are the lawyer's perspective and any utility to the client's interests. The moment Mr. Cohen started down the path of enabling his client's rapacious behavior in the hope of following Trump to the White House, he became just another sycophant in Trump's orbit. And like all matter orbiting a black hole, eventually one is sucked in and crushed.
4
Thank you, Frank!
You wrote exactly what I feel and what I would've written if I were smarter.
I wish that people, who still think he's a shroud and successful businessman could look in the mirror and ask themselves: "am I taken for a con ride along with Michael? Why do I think it will end better for us than it did for Cohen?"
5
It seems there is a tendency for many to view the current political dynamics as if both sides have good and bad ideas, and that the truth lay somewhere in the middle. But I think the lessons of history are that one side is usually right and the other wrong.
Should people have sought a middle ground in the antebellum South? Should only half of blacks been enslaved or should some compromise have been reached so that blacks were only enslaved half the time? Should some compromise have been reached so that Hitler could be allowed to keep half of Europe?
So it is today. There is no appropriate middle ground in most cases. We should do MUCH better at protecting the environment. We need to seek inclusion, pluralism and less inequality, not more inequality and more white nationalism. We need effective gun control and tough regulations, not a country effectively cowering in fear of the gun lobby. There is a clear moral case for things that Democrats support, like more bargaining power for workers and universal health care. There is no moral case to be made for the other side. They are simply wrong. Donald Trump is a clear marker for just how wrong they are.
841
@Jon
Thank you Jon for your spot on observation of our foolish selves. I will definitely save your letter to share with my family while trying to keep some level of hope that we can right this sinking ship. Ann
51
@Jon---Yes, thank you will written. You describe the worst horrors of capitalism; it destroys people in all the ways you describe. Capitalism needs to be regulated. We, like many "advanced" countries already have a mixed economy with both capitalist and socialist aspects in terms of laws and policies. We need to slant it more toward the values you argue for. Some suspect we have started this movement, but be careful, the usual corrupt forces are already gathering again to promote and protect their capital.
46
@Jon
I agree.
At the same time, the angry complaint since trump's election has been that it happened because we failed to 'listen' to people to people who are flat-out wrong.
trump's election was payback for that failure.
Despite the fact that they are indeed wrong about white victimhood. Wrong about the 'hoax' of global warming. Wrong about 'the wall.' Wrong about white nationalism. Wrong about tax cuts and the exploding deficit it caused. Wrong about strafing regulations protecting the environment, laborers and consumers.
And so on and so on.
Somehow the enduring imperative is that we must continue to 'listen' to those whom facts, events and basic reason prove again and again to be wrong.
If we fail to do so, they argue, it is at our own peril.
77
What do you mean “we”? The “we” that never voted for Trump and saw him for what he was before he was voted in are now stuck with this mess for another 2 years. I have enough faith in the USA that we will recover from the political mess he has put us in, but my fear is that the environment will not recover. I can understand greed, avarice, the “good for me, too bad for you” agenda now in force with the Republican Party (what thoughts do they have at 3 a.m.? What do they think when they look at their grandchildren?) but what I cannot understand is the stead fast refusal to believe global warming when the effects are right in our face. Unfortunately, whether we voted for Trump or not, we all live on the same planet and we will all go down with the ship despite who we voted for.
611
@Elsie Flanagan In a sense "we" did vote for Trump given that many chose not to vote due to their angst and hate for the opposition candidate.
That inaction was a vote for the charlatan.
45
@Elsie Flanagan I do not share your faith in our political resilience. Our system of government is deeply flawed (structurally disproportionate representation in the senate, the electoral college, state control of districting, etc.), and is unable to address these problems. Our system of government institutionalized minority control and nothing short of a new constitutional framework will cure this sickness.
38
@Dan
The environment will recover but WE all need to do our part.
Simple things are easy to achieve but on combined actions by millions will have a huge impact in many ways.
When grocery shopping, bring canvas bags to carry groceries home.
Eat less beef. Better for your health and cuts back back on methane gas emitted by cows. Also humane since fewer cows have to be slaughtered to feed you.
At the office, encourage your boss to install a filtered water system. Fill your wayer bottle with that during the day and bring a big bottle home. Safer water tp drink, way less expensive for you and all those plastic bottles are never needed.
There, those are 3 that are simple but will have a huge impact on the environment, your health, both now and in the future, and your budget.
Are they so hard? No.
15
As a lowly K - 12 teacher trying to teach students the importance of integrity, I am shocked at the indifference of the present Administration to the basic rules of civilization. I don’t find comments like “alternative facts” and “truth isn’t truth” amusing, I find them shocking, especially as I fear that the Administration would hold me, an immigrant, to a much higher standard. Even little ones know that telling lies is unacceptable. Lies may not kill people directly but they cause the fabric of society to be frayed and trust between each other to be eroded. Even TK children understand this, and would be shocked by the rationalizations of our country’s (and the world’s) leaders.
32
So sad. Boohoo.
More fairy tale than "cautionary tale."
First of all, the so-called "violation of campaign finance laws" was never adjudicated.
What we have here is simply a guilty plea of a self-confessed perjurer/sleazeball in response to extortion by the special counsel who is on a single-minded Stalinist mission to take out Trump. ("Incriminate Trump or you die in jail")
Russia collusion was a big fat zero, so Mueller's Cohen plan 2—hush money.
Hush money is personal—the FEC “irrespective test” differentiates campaign expenses from personal. Personal use is any use to fulfill a commitment/obligation/expense that would exist irrespective of campaign. (Non-disclosure agreements are a standard Trump practice & were for decades.)
Former SDNY prosecutor McCarthy put it this way: "There is nothing illegal per se in making a non-disclosure agreement; they are quite common…The payment is not a donation if it was made for an expense that… would have had to be paid even if there were no campaign. Cohen chose to plead guilty & forfeited the right to contest this point. That concession is not binding on Trump."
What this is all about: subversion.
Trump must go on the offensive and nail the lot of them. He would be a fool to wait for Mueller to close up shop.
"Listen. Understand. That Terminator is out there. It can't be reasoned with, it can't be bargained with. It doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear & it absolutely will not stop. Ever. Until you are dead."—Kyle Reese
1
I just amazes me how my Trump supporting friends have become so tribal - Marion’s post is typical. No amount of evidence seems sufficient for them to even consider the possibility.
I just don’t understand it.
8
Alan—THE FACTS:
Prosecution did not prove its case. Defense case wasn’t made. “Adversarial system” doesn’t mean “extortion.”
As for Mueller extortion: Check Emmet Sullivan.
He’s the judge who vacated case against Sen Stevens/began criminal contempt against same Mueller crew doing same Stalinist Mueller moves.
Sullivan ordered Mueller to produce all Flynn/Russia docs.
Flynn 302: We learned the 302 used by Mueller was Strzok's written 7 mos post Flynn interview. 302s are supposed to be written contemporaneously when memories are fresh. Documents surfaced of Comey/Strzok/Page claiming they read Flynn 302 much earlier.
This suggests Mueller falsified original 302—perhaps w/ rolling revisions consistent w/ his evolving fable—removing exculpatory evidence (as in Stevens), including McCabe's denial of Flynn perjury.
We learned directly from Comey that entrapping Flynn was his brilliant idea. (Did you know Comey's teaching ethics at W&M?)
In normal times, Mueller would be toast, but these aren’t normal times.
As Dershowitz put it,“The Mueller operation is Stalinist!"—a reference to Lavrentiy "Show me the man & I will find you the crime" Beria.
Mueller's Stalinist architectonics—a SC in search of a crime—which has it exactly backwards—proves venal purpose—a conspiracy of Obama-Clinton Ds & never-Trump Rs to weaponize FBI/DOJ to exonerate a crook/fix her election/take out a president.
The fate of the US is now in the hands of our KGB, not Putin's. We cannot let it stand.
1
Excellent. Bruni's opinion piece reflects much of psychological research findings (summarized in the somewhat provocative web site title: http://www.cracked.com/article_16239_5-psychological-experiments-that-prove-humanity-doomed.html --except for including the ungrammatical "woman laying in the road" rather than lying in the road--but let's not quibble). Also, Bruni points out that there may be some extra vulnerability within authoritarian personality types to follow people like Trump (see https://www.theauthoritarians.org/ ). I refuse to be criticized for seeming immodest because I clearly knew about Trump's hideousness in advance of his campaign from taking the time to *read*--especially about his history. So there might be another vulnerability in the non-reading public (reading reveals the "devil in the details"). Thereby, I kept looking for things to get bad enough because of certain types of people getting into authority positions by default--bad enough to have a major wake-up call for the usual non-voters. And in 2018, low and behold...!
1
He was a shyster and that's how he became his lawyer, they are perfect fit for each other.
Cohen is deep in a pockets of Russian Mafia, just like his crooked boss, who made all his dirty money from oligarchs/mobsters, it's a blood money, same as Manafort., Kushner, Don Jr, Ivanka...all of them.
None of them are forthcoming, they are hiding information and lie.
I guess they're all spook to death... no one wants a polonium in their tea. So they chose prison.
Russians are skilled in killing people no matter where they live. UK is a great example.
They will get them sooner or later, if they dare to speak the truth.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/09/us/politics/michael-cohen-shell-company.html
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/michael-cohen-lanny-davis-russia-716413/
http://fortune.com/2018/05/06/michael-cohen-business-russia-mafia/
And wait until SDNY fully gets their hands on the last WSJ.com reporting...
Trump Inauguration Spending Under Criminal Investigation by Federal Prosecutors
Probe looking into whether committee misspent funds and top donors gave money in exchange for access to the administration.
It's about time, follow the money people.
8
Hogwash. Cohen is trying to portray himself as an innocent victim, a mouse hypnotized by a cobra. In an interview with him I caught on the news just now, he says that his problem was "too much loyalty." Loyalty is a good trait, yes? Poor Cohen just had too much of it. (It's like saying on a job, interview when asked to reveal your weaknesses/areas you need to improve, "I work too hard.")
No, Cohen, your fault was not in having too much loyalty. Your fault was in being a greedy crook. Just admit it, and stop trying to spin it all in your favor. Enough with this fake contrition. We aren't stupid.
331
@EB
Does that make all those loyal to Trump without breaking the law greedy as well? I think Frank Bruni has defined the hold Trump has on his followers better than anyone.
20
@EB I agree. I am happy that Cohen is cooperating (a little) and now speaking (mostly) the truth, but a) many of his crimes did not involve Trump (taxi tax fraud etc) and b) he didn't turn himself in, he was caught in a pre-dawn raid with tons of evidence and *then* decided to flip.
22
@EB
...all evidence to the contrary.
6
I believe that a certain amount of criminality was assumed to exist in politics, and what with it being obvious to even a casual observer that Washington is moved and manipulated by big money -- it was life as usual which paved the way for a Trump to seem "qualified" for the Presidency. And you must add the low level of not just political or scientific literacy, but plain old literacy which is increasingly a problem here.
If we had a Will Rogers for our age or a mark Twain, either would assure us that greedy pols are nothing new -- but the levels of money flowing into PACS and back rooms and luring politicians have increased every year - and distorted elections and governing.
And again, the stories about Trump's questionable finances and outrageous claims simply didn't seem out of the ordinary to those who assumed that all were equally dirty. and equally dedicated to their own welfare. The latter isn't true, but we do have a corrupted system.
As for Cohen's pre- confinement Great Awakening: well, let's see what he does . .
89
@cheryl @Look Ahead
American voters weren't seduced by Trump. Rather they were disappointed by his predecessor's lack of substantive accomplishments.
@Frank Leibold No substantive accomplishments? What about steering the country out of the worst financial crisis since the 1930's? How about creating a health care system which provided health care to millions of uninsured Americans, how about restoring the country's position in the world--Obama was the most admired American President in over a generation across the world. Obama was far from perfect, but I don't think anyone could have done better given the intransigence of the Senate Republicans.
10
Who we have instead of Will Rogers and Mark Twain are Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Saturday Night Live, and their ilk. Thank God!@cheryl
5
All the heroes of the anti-Trump lefties are turning out to be big zeroes. First it was Comey, then it was Stormy and Avenatti and now it is Michael Cohen. Michael Cohen is another Bernie Madeoff. Just greedy. Out to make a fast buck. Well he should not expect a presidential pardon by switching loyalties. He can write a book with no more fixing left to be done.
Then there is Mueller futzing around for months now wanting to interview Trump. We independents are no fools we can see through the bull manure, a deep partisanship whether it was the tea party during the Obama years or the current day liberals. America is not going to be wise again.
America was always wise whether you like the outcome of the elections or not. Only a fool will think that any foreign power can influence American democracy. They can try but they will never influence the outcome. We the wise thinking people of the USA are resolute in not being distracted by the press, pundits or foreign powers.
2
Surely you are aware that Trump has been ripping off contractors for decades, forcing family businesses into bankruptcy. How can you not know that? He recently paid out 25 million dollars for ripping off acolytes, such as yourself, for his fraudulent university. Have you never delved further into that? For years, people were bedazzled by Trump's success, only to have him clean out their bank accounts. He is nothing more than a grifter who surrounds himself with grifters. No administration comes close to the scandals involving this administration's extravagant use of the treasury for personal use. For all you Trump supporters that don't believe in having anything socialized, I agree. You can pay for the illegal spending by his administration on million dollar private Jet fees, $45,000 phone booths, $30,000 dining sets, paying for the secret service's golf carts, rooms, meals at Mar-a-lago, the secret service costs for his children 's business travel abroad. This is the biggest grift of the American people in living memory.
I'm sorry.... I didn't give anyone of such low character as this Precedent, a 'green light' to get anywhere near the Presidency of the U. S. I can only say to Americans who turned to Donald Trump in the presidential campaign of 2016 and voted for him - shame on you. Shame on you!
From the moment he rode down that escalator and started lying right to their faces, how could anyone, any American, just look at his behavior for his entire adult life, and see anything other than a scammer, a con artist, a grifter, a miserable excuse for a human being.
16
The fact that Mr. Cohen was even on with George S. suggests that something is already amiss. Telling all of America how he used to follow Mr. Trump felt more like a pr campaign than anything else.
What is most striking here, though, is Frank Bruni pretending that Michael Cohen is the everyman, that he's just like us. The whole thing reeks of a pr campaign, very much including this odd hit piece. I cannot remember the last time anything Frank Bruni wrote had a ring of authenticity and depth.
2
Three million more American voters in 2016 did, decidedly, not give a “green light” to the amorality embodied by the would-be Fake President than did, in a clear rejection of his total unfitness for high office. But for Republican gerrymandered districts, the pervasive Russian hacking and disinformation campaigns, the criminal violations of campaign finance laws and other reasons, this Con Man from Queens would never had made it into the Oval Office. The anti-Trump voters knew full well that this fraudster, if elected, would be tragically taking the nation for a “ride”.
8
To be fair, Cohen married into a crime family and then worked his way into the Don's inside circle... Before he became 'clean' he helped a foreign adversary scrw over our democracy. He is getting off lightly...
7
Michael Cohen did not get wise. He was caught red-handed and trapped with no other option but confess to his crimes.
5
Another aspect is that he was smart enough to realize how his fundamental stupidity would have precluded him from reaching his goals ($) via legitimate means
Trump could only get elected in a society where the majority of the electorate is either mean spirited or apathetic -- eerily reminiscent of Weimar Germany.
3
Pause and think - these people would be in jail if they were poor or black. The comments that they were “tricked” as stated by a former General or “didn’t know (Ivanka Trump) are more than ridiculous. Spare us their pleas of ignorance and “lock them up” to use Flynn’s favorite chant!
3
Cohen was not seduced. He was ready made.
2
Very poor advice from Mr. Cohen, to the detriment of both he and his client. "Just lie, Mr. Trump. Say you never had sex with any of them. Perfectly legal. That strategy worked for Mr. Clinton in 1992."
1
No one lost a moral compass! They didn’t have one, and they don’t have one. Period. NO ONE, absolutely NO ONE, can say that the information that the Trumps run a criminal enterprise wasn’t clear, crystal clear. The man is a shyster and has always been. How can ANYONE now act like “they were had”? Give me a break.
6
What to know just how dangerous the infectious disease Trump is spreading? Look no further than your own extended family. For those who tend to follow The Bible, think of Lucifer. If he was a so-called “fallen angel”, why did so many people follow him? Why couldn’t they see through his evil? It’s pretty simple. He gave his followers an easy way out. What child is going to turn away from treats?
That’s what Trump offered his listeners. Trump is the typical “Flim Flam Man” of the early West. He had a pill that could fix everything. An easy way out of the hardships of life itself.
If each of us truly loves our friends and family, STOP giving THEM a pass on Trump and the Republican Party because you’re afraid of offending them. “Shake them until all of Trumps Pills come out of their pockets and they realize that the Emperor has NO CLOTHES!!!” One look at Trump Naked should bring any sane soul back to reality.
3
Michael Cohen got wise only after he got caught. Manafort apparently didn't. Maybe the opiate-addicted Trumpies in Republican land will get wise when they lose their Obamacare but I'm not betting on it. They've been voting against their own interests with depressing regularity.
5
A brilliant, insightful column Mr. Bruni. One of your best. Thank you.
3
Please don't use words like "we". I, and 65 million others, are not part of the "we" that allowed this cancer to putrefy our nation. I did not vote for him. His grift, his racism, his misogyny was always in plain site. I am tired of the false equivalency game that makes us all guilty. No. Not me.
8
Trump paid Cohen to hush Stormy Daniels long before he became a presidential candidate. In 2011, he paid Cohen to stop “In Touch Weekly” from publishing Stormy’s story by threatening it with a lawsuit. When news that Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 first broke, the news media ridiculed Cohen’s claim that he paid out of his own pocket. We now know Cohn billed Trump for the $130,000 plus a handsome fee for handling the nondisclosure agreement. Trump has the invoice and wire transfer to prove it. The payment was not a campaign contribution.
Paying hush money to influence an election is only illegal of campaign funds are used to make the payments. The FEC has ruled that campaign money cannot be used for such things as hush money that a candidate would have cause to pay even if he weren’t a candidate—even if the expenditure enhances his change of election. This is why Trump paid out of his corporate pocket rather than out of campaign funds. The FEC has known about the hush money payments for more than two years but has taken no action because no campaign money was used.
Presidential candidate John Edwards was acquitted of using campaign contribution to pay hush money to his mistress even though the money used came from two wealthy Democratic donors, He persuaded a jury that the donations were to him personally rather than to his campaign. Trump isn’t going to be charged with using campaign contributions to pay
hush money.
2
"We had to bury values that should never be buried. In our case that meant condoning Trump’s racism;..."
What's with the "We" nonsense, you got a mouse in your pocket?
Trump has been a sleezeball developer for years, most knew that.
3
Trump voters weren't "dazzled by the comet ride" - they were, and still are, drunk with permission from the man laying claim to the highest office in the land to wallow in the 7 deadly sins of pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. And now that they've indulged in those sins full time for the last few years, they're not leaving the dark side for anything.
5
"Only a small minority of people would do quite what he did and break laws for the boss or benefactor to whom they’d hitched themselves. "
Frank, puuuuhhhleeeeaaaazzzzze. The entire republican political machine is much worse than Trump or Cohen. The funny (and frustrating) thing about Trump is how up front he is about his amorality, and how he's never had to pay consequences for being a sleazebag scofflaw for the last 49 years. The republicans like Mitch, Orrin, Ryan, ad infinitum are really slithery, slimey chameleons, hard to catch, covering their tracks, choosing their words carefully, and making sure they have a hole to run to close by. Crikey, you sound like a Pollyanna here bud. Integrity has gone the way of the Dodo, just like our Democracy.
7
The distressing part is Michael Cohen is just a sample of one bad actor.
Consider some of the other president's departed appointments, and where they came from: Flynn from the US military; Spicer and Bannon from the media; KT Walsh, Porter, and Priebus from the RNC; Hicks, Manigault-Newman, Cohn and Tillerson from corporate America; and Sessions, Price, Shulkin and Pruitt from US government. But this is also just a sample set.
It's impossible to avoid the question, how infected with wayward compasses is the US military, the media, the RNC, corporate America and our US government?
The Michael Cohen situation is serious, but he is only one datapoint.
3
Michael Cohen is a criminal and his associates are criminals and Donald Trump is a criminal. He didn’t get wise- he is limiting his risk.
As I told my airplane seat mate on 11/7/2016, Trumps whole business is money laundering and has been for
Some time.
4
All Peas in the same pod. Flynn was a different person before he met DT....and then he got swept up, like Cohen and others, in the Tsunami, with a capital T. Choose your friends ... and business associates.....wisely.
2
cohen was a crook before he latched onto trump. they were made for each other.
and the republican congress was filled with racist greedy homophobic misogynists before trump came down the escalator. orrin hatch spoke the truth when he said "i don't care"
they ALL are worthy of our scorn, contempt, and rage. they are nothing other than liars and thieves.
2
And in 20 years he'll be a regular commentator on CNN, just like John Dean
He didn't get wise, he got caught!
3
What has Michel Cohen done which has harmed America and its citizens, and why should the average person care?Author fails to inform us of what precisely Cohen is guilty of besides paying off strippers for his client's benefit, President Trump!Is this what American taxpayers, already billed for 30 million and counting for Mueller and his legal team, mostly HRC donors and some who actually worked for the Clintons,get for their money?Recall that Trump's pecadillos were committed BEFORE he took office, whereas Clinton's abuse of women took place while he was in office, going back to days when he was governor. Nuance and as the French say, a nuance makes all the difference.
Write about subjects that folks really care about, like the massive homelessness in Cal., sub standard housing in the 5 boroughs! Do some investigative reporting thereon!Give us an update on Animal Care and Control, city's animal shelter system which is still euthanizing hundreds of thousands of abandoned pets per year and needs additional funding to lower the kill rate. They could even use u a a volunteer! Fear however that u would not deign to do so.Altruism does not appear to be in your nature!Never forget what Starr told James Carville, even before he began his "enquete" of Clinton's improprieties,"We're gonna roll your boy!"This was even before Starr commenced to gather evidence.Author's degrading comments about our president do nothing to change hearts and minds!
The cancer of corruption and criminality is upon us. A level of indecency, ineptitude and ignorance stalks the grounds and makes its rounds. Fouls winds of fecal fecundity fester and flourish amongst the land.
Thy brood is trump, and a pox upon all who soil the land with its name.
2
The relationship of Trump and Cohen reminds me of the connection between two fictional characters in The Shield, one of my favorite police dramas of the early 2000s. The corrupt detective Vic Mackey and his subordinate Shane Vendrell could as easily have cropped up in a Shakespearean tragedy. In The Shield's final episode, after years of obeying heinous and illegal orders, Shane writes in a suicide note that he regretted ever meeting Mackey.
I wonder if Cohen would echo those words. I wonder if any of Trump's more than sixty million voters are feeling regret.
1
‘Americans erred in laying ourselves open to Trump, and I’m not talking about conservative versus liberal policies, about tax cuts, about regulations — though all of those matter. I’m talking about the green light that we’ve given to indecency, dishonesty, cheating and, according to a growing body of evidence, outright criminality’.
I categorically reject your attempt to draw me into the numbers of those who ‘(laid themselves) open to Trump’. I resisted, protested, fought, and decried the ‘dishonesty, cheating and, according to a growing body of evidence, outright criminality’ of this treasonous impostor. Don’t enjoin me in the culpability of those who thought he was their Great White (Orange) Saviour. To do so offends me deeply.
2
Old story about god and the devil having an argument and the devil says he won’t give in to god. God says well then I’ll sue you. The devil bursts out in laughter almost unable to ask god where are you going to get a lawyer?
2
Obviously, Cohen is a shady character and a coward. It is easy to see how his moral compass is in alignment with the shady character now known as Individual-1. Cohen is not a victim here. He's just polishing his bruised self-esteem and hoping for time off for good behavior.
After seeing the Cohen interview with Stephanopoulos, all I can think of Cohen is : CON MAN.
2
Trump voters will never turn on him as he's told them that every one of their imaginary grievances against anyone different than them, meaning anyone not a white Christian nationalist, are real, and "Fake News," with its unforgivable use of facts, stands in their way.
A real model for what happened here is Robert Mueller's 1991 prosecution of John Gotti's hit-man "Sammy the Bull" Gravano. Gravano was offered 5 years in exchange for his cooperation in taking down kingpin Gotti and the Gambino crime family. The parallels between Gravano, Gotti, and the Gambino crime family, and Trump, and the Trump Family/Administration, are obvious. The Trump administration was from the outset a criminal enterprise. Cohen, like all members of the Trump administration who previously worked for Trump, was a part of that.
If Gravano was fiercely loyal to Gotti, why did he turn on him? Revenge. Prosecutors had recordings of Gotti savaging Gravano, blaming him for everything, and setting up his defense to frame Gravano as solely responsible for all the crimes Gravano only committed because Gotti ordered him to. For Gotti, like Trump, loyalty only traveled one way, and that was to him.
Trump treated Cohen terribly despite his loyalty, and blamed Cohen for all his crimes. Cohen finally had enough and gave the prosecution everything without even working out a plea agreement; unheard of in a case like this. Revenge is a primary reason criminals "flip" on their superiors; it's what happened here.
6
Cohen has been corrupt for many years. He sold his integrity for Trump money, not because he was dazzled
2
Michael Cohen was a crooked attracted to a crook for crooked reasons. Only after getting caught, is he sorry. He's hiding his other crimes for crooked reasons. Three years is a very light sentence in exchange for his illegal audio recordings.
1
After i read Mr. Bruni's piece, I find myself in a familiar place, wondering about the ~thirty-five percent of Americans who, even at this juncture, still cheer the orange grifter on, convinced he is their hero being unfairly demonized by liberals, the media, George Soros, the Clintons, various cabals, etc. etc. That one-third. Are they deluded? Morally deficient? Never bought in to the ideals of America? Angry beyond imagining? In some Kool-Aid trance? Determined to dis-believe ANY fact, finding, disclosure that contradicts their preferred view of Trump? These are not people who, like Cohen, get to ride around in jets, go backstage at beauty pageants, get handed envelopes stuffed with cash, or even get past the gate at Mar-a-Lago. What does their (I fear rage-filled) awakening look like? It may be justice to two-thirds of the nation, but what will it be to them? I don't expect to hear a "Thank you for the moral reckoning" or "At last, I can be free."
5
Frank, you've fallen for Lanny Davis' manipulation. Davis is notorious for his representing Clinton and most recently Dmitry Firtash, Ukrainian Oligarch/Mobster. Michael Cohen did not take seemingly small steps into the abyss until he found himself somehow the right hand to the devil. Instead, he was an corrupt, greedy, opportunist who took full advantage of Trump orbit. He also laundered money for ex-soviet oligarchs, set of 1/2 a dozen fraudulant medical clinics with Alexsander Martirosov & Zhanna Kanevsky , and bought taxi mediallions and partnered with his father-in-law and the Brighton Beach ex-Soviet set. He is crook who is now seeking to explain away a career of criminal activities. Trump is a full blown criminal but he is also a convenient larger than life target who presents plenty of shade for the Cohens of the world
1
I think you give Mikey too much credit Frank Bruno. He´s been with the Russians for years. Their goal was infiltration and Cohen helped them achieve it. I hope Mueller and teams root out all the hidden money - I suspect Cohen will go to a white man country club "prison" and get out to live off of his hidden assets. He´s no good guy.
1
Cohen was a hit man, working for a crime boss. He knew exactly what his job required.
The only people who could possibly be sympathetic to Cohen are the thugs who have yet to be caught, and the many Trump supporters who will never catch on.
1
Trump Country USA will sadly follow this con man Jim Jones president into drinking the Kool Aid. He of course will not drink, just fake a sip and smirk.
3
1963: “ From Russia with Love “. Movie.
2018: To Russia with CASH. Trump Family.
Happy Holidays.
1
Americans chosen path in electing Trump not exactly parallels Cohens, who just wanted to be in that aura. Americans had Clinton and Bush fatigue, and Trump knew how to play it. Cohen was self serving, now is bitter. In Cohens defense, how else can you be around a man like Trump, than compromise yourself in his service. He should have known that. His bad. Many people admired Trumps business career, encased in show biz as it was, that now may not so much. The carnage continues, including any good ideas Trump may have for the country. They (GM) and others, don't seem to be listening anymore. Is everybody looking past Trump?
Cohen was UNDER punished.
3
The word "wise" should not appear in the same headline as the name Michael Cohen.
2
Unless accompanied by the word “Guy”
2
They have no moral compasses,the only thing they know is he is not the black man that was in the White House prior.
2
America has wised up. Expect Trump to be re-elected with even greater numbers. Your with her hunt be damned.
When I question why people tolerate trump, I go through a mental exercise that involves imagining he supports my policies like protection of the environment, choice for women on abortion, financial regulations to reduce financial risk, less harsh treatment of immigrants, etc. Then I come to the uncomfortable realization that I would be sorely tempted to support him even in the face of his obvious personal defects and behavior. It would be all about polices. So his supporters are understandable, even if very misguided policy-wise in my opinion.
1
Excellent! Well said.
2
When Stephanopoulos asked Cohen why he made the payments, Mr. Big Brown Eyes said with a straight face, "Out of loyalty."
And George-$15 million-year-Journalist just sat there taking it in with no follow-up. Out of loyalty?!
How about the $60,000 bonus Cohen was paid to do Trump's "dirty deed"?
And you, too, Frank, fail to mention this salient fact. How naive can people be? If our top journalists fall for this stuff, we're all doomed.
2
Can’t wait for Michael Cohen, the movie. A lot of material there.
Michael Cohen was not a choir boy who succumbed to the temptations and persuasiveness of a richer more famous Trump.He has been involved in the Taxi medallion business in New York and other businesses which the New York Court are waiting for him to own up to.He says he see the error of his ways with Trump( who wouldn’t) but he still has some secrets.He didn’t get “wise” , he got mad.He was not invited to the White House so on his own was trying to sell access to Trump through him.In this he had lots of competition.American voters are wiser than Cohen.
1
“Americans erred in laying ourselves open to Trump...” ...and just who do you mean by “Americans?”
I’m an American and I most certainly did not err in laying myself open to Trump; as well as most of the intelligent, considerate Americans who voted for Hillary, not Trump!
To borrow a phrase from Nancy Pelosi, please don’t characterize the majority of voters intentions!!
5
The fact is the payments to Stephanie Clifford and Karen McDougal were not campaign contributions nor campaign expenses and hence there was no violation of campaign finance laws.
Let me repeat, the law has not been broken.
The Democrats are stopping America's progress over a non-issue and the American people know it. If Trump committed adultery that is a serious sin, but that is between him and Almighty God.
Let's move forward, even if we have to do it with a man with many flaws... like you and me.
1
@truth This paper has nothing but nothing to do with reporting the truth. Of course no laws were broken by Mr. Trump. That has nothing to do with it. It's all about pretending. Let's pretend that we can just say and write whatever we want the truth to be. If enough people are believers in that lie, the big lie, then later, when the dirty democrats in the House impeach, then they will go to President Trump and say, "Your popularity is low. The People believe you to be corrupt. You have to step down and resign." That is the dirty game going on here and throughout the whole mainstream media. That's why it was arranged that Michael Cohen go on with George S. Just for public relations.
1
I honestly don’t know if it’s humorous or a deeper reflection of ivory tower malpractice of a journalist who presumably knows what he’s talking about when he couldn’t be more in the dark. Mr. Bruni, you literally have no idea what caused the 2008 Financial Crises. You literally have no idea what happened in the aftermath. You work for our nations paper of record and due to decisions made in the recesses of somewhere, you guys buried the truth and neither you or the populace writ large is the wiser. I’ve got news for you. The warning you wage is beyond your wildest comprehension and it’s not sometime down the road, but has been out of control for at least 14 years. Enjoy your bubble world while the rest of us who actually get it shake our heads in disbelief.
1
Watching Cohen on GMA earlier today he sounded like someone who was being deprogrammed about being in a cult.
Well, come to think of it...
1
Oh tempora, oh mores, if the country should think in the categories of Trumps fallen henchmen.
"No president in my lifetime has been surrounded by such a populous crowd of scammers, grifters and shameless opportunists"
Frank, when did ANY president since the inception of our country has been the subject of at least 4 investigations, before they were 2 years in office?
The Trump Campaign
The Trump inaugural Committee
The Trump Foundation
The Trump organization, etc, etc, etc.
Sickening is no longer applicable, but I cannot think of a stronger term to describe my feelings, if I want my comment to be published ...
3
Cohen got wise because he got caught. He knew all along he was breaking the law. Big rewards for him until he got caught.
Funny how getting caught clears the mind.
3
Cohen didn't get wise, he got caught. Then he got thrown under the bus by the love of his life.
2
Trumpville and its inhabitants - it is all getting old. As is the constant outrage in the media.
America: you voted for these people and their ilk. Aren‘t they just reflections of your obsession with money and slick and quick solutions?
For a country that hoots ,hard work‘ all the time, little do you invest in your democracy...
1
"He’s the country’s credulousness in extremis, its ugly bargains writ large."
I hope you don't mean it! America is not quite in extremis!
("credulousness in extremis" -- it means credulousness in the act of dying, not "extreme form of" credulousness.
Just sayin'
Cohen's words are those of a crooked New York City lawyer who got caught, not a man who has seen the light.
This was a masterpiece, Mr. Bruni. And, as have so many masterpieces throughout history that were panned at first publication or on first night, when will the buying public become aware of a great work? After it has gone out of fashion?
On the night of November 8, 2016, you wrote a post-election column from which I quote, in part, from, memory: “...Donald Trump’s victory was a repudiation of the black president...” You might wish to begin there.
What, exactly, was the lure of Donald Trump, the author of the birther conspiracy,” over Barack Obama? Were we, as a people, weary of decency? Tired of honorable conduct and a respect for time-honored institutions?
America was vastly unwise; it wanted a roller coaster ride instead of a sobering walk down a country lane.
We have, sir, what we, in our intellectual laziness and yawning lassitude, deeply desired.
3
@Red Sox, '04, '07, '13, ‘18: Trump did not run against Barack Obama.
So his election is not a repudiation of Obama.
Obama won, and served, two full terms of office -- the maximum BY LAW.
Trump ran and won against Hillary….an old, rich white woman.
2
Trump refers to his base but a more appropriate word would be fans. I doubt those who attended his rallys before the midterms were issue oriented. They appeared to be events for entertainment and anticipation of vitriol that would fire up the crowd. They were given the power to intimidate the press in the venue but many did not express that animosity towards reporters after. They had the opportunity to participate in a reality show led by Trump's imitation of TV Evangelical embracing his flock. Perhaps viewing those people for what they are, his fans, will enable those running for office to address the damage he has committed nationally and internationally vs their entertainment.
..
4
A significant majority of Americans have been wise from the beginning, unfortunately due to the structure of our “democracy“ our ability to do something about it is limited at best .
4
What Mr. Bruni seems to describe is the workings of an organized criminal enterprise, with the lieutenants doing the dirty work of their bosses and taking all the legal and moral risks in exchange for leading the glittering “good life,” all the while hoping to be noticed by the big man and eventually get “made.” Alas, for Cohen, he got caught before he gained the protection and immunity that goes with that.
3
Frank - you nailed it here, e.g. aligning yourself to Donald Trump requires you to bury values that shouldn't be buried. Well done.
8
You got remember the base. Individual-1 represents the anger held by disenfranchised nationalists. Outside of Washington, and other big cities lay rural America.
NEWS in these quarters is local. Network television NEWS on the other hand is entertainment and of course largely “fake”, after all someone is always
attacking individual-1. For the anti Semitic(very large number), Cohen is proof the world is out to get individual-1.
1
No. Is the answer to the question posed in the title of this essay. In fact, most if not all, of Trump supporters could care less about his ethics, and have quite frankly said so. As an evangelical supporter noted, 'I don't care if he raped 20 women, as long as he gets rid of abortion'. Or, Trump himself noted, 'I could shoot someone in Time Square, and not lose even one supporter'.
2
Michael Cohen got caught and like most crooks if he hadn't gotten caught he would still be floating other schemes.
He wasn't seduced by Trump, he simply saw an opportunity to go from small scale grifting to bigger and better hustles. Now that he's taking the fall he's happy to offer warnings to the public.
How will this affect the Trump supporters? Probably little at all. They voted for an idea, maybe even a hope or dream that someone in Washington would clean up the mess and help them right their lives.
Like anyone who gets hustled by a hustler, it's too embarrassing to admit that you got taken. So you cling to the dream, defend the scammer and hope that some piece of this charade might turn out OK.
In the end it won't. Neither for Trump or for his die hard supporters.
2
Note to all the wannabe seekers of "the comet ride": Rather than Trumpism (aka, hedonism), try entheogens (alt-pharma), or just intense self-scrutiny. These are much more enlightening, with none of the collateral damage.
What Trump and his cronies, that includes you Mitch and Paul, have done is take away the simple "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." We have all become the minions of a Bully-King; a tweeting tyrant.
And here we are on the precipice of 2019. Maybe this is the year we once again declare our Independence!
2
It seems that all who are dazzled by the false penumbral light end up sullied.
1
Many of us have fighting against this crime syndicate before Trump was "elected" by the Electoral College. We will not rest until these thugs/gangsters are brought to justice.
3
What Mr. Bruni skips is that Cohen only had his "come to Jesus" moment when brought before Meullers's team. In short, Cohen got caught. If Mr. Bruni thinks the one-third that still supports DT will have a similar insight, guess again.
1
Michael Cohen is far from being wise, much of what he was convicted for besides lying to Justice Dept was his own personal criminal activities. Sure, when caught he sings a different tune - supposedly the truth, even that was rejected as not so. A liar to the end. There are too many starving lawyers in a town like NYC, as newly minted lawyers who arrive in town soon find out, they must learn how to shill for their own clients to survive at big law firms. A good many leave their firms in their first year or leave town altogether. Others like Cohen seek possibilities in the shady corners of industries like real estate, where a Michael Cohen could feed himself and even thrive. Practice bad law with your license is common place and the public at large hears about rogue lawyers like Cohen that since inception, the law industry has been fighting off without success. The public is the real victim of the many Michael Cohen that practice for good or bad intent clients like a Donald Trump.
Whatever Cohen's motivation is, compared to Manafort, Kushner, Stone and Flynn he is practically a saint.
2
It's time we begin to consistently refer to those who support the demagogue in the White House as Trump sympathizers. The connotation is more than justified.
5
We continue to forget essential truths to our detriment:
1. There's no such thing as a free lunch.
-- Anyone offering to give you something without strings is selling something, even if it's their spiritual belief. Worse, many are Kanamits in disguise, poring over their plans in the book To Serve Man before taking you on a trip for their benefit alone. (Twilight Zone, 1962)
2. You cannot throw anything "away".
-- The toxins in a dump have a nasty way of ending up in our aquifers.
3. Paying for our government is necessary if we want a good one.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes said it best. "I love to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization."
4. "Of course, I will respect you in the morning."
-- Uh, huh. And I will forget you by midday.
There will never be a replacement for honesty, hard work, communal effort, respect for one another, caring and love. You need to be wary of any who offer you something else lest you take title to a new Potemkin Village. Only entropy comes easily.
11
I take great exception to Mr. Bruni's use of the collective "we' in giving "a green light to indecency, dishonesty,..." etc. that he awkwardly lassos a figurative rope around the majority of responsible thinking Americans. The 'Green Light' gave uninhibited permission among a big, select group of those who voted for Trump the go-ahead to awaken their dormant racial and LGBQT hatred along with their total ignorance of hard true facts that affect our country and the world at large. If their aim was to put into office a leader whose goal was to dismantle and wreck all the good our previous good, rational and responsible president put into place, they had their wish granted ten fold. Along with that our democracy has been put into a perilous state, but a significant percentage of the population apparently doesn't care about that.
3
Better call Saul! My beloved Saul Goodman mastered the art of moral flexibility and he would certainly argue that all trump followers have perverted it. There is a role for moral flexibility, just not in the wrong hands!
2
Getting scared and getting wise are two entirely different things.
2
Oh Frank, this made me weep for our country.
4
It is not just our country that Trump has corrupted. He stuck his fingers in the world pot, too, and stirred them around to create chaos and confusion, because doing it to his own country just wasn’t enough to satisfy his greed and cravings for attention. Never before in history has one man so changed the course of humanity, for the worse, by the sheer force of his personality. Our planet may be on a path to dying because of his greed and ignorance about climate change and refusal to do anything about it. Let that sink in: one man causing the physical end of the world. Stock markets around the world tumble and writhe in the chaos he causes with just one ignorant tweet. His pay-to-play presidency has tentacles in Russia and Saudi Arabia and who knows where else. He is a global wrecking ball, lurching from one crisis to another of his own creation, while everyone else pays the price.
7
The man has been convicted of lying and tax fraud. He seems to think history will remember him. What an ego.
1
There is no need to go make extreme comparisons to explain the evil that is Trump. Trump doesn't attract "admirers" or "good people" to his side. People who choose to work for him are motivated by what motivates Trump, greed, power, a certain cowardice who are lacking a conscience; the metaphorical "moral compass." This group that collectively makes up the White House is exceptional for their consistent lack of decency and a sense of shame. It is important to understand that they come from us, not from outer space or Russia. America is not a country filled with morally superior creatures, we have the same number of creeps and monsters that exist everywhere, since we came from everywhere. There is nothing about living in this place that blesses all our souls. Trump is a product of our culture and is adored by a large segment of our population, many who have not been fooled. They like who he is.
2
@DO5
Everywhere on earth, there are people who would without hesitation torture a small, helpless living creature. That, surely, was -- perhaps still is -- Trump. Many of the folks who support him likely are, too.
1
"Americans erred by laying ourselves open to Trump..." What's with the "ourselves," Frank? I wasn't taken in by Trump, and neither were you. Red America has given Trump his power. The rest of us can just keep singing the blues, or we can admit this marriage no longer makes any sense and file for divorce.
5
As a life-long student of psychology and behavior, I disagree with this assertion: "Only a small minority of people would do quite what he did and break laws for the boss or benefactor to whom they’d hitched themselves."
See Stanley Milgram's experiments in compliance and obedience. A shocking percentage of subjects were willing to break the law and risk hurting or killing someone when the lead experimenter told them to--and he was not their "boss" or "benefactor," and they weren't exactly "hitched" to him by agreeing to be a subject in an experiment.
My point is not that Cohen is like the comparatively innocent Milgram subjects. I think he was a gleeful and knowing participant in Trump's lawlessness for as long as it was to his great benefit. But, leaving behind the Trump-Cohen context, I hope we know humans better than to think that compliance with improper instructions from an authority figure is a rare phenomenon. Absent true vigilance borne from knowing it is an exceedingly common and dangerous human weakness, we are all at risk of playing follow-the-leader, even when it leads us far astray of where we would have seen fit to take ourselves.
"Hitch" with caution, if at all.
11
It is a mistake to valorize Michael Cohen. Every time you feel you're giving in to his sob story, go back and watch some of his TV appearances during the campaign. The man has no soul. He is a criminal. And this late-in-the-game backpedaling does not make him a profile in courage.
10
It is time for us to stop wringing our hands and get rid of this Mad Administration. We have two years to do our work. More protests, emailing the Congress, letters to the editors of all newspapers, working for ethical candidates who actually believe in public service.
We cannot wait for the “the Wheels of Justice” to do this for us. They grind to slowly.
Both the DNC and the RNC owe this country really good Candidares, but they cannot seem to remember what they used to stand for.
It is up to us to take our country back. We cannot wait for either Party to do the right thing
8
Cohen's negotiating techniques are practiced all over America. Deception and intimidation. Red lining, pay day loans, electioneering promises and deceptive claims by pharmaceutical and other manufacturing enterprises are just a few. Our Congressional and Senatorial spinelessness and never ending bribe hunting make these crimes untouchable. How many time have we heard of Banks and others paying large fines without admitting guilt? Minnows like Cohen are just collateral damage. He knows that now.
10
"And what he required of America was what he required of Cohen. We had to bury values that should never be buried. In our case that meant condoning Trump’s racism; indulging his corrosive conspiracy theories and self-preserving lies; permitting his demonization of institutions and people and whole countries; interpreting cruelty as candor and provocation as strength. Too many of us assented."
Again, the American people get a pass by a reporter/columnist. Trump is president exactly because many millions of Americans agree with him on all these counts. Trumps beliefs, theories, etc., are their beliefs. He didn't con them, he mirrored them. He exactly represents them. America is not the goodly generous nation that we blather on about. At heart , we are Trumpian. That's why he's President. Trump has allowed a false veneer to fall away.
6
If it weren’t for the antidemocratic electoral college, none of this would have happened. Millions more Americans voted for decency and truth and the rule of law. Thou dost generalize too much, methinks.
5
Exactly so. What are we, the people, going to do? Give Trump and his henchmen still on the loose a free pass and wait out anxiously the elections in 2020? Take a hard look at the disgusting legislative move made by Scott Walker and green lighted by the Wisconsin GOP. If we are not diligent McConnell and McCarthy with a majority approval from within their feckless, zero integrity party will attempt by similar means to cripple irreparably the SCO's investigation which has revealed an ethical rot (thank you, Frank) of epidemic proportions. Bruni is right. It is appalling how many in the electorate, like Cohen, preferred an insidious snake oil. And that so many within the GOP are still along for the ride.
3
Frank, no argument with the points made here. Don't overlook, however, that Cohen was blinded by the same greed as Trump, the same greed as many Wall Streeters, the same greed as Bernie Madoff. The same means justifies the end ethic that ignores the law on the path to wealth. Greed was the transmission of his character that drove him to Trump in the first place.
6
The more the left endorses the prosecutorial “shakedown” the higher the price they will pay when next they are in power.
2
I guess for me,the most heartbreaking of everything wrong with our country,was my sweet sucessful 22 year old son telling me last week,"Mom everything is corrupt".How did we let this happen to our country,how did we let this happen to our kids?He needs to be impeached.All of them need to be held accountable for what they have done to our nation.
5
While I am satisfied that Cohen has repented for a life of crime I am also thinking that his repentance is a jail house conversion rather than genuine contrition. I guess I can be satisfied especially if he unlocks the Russian and Saudi connections to the 2016 election for Mueller.
2
By whatever means, a change-of-heart is exactly that!
1
@joe New England
Would he do it again?
Every lie Cohen uttered before the election together with others paved the way for the Presidential win for the ultimate crook as Donald J. trump.
Now as we see Cohen has young adult children and wife and looking at them it is obvious Cohen provided them with a life of luxury at the expense of so many of people struggling to make ends meet but would refuse to deviate from the truth.
Now Cohen got caught and it is way too late to spill the beans.
trump is the President with all his lies, cruelty, and misdeeds and instead of working for us he thinks he is the dictator .
Bobby Mueller is our only HOPE .
4
When will the chattering classes stop wailing about the loss of norms? What good does it do to continually point this out?
Democracy is predicated on violating norms.
Yes, American life and values are being corrupted by having Trump in the White House. No doubt. But it is wrong to see him and his reign of near terror as merely revealing a deep flaws in ourselves. He is a product, too, of a poor system of selecting, electing presidents.
2016, first off, was a natural "change" year. One president had been in office for 8 yrs. and was under vicious, unrelenting rumor driven attack for trying to provide better, more widely available health insurance. Never forget that the Great Recession, ushered into our lives under G.W. Bush, ravaged parts of the country. Houses were lost. Jobs evaporated. Opioids spread like wildfire, bringing death to tens of thousands. Those who were employed at the lower ends saw their wages stagnate or shrink while those at the top got barrels of cash.
The Republican primary system is deeply flawed, allowing the candidate who gets the most votes, not a majority, to win all of the delegates in most states. This was custom made for a loud, bold candidate with many others dividing the rest.
The Electoral College is anti-democratic, intentionally so. If it were coupled with a requirement to get a majority of the popular vote, Trump would be in one of his golf clubs. (He got just under 47% of the total.)
Hillary was a poor candidate, a forced politician burned out from her husband's years in power and the rigors of being secretary of state. In short, we got a train wreck. The warning signs were present for decades.
8
The question I have is whether there is any evidence of Trump's depraved illegal actions that will convince his followers, in and out of Congress, that he has crossed the line. Thus far, the goalposts are still moving and his base % support remains rock solid.
2
I find Cohen's stunning comment about his former client's dealing with Russia far more revealing than his soul-cleansing conversion. Is Trump telling the truth about Russia, he was asked. "No," was the unequivocal answer. That, for me, is the equivalent of a constitutional crisis earthquake.
2
Having grown up and worked in the Midwest [specifically Ohio], then worked in NYC for years and got to experience Trump in the tabloids and shock media, the answer to your question is NOPE!
Pundits and politicians often opine about the 'educated voter'. When one votes against one's own self-interests how should we categorize a person? Hordes over the years are seduced by Trump. I personally do not get it. Maybe the question should be - Has Trump peeled back the facade of a large swath of America and exposed something no one really wants to discuss?
1
In 1921, Luigi Pirandello wrote an absurdist play entitled, "Six Characters In Search of An Author." Like those characters, a contingent of our countrymen, after Brown v. Board, the civil rights victories of the 1960's, the rejection by Cronkite of the Glorious Patriotic War (in Vietnam), Stonewall, and Roe, has sought a Duce who would revive the right to behave toward women, minorities, and inscrutable foreigners as their forebears did by embracing the Immigration Act of 1924 to spurn non-Northern Europeans.
Nixon's Silent Majority seethed because their parents and grandparents had had so much greater latitude for racist, sexist, and imperialistic behavior. Sadly for the MAGA crowd, national media expanded many Americans' awareness, redefining love from scriptural obedience to an awareness of the baleful consequences of racism and ecological irresponsibility. Those who craved the simplicity of a flag and a Bible had no clear voice.
A cynical Bizarro twin of 1960's media exploited this craving. Conspiracy theories and alternative truth migrated from mimeographed screeds to the mouths of attractive American archetypes who relentlessly substituted a risible narrative plausible only to those so inclined. To wit: Kenyans are from Kenya, not Hawai'i.
Two generations who have pined for a righteous label for their primitive attitudes will not be slowed down by revelations of crime. A child at our border dying of neglect is the sad descendant of those lynched to keep the peace.
4
"The many Republicans who continue to stand by Trump have lost their moral compasses, too."
What moral compass?
1
Will the country go as far as abetting a President that has opened himself to Russian extortion, just like Michael Flynn had done before starting to cooperate with the Special Counsel? Entrusting him with a second term? That may be the ultimate test of how disfunctional the collective consciousness has actually become.
1
I hold the majority of Republican lawmakers as complicit as Cohen. Too bad we couldn't indict the whole lot of them right now.
3
Frank, if Trump thinks that he'd rejoice at the possible gutting of Obamacare after one of his versions of "Trump Judges" in Texas ruled against the Constitutionality of the law, then there is no other fool in this world other than him.
What our Russia helped president has to worry about is what his longtime associate/lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen is going to say in a little more than three months of time than what he has already said to Mr. Mueller.
We can bet that Mr. Cohen'll say a lot more before he is sent to a federal prison on money laundering and campaign finance violations' charges.
If ultimately the Affordable Care Act is declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, Trump has to know that it is also not unconstitutional to charge a sitting president by the Special Counsel.
So if he feels happy after taking away medical care from 20 million Americans and hurting another 133 million Americans with pre-existing conditions that Obamacare gave them, then Trump's happiness will be very short lived.
With Michael Cohen's long incarnation away from his wife and two children due around the same time when Justice Robert's S.C.O.T.U.S. hears the oral arguments against the A.C.A.,Trump might enter into a double whammy phase of his life around the same month of March,2019.
Unless he offers to Mr. Cohen a gazillion of dollars, Trump's go to guy, who did his boss's "dirty deeds" till October, 2016,will sing to get either a reduced sentence or no jail time at all.
Go figure !
1
So true. Trump is not the cause, but the symptom. So may people have lost their way in America it is overwhelmingly sad. It took 40 years to get here. It won't be fixed overnight or by a single conviction. Not of Cohen or Trump. This is rot and mold and will take time and expense to remediate. The next blue hat will need to read: Make America Decent Again.
5
Our politicians and media call out Russia's oligarch's for their nefarious actions, from looting the government's coffers to killing journalists, but let's be truthful with one another, to a great extent our 1% are no different. They wrap themselves in the American flag and pledge allegiance to capitalism while they do the same, the only difference is that they mask it behind their call for democracy and their inability to murder journalist who do their best to keep them honest. Don't believe it. Just look at what led to the financial crisis, look at what Trump has done to tear down our government, while he has violated emolument laws, while pandering to his fringe base. Look at the non-sense Hatch spewed this week regarding Trumps involvement in potential campaign violations. His backers get on TV and come up with the most preposterous excuses for justifying his actions and behavior. Checks and balances left the station a long time ago when McConnell announced at the AEI forum that it was the GOP's plan to subvert Obama's agenda. It's all about the Greenbacks and nothing else.
5
To, "interpreting cruelty as candor and provocation as strength," I would add mistaking iconoclasm for reform.
This president's special rhetorical gift is to rationalize grievance where negotiation is the human reflex, and to justify contempt in matters wherever there is an expectation of good faith.
Self-interest in this world is the only uncorruptible motive. This is why Trump supporters are able to forever redefine their tolerance for his actions.
2
Cohen may or not be truly sorry; he might still be playing the game, in order to reduce his sentence--I don't know. But sometimes real change can happen, once a person realizes that they can be content in life without having to construct a facade of grandiosity to the world, which often can end up in self-hatred, and a loss of moral compass, where truth becomes a commodity with a price tag
Cohen was sitting at the top of the hill. Then he felt something wrapped around his ankle pulling him quickly down the hill. He is now all covered with dirt at the bottom of the hill facing the consequences for selling his soul and moral compass to Trump. He is now in the confessional loudly saying "Bless me, America, for I have sinned." And hoping for as few Hail Marys as possible. The American people started out , however, at the bottom of the hill. Trump looked down at them and told them "Come on up. Plenty of room up here If you follow me." They did and continue to do so. There is one big difference between Cohen and them. He lost everything. They had already gone through that. But they haven't made any headway up that hill. Because Trump is not offering them a hand up. Because he doesn't really want them up there. He just wants their allegiance. And they are more than willing to give it to him. How perfect for Trump. Cohen had a price for his willingness to commit crimes. The base? They are more than willing to look the other way for nothing in return. I wonder what they will do when they look up there and see he is gone and they are stuck right where he found them?
4
I don't see it in my trump supporter neighbors. I recall in 2008, those now Trump supporters claimed Obama was a false messiah for the masses and people who voted for Obama had drunk the kool aid. Alas, they now proclaim with even more fervor their president is the Messiah and nothing he would do would change their minds.
2
We all face temptation in life, along with the opportunity to benefit from crossing lines that shouldn’t be crossed. Michael Cohen had choices and knowingly made the wrong ones. Like Icarus, he flew too close to the sun and fell to the ground.
In my long business career in the largest of American corporations, which prided themselves on and demanded compliance centricity, I was pressured relentlessly on more than one occasion to do the wrong thing, and sometimes that pressure came shockingly from the highest corporate levels. Had I acquiesced, I no doubt could have made more money than I did, but it was never worth doing so, at least for me.
I never once succumbed, and always stood my ground, refusing to do what I was being asked when it was clearly wrong and even illegal, and in spite of relentless pressure. Throughout, I was stunned by the number of colleagues who were willing to look the other way while demanding that I do so as well.
To me, it was black and white, and there should never have been any question. I killed every one of those deals and never gave an inch. My conscience and my record are clear. I was never tempted to do the wrong thing, and to this day, my most prized award is the one I received from the legal department for consistent compliance centricity.
Most of us know where the lines are drawn. It’s not that hard. Cohen did, too, but he willingly crossed them. He deserves the consequences, even if his family and the country don’t,
6
Cohen's confessional take this week has been interesting to watch. While I certainly hope his sincerity and apologies mean something, I will hold judgment for now. Cohen does represent the larger abdication of morality in our country. That someone like Trump could be elected (even narrowly) by the populace suggests how careless we are and how easily influenced we are. The Cohen saga reflects a larger picture of the US gone astray. We live with lies now that corrode our decency and honesty. Cohen got caught and now he is penitent. But in the meantime, the country pays the price.
10
Cohen may have deserved what he got, but I have to doubt the claim the payoffs were actually campaign contributions is valid. Trump had perfectly sound reasons for wanting to protect his brand that were clearly independent of the election. Having met that requirement, the fact he became involved in an election which increased his incentive to consummate the payoff schemes should not be interpreted as converting a lawful personal expense into a campaign expense. It appears the prosecutors as well as their rooting section in the media, may have been blinded by their desire to develop a narrative that would harm Trump politically.
1
@Tom
The problem with your statements is that you have no idea what other evidence the prosecutors have. It is highly unlikely that they would have brought their charges and issued their particular sentencing memo unless they had a lot of corroborating evidence, but we may not know the particulars for a while yet. Additionally, the cooperation of AMI with the prosecutor's increases the likelihood that there was a concerted effort to do more than help I1 to avoid embarrassment - that deep into the campaign the setting up of shell companies to pay people for their silence means that the payments were de facto campaign contributions because they materially contributed to a conspiracy to defraud the American voters by not revealing selected information about the candidate.
Ask yourself honestly, if these actions had been taken by another candidate, would you be so sanguine in your judgment?
14
@Tom - I'm sure all criminals believe they had a perfectly good reason to commit criminal acts.
2
@Tom
If one cannot see that harming Trump politically would be the first step in "making America Great Again," then I have little hope for the country.
No, Mr. Bruni,
We haven't "given the green light to indecency, dishonesty, cheating and ... ... outright criminality." Instead, our focus has been too singular on pushing fringes of increasingly twisted quality.
Where is the reality check against hierarchy-premised fundamental quality of group development? Our developmental process has run amuck with lacking development for qualitatively opposed learning. Yes, we all say we value equality, but so far few people give these opposing threads of development their fully justified due.
Ancient philosophers saw that need. But the process of those *individuals* too was slowly corrupted by the same budding academic profession which we find so powerful today. Individuals were questioning, but teachers even back then could not refrain from premising all following quality on the hierarchic need for a belief in gods.
We enable equalitarian-established learning by first questioning anything and everything that came before, need being *qualitatively* better learning. Questioning is the first behavioral act in "filling in" (i.e. develop) a legitimate matrix of learning to qualitatively oppose earliest learning now running amuck with craziness.
Through comparisons -- flipflopping back and forth -- we then evolve ever more balanced learning, a fundamentally maturing process for life. Authenticity, equality, integrity, and freedom evolve.
Go for balance; model ever better learning. Gods can still exist; and gods cannot evolve. Both!
2
I learned about Michael Cohen's lawyering well before Trump became President, reading about Trump's use his business organization's lawyers when he'd get sued. Their jobs, apparently, were to verbally bully, demean, threaten every conceivable abuse of legal process, and promise physical harm to make the litigation or threat of litigation against Trump to go away. The examples given by litigants, if true, violated so many rules of professional conduct for lawyers and were so bad that I wondered whether abusive behaviors by lawyers in New York State was standard and simply just tolerated by the Bar and Judges there. I was amazed he had not been disbarred, and, of course, it was clear to me that Trump expected his lawyers to act this way.
A sojourn in prison is not something I wish on anyone who is not charged and convicted of violent crime. In Cohen's case, however, prison will at least prevent him from engaging in tactics and behavior against litigation opponents that makes the legal system seem intolerable and unfair.
6
Trump is the mirror into which America stares to see the image of what it wishes to be. Cohen saw what he saw because it reflected his desires.
People blame the Republicans but all too many Democrats looked at Trump and wished they could be him. Then tried to emulate his methods and his morals.
Trump, for all that is wrong with him, is a symptom of America not the disease.
4
The "everybody does it" excuse on full display.
Growing up as I did in the Bronx, I saw and was very close to characters like Trump’s motley crew. When I worked in Manhattan I saw and was close to those arrogant swaggering types, too.
Can’t tell you how satisfying to see Cohen and hopefully Mr. T get what they richly deserve.
15
@Outer Borough
I have had similar experiences and observations.
I managed to keep true to my most precious ideals but it was very difficult. The attacks were continuous corrosive demeaning and at times made self reflection Uh uncomfortable.
I survived but after many years still feel the effects and that's appalling.
1
Terrific writing, as usual Mr. Bruni. You nailed a number of great points but without demeaning and condescending those who support Trump. This is sorely needed on the left, which has become intolerant, bigoted, and authoritarian in recent years. Trump can be fun, charismatic, and persuasive, though usually in the worst ways. Of course he has an allure that can capture many ordinarily good people into his corrupt gravity. I just hope his supporters will see through their own distortions and cognitive dissonance soon enough to get rid of Trump and all his ilk in the future. We need a return to values, many of which are already held by most of his supporters, such as integrity, honor, and respect.
7
Deep column.
It isn't about Cohen, it's about almost every Republican in the country, and almost every civil service employee. It's also about most employees of oil and gas companies. And maybe Facebook employees too.
It's about Obedience to Authority. Human nature is deeply flawed, and you open yourself up to take the same fall as soon as you think you are better than Cohen.
5
@priceofcivilization
Disagree. I was a Civil Servant for over 30 years. In spite of a change in upper administration in the organization I worked for to a gimme everything and I don't care who suffers from a balanced administration. I and many others managed to keep our values.
It was rough for that gimme everything and I don't care who suffers became a normal instead of the abnormal. It makes you think you are wrong by trying to be fair and balanced.
It also breeds a deep distrust in your supervisors. After that administration was terminated I found I had a hard time believing what my supervisors told me even after a few years. Eventually due to that and poor health I retired.
Has Washington "jumped the shark" ?
Many viewers have lost faith in the show, and as future episodes become more ridiculous, the serious actors may just walk off.
This is the franchise that redefined the genre. Sad.
2
@evan - we're hoping the lead character is written out of the script.
5
There is less insight to be found among these comments than the nation's troubled situation requires. Too many commenters premise remarks on the notion that Trump's followers endorse Trumpism. Some do, of course, but not most.
Most rationalize acceptance of Trump because real experience and fake advocacy have coincided—leaving Trump's followers certain that Trump is the only hope they have. Their considerable numbers, and their confidence that even Trump is better for them than anything America's status quo politics offers, ought to focus other Americans' alarm where it would do more good—on the political bankruptcy of the mainstream Democrats and Republicans alike.
The way to curing Trumpism will not be found in efforts to cure or bypass Trump's benighted legions. They won't change until personal experience and political observation show them that status quo politics is no longer determined to bypass their needs, while branding them as deplorables or exploiting them as suckers.
That points toward outright rejection of status quo Republicanism. And also toward an even more thoroughgoing rejection of the awful, plutocracy-catering, identity-politics-infatuated Democratic party of today.
Until some among mainstream American politicians—Democrats or Republicans—find a way to craft policy based on a much broader base of citizen interests than either party presently entertains, expect the nation's descent toward chaos to continue.
1
The Trump voter is likely irredeemable until the reporting focuses on the nature of the Russians who have kept Trump afloat for the past 25 years. "Oligarchs"--a term so vague as to be inappropriate when describing these people--should be banned from reporting. These are men who made money from prostitution, murder, child slavery, gun running, the heroin trade and straightforward extortion. There is a direct connection between these men and Donald Trump: sex, money and crime
American will not be let off easily for electing this man to the Presidency.
8
Donald is like a simplified lesson in human psychology and the psychology of charismatic dictators. He has a commanding presence many find diffi ymt to say no to precisely because he has no empathy and ab extremely simple world view. Comey resisted him and lost his job (but retained his dignity and morality). The country is captive to the entity that was selected by the Electoral College (the college utterly failed in its duty) and we will pay dearly for it for decades and generations to come.
3
The Electoral College didn't fail---we failed because over the years the belief that the EC is supposed to do nothing but rubber-stamp the popular election state by state has become widespread. It was intended to be a last chance to declare a candidate unfit for office.
We need to educate the public on that. When the elector from New York refused to vote for Trump, he was widely excoriated and even received death threats!
2
I believe you are wrong to equate Cohen with the many employees of the federal government who are tasked with cleaning up the mess that donald trump creates on a daily basis.
4
How elegantly you have written about America’s woes under the most incompetent leader the country has experienced. As a US citizen living in the UK, I can assure you that the day he was elected I cried my eyes out, then apologised to my children that they had to witness it. You hit the nail on the head with your editorial and what the true meaning of my sentiments were two years ago: that the US had lost its moral compass and we permitted an immoral bully to run the show and set a wretched example to our children.
22
The morning after the election I felt the same as the morning after Brexit: a confused and anxious nation had been coerced or driven to self harm.
The view from the Great Multicultural North , the last democracy left in North America, Cohen, Trump and their acolytes should be no surprise to the fake democracy on our southern border, a slave era electoral college that negates any popular vote for the presidency, a senate majority elected by 18% of the population, a gerrymandered congress, no national independent electoral commission, and a political judicial system that just rendered your horrible health care system unconstitutional!
25
In a sane America Trump would have been exposed as the shallow fraud he was and is the very first time he hauled out his pack of lies about Obama being some foreign-born pretender to the presidency.
The fact that he wasn’t laughed at in the face by grown men, self righteous preachers and business people meant we would be in for a world of hurt thanks to their cowardice. They couldn’t wait to be Michael Cohen. It’s a crying shame.
And now we have a bunch of republicans with their rears covered- like the pitiable Orrin Hatch, saying they don’t even care if their guy Trump is a crook or not. It didn’t have to look like this.
21
So much to disagree with.
"Didn’t Americans do that when they turned to Donald Trump in the presidential campaign of 2016?" No we didn't - most of us have been apalled by Trump from the beginning.
And the idea that Cohen was simply an innocent guy taken in by Trump is also absurd. Cohen knew what he was doing for quite a long time, well before his presidential run. He associated himself with someone who he thought would provide money and prestige. Most of us don't ever compromise ourselves like this.
14
@Larry Figdill Bravo.
"Trump looked at Cohen and correctly saw someone who wasn’t going to be in the fast lane unless hitched to him, and he sensed that Cohen knew it. Trump looked at America and correctly saw an anxious, uncertain populace that was ripe for facile answers, scapegoats and a narrative of unjust victimization."
I often read comments that seem to imply Trump is insightful, and able to capitalize on those insights. Nothing could be further from reality. He's simply an accidental human, crashing from pillar to post, propped up by the most respected commodity in America: money, and his Dad'a money at that. This is man trapped in a self-made tornado of bad judgment.
11
With all due respect, and regardless of one's view of Trump, I don't think Cohen is a posterboy of a conversion to righteousness. He is still a scheming conman. First, Mueller outplayed him by exposing him on his personal crimes that have nothing to do with Trump, and for which he could have been sent to jail for a very long time in state court - hence the whole pardon thing was off the table. His lawyers certainly explained to him that him "seeing the light" and turning against Trump is the best, if not the only viable, strategy. It probably was a an even more dramatic nudge coming from Democrat lawyers. Cohen continued to play his weak hand the best way he could. We don't know how much he lied to save his behind. I bet a lot, which is a shame, because it obscures Trump's culpability.
4
Very well written ~
trump is a tragic nightmare who’s given permission to too many Americans to act and think in ways violently unspeakable ...
I hope we stand up, fight and win for a higher, enlightened ideal of a united America and humanity ~
2
How true. We all did contribute to Trump's ascension to the presidency...by willfully ignoring his long and ongoing despicable behavior. Insofar Michael Cohen's attitude of servilism towards this vulgar bully, asking him to cheat along while it lasted, only took undoing his conscience once; from then on, it became tolerable, even permissible, however 'criminal' the intervention.
1
@manfred marcus Speak for yourself! MANY of us saw this con-man for what he was.......and that was when he was just a local (New York City) con-man.....before he ever set foot on the national scene.
Cohen isn’t in trouble because of Trump, he’s in trouble because he committed bank fraud and evaded his taxes as well as other issues with his taxi medallion business.
This situation is not a campaign finance violation according to many experts that are actually educated on FEC law and even if turns out to be there is no way that the congress will impeach and remove a president over hush payments to his paramours.
Democrats and their fawning media should be careful about overreaching.
You are trying to rewrite the facts by saying "many experts" share your opinion, but, fortunately the courts are not swayed by criminals' fans opinions. And then you try to have it both ways with your excuse.
Campaign finance violations are a felony not up to a vote by the public.
@Jackie
You are mistaken. Prison time has been allocated to men who have violated FEC laws, crimes not nearly as clear and nefarious as this.
Who are your “experts,” who are “actually educated”?
Figuring out who and why anyone would hang around Trump isn't difficult, especially when analyzed from a psychological perspective. Criminals tend to surround themselves with criminals who figure the central figure will make them rich too. (however, in this case, Trump's wealth is all ephemeral) The vogue's gallery surrounding Trump is too crooked for him not to be. His whole organization is run like a criminal organization, with all the lieutenants taking falls before the Don (literally).
3
Frank, I always enjoy your columns; this one included. However, I have to take exception to your wistful closing argument about America “getting wise.” If you mean the approximately 60% of the populace who long ago recognized the corruption present all the way from the White House, through Congress, and down to the State and local levels of government that accurately characterizes today’s GOP, then that was a fait accompli long ago.
If, however, you mean the 40% of the electorate who continue to support our grifter-in-chief and his entire entourage (i.e., the entire Republican party), then you’re barking at the moon. As sure as the sun rises in the morning and sets every night, die-hard Trump supporters are not going to have some sort of rapturous conversion to sanity and accommodation, so get over it. As a practical matter, going forward I will spend my time and effort doing what I can to encourage and empower the very best and motivated civics-minded people in my life, and ignore those others: Life’s too short to waste your time trying to teach pigs how to sing—and they don’t enjoy it any more than I do.
9
...Cohen does not tweet, instead, he goes on television to communicate to trump and his legal team, to get them a message.
Cohen isn't threatening trump when he said that the government knows what I'm saying is true because of all the corroborating evidence... Corroborating evidence. <--- That is the message.
Translated, it means, "hey boss, dey got all da tapes and memos and checks."
Instead of coming completely clean, Manafort, Flynn, Gates, et. al, these guys are getting none to petty prison terms while they string the investigation along, awaiting either a pardon or a big pay-out at the end.
You know, a respect for process.
1
Who is this rhetorical we? As a Black woman, I saw who Trump was from the moment he came down the escalator, and apparently so did other Black women since 94% of us voted for Hillary Clinton. Mr. Bruni should be more specific and name the real "we" who went along on the Trump ride - White Americans. I have been waiting for White Americans to have this conversation since 2016 to no avail. The truth is that until White Americans are willing to deal with racism, misogyny and xenophobia, there will be more Trumps to "sway" them from their alleged values.
11
@professor
Not all of us. As a white man I found Mr Trump extremely hard to take. I had hoped for better after he was elected ( yeah I tend to the optimistic) but it's not what I am observing and I find this scary and sad.
@professor Brava!
Cohen was breaking laws before trump with his taxi business. I don’t see the “moral compass”.
3
If anyone wonders why Trump surrounds himself with shysters just go with the adage Birds of a feather flock together. What is most disheartening is the legion of people who voted for Trump and dismiss his nefarious behavior as "fake news." They care not a whit that Trump rigged his election, obstructed justice by firing Comey, or entered into financial deals with Russia and the Saudis during his presidency. A small fraction of those who voted for him may have gotten wise to Trump, but he still enjoys overwhelming support of Republican voters. Is there a tipping point? Certainly not with Cohen spilling the beans. They, like Trump, view Cohen as a lying rat. Will there be anything in the Mueller report that turns Trump supporters or Republican legislators against him? Sadly, I think not.
The horror of it all is that there are enough Michael Cohens in the US to install Trump in its presidency.
3
Besides Mueller, Cohen is all we've got right now.
Even the dimmest Trump supporters have to realize that Cohen knows most of the dirt.
Trump's own words, "Ask Michael, he's my lawyer".
I don't care About Cohen's past. I care that he's inflicting great harm on Trump.
Let's take what we can get.
7
Cohen came clean and confessed his crimes in assisting a fraud, liar and racist Donald Trump to win an election by deceiving the public and by seeking the help of the Russians. It is time for the Republican leadership to stop protecting their mascot Trump who has no concept of, or respect for the law of the land. For Trump it has always been business as usual.
However, those who control the GOP, the second party in our so-called democracy, are pathetic hypocrites who are destroying respect for our nation around the globe. Shame on them all!
3
After the sack cloth and ashes routine, Trump enablers seeking forgiveness should instead just shut up and go away — to prison.
1
“The bill came due for Cohen. It will come due for the country, too. The bill came due for Cohen. It will come due for the country, too.”
The only way to pay the bill is to impeach Trump and hold his criminal regime responsible.
3
So now that he’s cooperating, what does he know about Trump’s tax returns?
2
cohen is taking a metaphorical bullet for trump by going to prison. sad he did not know trump would be the fifth ave shooter.
1
He didn't get wise. He got caught.
4
At some point in life we may have to pay for our misdeeds. In the Cohen case he had to pay when he got caught.
Trump may not have to pay at all. He may yet get away with everything by manipulating his rights as president due to the immunity guidelines while in office.
Mueller may not have enough evidence to connect Trump legally with Cohen.
We were all suckered by Trump due to our bad judgment and our laziness in not opposing him strongly enough during the campaign.
I believe that Trump learned most of his values from his father and Roy Cohn. He learned greed and racism from his father and deceitful manipulation from Cohn.
Trump spent many hours and days with Cohn learning how to cheat people using bankruptcy laws and counter suits in order to minimize his financial obligations. Cohns influence cannot be overemphasized. His svengali influence was based on absolute corruption and taking advantage of others naïveté.
Basically, Cohns persona lives on in the body of Donald Trump!
2
Cohen is nothing more than a sleazy "lawyer" who lacked the subtlety and smarts not to get caught. He most certainly is not a metaphor for America, or if he is then every criminal of every stripe is one as well. To understand Cohen, and all others of his ilk one need only read Warren's All the King's Men. or any one of Shakespeare's histories. Greed, ambition, compromise and corruption--what's new? Politics and business are rough and often filthy, and what is "reported" is merely the tip of a colossal iceberg comprised of a multitude of crimes that will almost always remain beneath the surface. There is nothing particularly different about trump or his sycophants. What might be new is the portion of the electorate that is so terrified of the changing world around them that they would put such a monstrosity inside the Oval Office so as to signal their desperation and despair.
3
"We" haven't given a green light to any of this. Some of us have been out there from day one, with the plain evidence that Trump represents a national emergency. I sometimes think these opinion writers twist themselves in pretzels trying to make simple things complicated, and it takes a commenter to point out that Cohen "didn't get 'wise,' he got caught."
3
An excellent piece Mr. Bruni. It's easy to feel sorry for himself now that it has all backfired and gone south. Had Trump stayed in NYC, and with the poor oversight on white-collar crime, Cohen would be still performing the same stand-over services for Trump without a qualm. If not already, Trump also will regret his step too far as his empire gets deconstructed by the Feds and they close in on himself and the kids. He never should have stuck his head above the parapet. By the look on her face Melania's biding her time also.
6
The majority of America has already wised up to Trump, his family and his minions, like Cohen. It is the Republican Congress, exemplified by Steven King, Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and Orrin Hatch, that has done nothing to fulfill its role as a check on Presidential power.
32
He lost by 3M votes. He was selected by the electoral college but he was not elected. The start to fixing this nonsense is to always say he lost by 3M votes but was selected by the electoral college. Speculation about him running in 2020 is pointless when faced with the current situation. The 80K people in four states that gave us this disaster do have issues that need to be addressed. Anyone running for president should start with FDR's 4freedom speech for foreign policy and the New Bill of Rights for domestic policy, The red states need to be reminded that FDR is the one who brought electricity to their land and LBJ tried to address poverty. The GOP brought the interstate highway system so everyone can quickly pass through their land. We cannot afford the same opposing arguments that have gone on for decades. We need to listen to the other side, find the weakness in their argument and run a shiv into that point. We need to realize that a political party has a list of problems/solutions and that a list is sequential. Politics is not a career. Public service is a career.
17
Perhaps there should be a retirement age??
Good and Bad-- Wars,Cold War, anti-Jewish refugee policies and plenty of philandering. Which is the least of the issues?
Mr. Bruni,
An eloquent piece of writing, and a shrewd assessment o Michael Cohen. Particularly like your assertion that Cohen and Trump both realized Cohen needed to hitch his future to Trump to live the high life he so desired.
8
It may have been Frank Skeffington in "The Last Hurrah" who said that the number of people who speak at a politician's funeral isn't nearly as important as how many visitors he gets in prison.
Judging by the number of Mr. Cohen's close relatives at the sentencing, and what seemed to be their love and regard, he will have a lot of visitors.
Almost certainly more than his former employer will, if and when Mr. Trump gets there. Moreover, Mr. Cohen's kids will be free to visit; several of the Trump progeny may not, being at some risk of their own sentences.
16
It's really hard to hold out any faith in America wising up after they managed to believe in, and vote for a person who has done nothing but irrefutable harm to this country in the short space of a couple of years.
Between his associates now being lined-up charged and indicted, an ongoing investigation into his campaign activities, the very real possibility of Russian involvement and his ongoing lies about everything, it's hard to understand why Americans didn't get the picture long before now.
Even Michael Cohen saw which way the wind was blowing in enough time to bail out on his golden parachute.
But what about the rest of us?
Vote.
27
There was no moral compass to be lost. There was none to begin with, and many of our compatriots just do not have a moral compass to be lost, found or otherwise. Let's us hope and pray that by the time the 2020 election comes around, enough voters with a moral compass vote. Otherwise, God help us.
19
We've seen this show before.
" I was only following orders."
But can we see that we have seen it?
That is the question.
25
As I'm preparing to teach Melville's The Confidence Man: His Masquerade" (1857) to a group of French students aspiring to lifetime employment within France's Education Nationale army (and expecting me to help them get closer to that prize), I thank you, Frank Bruni, for this wonderful piece that I can use as my foil for "setting the stage" in my first class next Tuesday as we in 2018 return to another anxious, divided time (pre-Civil War America) to examine and perhaps learn a thing or two from Melville's cautionary tale.
15
@Christopher Delogu
That's interesting.
I was at a gathering here in Montreal last night, and had a conversation with a college teacher who mentioned the very same book.
We were,of course,discussing the dreaded Trump...
6
@Hochelaga "great minds... "
I'm happy to lead off with Frank Bruni's tale of a "sad journey" on Tuesday because Melville's verbose Dickens-like updating of Shakespeare's updating of Chaucer is a real briar patch that I don't expect many of my charges to get much pleasure or instruction from... but perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised. Those who have ears will hear -- but what exactly? I plan to turn to Peggy Kamuf for help.
Thoughtful article- what stood out upon reading this was this sentence in the last paragraph—“I’m talking about the green light that we’ve given to indecency, dishonesty, cheating and, according to a growing body of evidence, outright criminality.”
This statement is reason we are in the current mess we are facing as a nation. Where is our moral compass? Why isn’t all of America outraged about what has gone on and what is currently taking place? We need to slam on the brakes and give a red light to the falsehoods, immorality and deception that has eroded the ethics and values of our nation.
43
And on the day the ACA was struck down, there is this. If the bill comes due for the US this coming year, do we finally safeguard it, and everything else that Trump represents, from a Trump ever happening again? I absolutely hope so, we can't afford another, and if Trump isn't driven from office by what Cohen ands others have to say, do we send him packing in 2020 in favor of the anti-Trump? I absolutely hope so here too.
13
Powerful piece that I can only wish many will read and hear your message, Mr. Bruni.
I am almost 64 years old, and can remember past turmoils in our country. I can remember moments, even years and eras of, divisiveness and concern for our country.
But I have never been as afraid as I am now, in the era or Trump. Decency, honesty, respect for the law and empathy were never lost before, even in the darkest of times, as I remember it all. That all seems now lost, and it breaks my heart for our country, and for my children's future.
123
Correction: It’s impossible to prove to prove that a story about the two Trump mistresses could have lost him the Presidential election anymore than could have the Hollywood Access sex tapes. Had Trump lost the election over publicity related to his affairs, does anyone seriously believe that most of us would know Cohen exists? In the event that Trump had lost the election, what and whom would Congress have authorized the Special Counsel to investigate — the reason that Hillary did not win by a larger majority of votes than the landslide that the polls predicted? Mueller still appears to be investigating Trump’s Presidential campaign because he won.
1
@Bayou Houma Muller is investigating because there was demonstrated, beyond a doubt interference in the 2016 election by a foreign adversary, and one who favored Trump. Given that, and Trump's firing of the man in charge of the original FBI investigation, it is OBVIOUS that the country needs to know what Trump and his campaign's role was in the Russian interference. That is not 'Mueller is investigating BECAUSE Trump won.'
43
bayou houma,
Trump cheated his way into the white house. If you lied about your work experience to get a job, you get fired if the company finds out the truth. It's as simple as that.
Excellent article. Really good stuff.
How true about all of us being complicit in abandoning decency and respect for our institutions and the rule of law. We need to survive the next two years of Trump. But then we need to replace it with something that approaches what the America ideal is all about.
After Trump we are going to have to work very hard at making America America again.
29
It’s Impossible to prove that a story about the two Trump mistresses could have lost him the Presidential election anymore than could have the Hollywood Access sex tapes. Had Trump lost the election over publicity related to his affairs, does anyone seriously believe that most of us would know Cohen exists? In the event that Trump had lost the election, what and whom would Congress have authorized the Special Counsel to investigate — the reason that Hillary did not win instead of Trump as the polls predicted? Mueller still appears to be investigating Trump’s Presidential campaign because he won.
If it wouldn’t have had an impact, then why pay the Enquirer to bury the story? We’ll never know if the affairs would have impacted the election outcome because Trump removed that from the equation.
30
A “Michael Clayton” Mr. Cohen is not.
I always thought trump was a narcissistic, pathologcal liar.
7
malignant narcissist
Are you ALL blind ?
Don´t you know that EVERYTHING is about MONEY !!
9
He only got wise because he got caught. If not for him getting busted he would still be carrying water for 45. Cohen is playing his come to Jesus Moment to its fullest. If Trump had not treated him like a stepchild Cohen would still be taking out the garbage for Trump. Hell hath no fury as a Wannabe Scorned. Why did it take a pair of handcuffs to make Cohen see the light? Water seeks its level so there is not much daylight between Cohen and his former benefactor in the character area.
15
Dear NYT:
Michael Cohen got "wise" all right, after being beaten down by a special prosecutor's handoff team and ratting out the president. Cohen is a liar and a tax cheat and fraudster who got what he deserved. He will forever bear the "mark of the weasel."
Cohen is indeed wise in some aspects. Cohen knows and has testified -- honestly, according to Mueller -- that the Steele dossier (the pretext for Mueller's investigation) is bunk, that Putin has no kompromat on Trump, and Cohen played no role in arranging any secret illegal quid pro quo between Putin and Trump. He has testified honestly that there was no conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Putin to steal the election from Hilary. Mueller has not charged Cohen with lying about any of this, nor laid any predicate whatsoever for a Russia conspiracy case.
If Cohen got "wise," he sure did not deliver any goods on Trump -- just enough to get the liberal media frothing at the mouth once again. Cohen was not asked -- and did not say -- he told Trump that the payoffs would be illegal, or that Trump knew they are illegal. Absent specific intent there is no case against Trump.
Cohen's lie about the timing of the hotel project appears to be his alone. Indeed, the Trump organization provided the evidence proving Cohen was incorrect, and Trump correctly stated he did not have any business deals in Moscow.
Liberal need to wise up. There has been no evidence produced demonstrating collusion. Stop lying about it.
1
Sure, trump is as innocent as Putin and about as believable as flying pigs. Guilty is as guilty does and trump is as guilty as sin
@Jorge
You might wish to wait until the investigation is completed and presented to the public before accusing ‘liberals’ of lying.
Maybe keep the day job.
Michael Cohen operated like a jailhouse lawyer. Now he is one.
3
That is disrespectful to jailhouse lawyers. That someone can educate themselves of the law with limited resources in jail is to be respected.
1
You are way too easy on Cohen; he was not some innocent, lost in dark woods and following breadcrumbs towards Trump. He ran down the path towards Trump.
He's an educated attorney, who already had questionable business dealings with his FIL and taxi business.
The man only supposedly discovered his family obligations, patriotism and conscience, when cornered by Mueller.
Those in the Senate and House, who enable Trump, are the same: knowingly lining their pockets, knowingly immoral, knowingly dismantling decency and stability in this country.
The many, many Federal employees, who were plunged into this mess and trying to make the best of it and (sometimes) resist, are very different.They did not sign up for what transpired, nor profit, except to try to hang onto their jobs.
For the public, a partial pass to those who voted for Trump; not everyone can spot a grifter. Two years later, nope. The emperor has no clothes and those who choose to not see that need to find their own conscience and decency.
40
@Dr. M
Your last paragraph summarizes my feelings exactly. I find interesting the few times I hear the rationale/logic expressed by those who continue to see clothes where there aren't any (especially when they're part of a bonfire in plain sight). I usually put it in the same category as intergalactic dark energy -- it's important, widespread (pockets of Trump support everywhere), but I can't understand it.
Trump has turned America upside down. For many Trump is the role model. It is now OK to mock the physically disabled. Strategic lying is the new norm. The persistent denial of a criminal charge constitutes doubt. Critical media are enemies of the state. Jobs trump the environment. Self aggrandizement disguises failure. It will take many years to eradicate the Trump reversal of traditional American values.
30
@Milton Lewis
Good comment, but I also submit a few more for future eradication (or at least substantial diminishment): (1) the promotion of a false sense of national victimhood in international dealings, especially with our long-standing allies, (2) the bolstering of emotion-based scapegoating of groups of minorities, (3) the disregard of established scientific conclusions (especially in the form of a baseless attack on the validity of such conclusions, thereby questioning the conclusions of ALL science whenever inconvenient), and (4) the expansion or hardening of the belief that nearly all of America's problems have simple solutions that can be identified/pursued only by geniuses such as our current president. I'm sure there are many others to consider adding, but I'm depressed enough for one morning.
1
There are any number of decent, moral Republicans in that horse race of a 2016 primary. They threw their lot in with the worst. The steadfastness to which many continue to cling to Trump is bewindering. GOP, you can and have done so much better. Find someone else worthy of your support.
14
@Jeff M
I don't think anyone decent and worthy waould want the Trump Party's support.
For that is what the Republicans now are : The Donald Trump Loyalist Party.
1
I believe Trump deserves to be impeached, however, if he is not, then he will be the Republican candidate in 2020. Against a Democrat who speaks to most Americans I don't believe Trump stands a chance of being elected. Already, more & more Americans understand Trump lies - no wall has been started and likely no wall will be built, the tax cut benefitted the well to do & corporations, not the majority, there is no better health care insurance proposed, his abuse of his foundation far exceeds anything the Clinton's may have done, he has and does rely on Russian oligarch money, he is making money while President, etc., etc. Trump's actions are slowly being understood - yes, Americans (thank goodness) are getting wise to him - and he will be rejected along with more GOP senators and representatives.
If the Republican's refuse to impeach Trump they will pay with major losses and hopefully the dismantling of their racist, voter fraudulent, greedy Party.
34
@Rev Wayne
Just curious as to how many Trump voters you've actually met who are getting wise. I ask because I've only met one so far.
I hope you're right, but those who voted for him were already ignoring a mountain of information on him, and I have difficulty believing they're hitting the wall just yet.
@Tokyo Tea
They're not hitting the wall, but people forget that the demographics are changing daily whether we like it or not. I don't know a Trump supporter who is getting wise, but I do know several people who were fervent Trump supporters who are no longer with us. Their numbers are dwindling daily.
"Only a small minority of people would do quite what he did and break laws for the boss or benefactor to whom they’d hitched themselves."
Then how can Frank Bruni explain Trump's approval rating, or the fact he got elected in the first place? Trump's history was there for all to see, especially for New Yorkers who rejected one of their own by a landslide. Hillary didn't lose too many rural districts by the margins that Trump lost in NYC!
Oh and the employees for the Department of Health and Human Services were only following orders. I've heard that line before, it's no less ominous in English than in German.
9
"Only a small minority of people would do quite what he did and break laws for the boss or benefactor to whom they’d hitched themselves." I think the truth of the matter is millions of people would do, and have done, exactly this. There is a satisfaction and comfort in acquiescence to an individual that has charisma and power, that promises a better world if only you follow him. Ask Germany or Italy or Russia how that mode of governing works out. It never ends well for the leaders or the people.
4
It's pretty obvious that over half of America already is wise. The rest never will be, and that's their shame.
25
It takes this country too long to recognize a snake oil salesman.
How long did Sarah Palin and her snark dominate the headlines.
Real intelligence can not be faked, real leaders have the ability to mold their ideas into visions.
Visions we can follow, and stay active enough to see them through.
10
yeah, yeah,yeah. if you're so smart, how come you're not rich? turn this around, and you have Trump's magnetic appeal for clueless, low self-esteem accolytes, such as his Trump University marks, Cohen, and his political supporters. Trump's fake tale of fabulous wealth accumulated as a result of his native cunning and genius is the pixie dust he sprinkles over those he wants to bamboozle. most of the time it works, proving Barnum's theory. good for Barnum, bad for America.
10
As usual, Frank managed to perfectly illuminate our dilemma. While I believe Cohen’s biggest regret is getting caught, the basic premise is valid. The country’s voters, a minority of them, I might add, thought that the “Comet” was the second coming, a lodestar for our ambition and dreams. In fact, a good number of people could see the Snake Oil Salesman for what he was, a phony, liar, braggart and bully, with a narcissistic crown that overrides everything.
I am definitely aware that the narrative has shifted significantly over the last week. When Fox News is sounding uncharacteristically quizzical, it’s time to throw in the towel. Maybe the POTUS will notice, and do us all a favor and resign.
Happy New Year to us.
4
@Samp426
He will resign only if he thinks resignation will allow him to ride into the sunset scot-free to continue scamming somewhere else.
The country and the rest of the world have to figure out how to save democracy in the US and how to save the planet.
"The many Republicans who continue to stand by Trump have lost their moral compasses, too."
Really? Are you so sure, and do you have any evidence, that they have one to lose in the first place?
9
As I was reading this I was thinking about Senator Orin Hatch, saying just this week how he liked Trump and is willing to overlook minor lapses in judgement. Talk about the arrogance of power! Of course Hatch is one of many enablers. What amazes me is after a lifetime career, this is how Hatch ends his career. It demonstrate how morally bankrupt, and how far politicians are willing to go when their policies are being enacted on the rest of the country.
41
Since I arrived on these shores 31 years ago I heard and read of Orin Hatch. He was always a despicable mean person and politician. Nothing new.
This is an attempt to make Cohen a tragic figure. He is an admitted liar, someone who is reported to have had dealings with the underworld, an awful lawyer who failed in his responsibility to his client to warn him of the possible election law violation. I suspect neither he nor his client had a clue about it. Every imaginable explanation is offered for his actions except the one that is surely the main one: money and greed.
1
alan brown,
Trump and Cohen are two peas in a pod, or two hitmen in Cadillac.
Cohen wasn’t corrupted. He was corrupt. Trump supporters aren’t dumb. They are willingly looking away. We’ve done that for years hiding behind our false sense of goodness. We want it all here. All the resources. All the glory. Look at us- we are the best in the world.
7
In some ways, I would bet Mr. Cohen is looking forward to his 3-year education and graduating even "wiser".
He did not get wise. He got caught. He was a tax cheat. The campaign finance stuff was not a crime. He pled guilty to it because he had a crummy lawyer.
3
Mr. Bruni, that was a beautifully written article.
7
Not the country actually- the US Constitution is seeing to that. Just to the GOP and that can’t happen fast enough - signed a former Republican as of 1/1/16
4
Look back- a number of people throughout history have attached their wagons to con men, losers, megalomaniacs and purely evil tyrants. Think 1933- Our current con man in chief is pathetic but one hopes we will rebuild- still it will be reminiscent of the post civil war. Some people just can’t or won’t see their mistaken faith in this abysmal character.
4
Excellent piece, Mr. Bruni, but I am skeptical, to say the least, about Michael Cohen’s professed enlightenment, of his claim of restored personal dignity, of his redemption. It was chutzpah to compare his “incarceration” with that of his father’s by invoking the ideas of Viktor Frankl. Cohen’s “search for meaning,” such as it is, began with the FBI’s search of his home, office and digital records. It continued in our criminal justice system—a far cry from the path to meaning that Dr. Frankl traced through Auschwitz. Perhaps actual incarceration will complete the search, but I somehow doubt it.
3
No, my journey is different, as was that of the three million
more in the popular vote who didn’t fall for the lies of Trump
and the GOP sycophants. A poor headline
that tries to frame this idea in an incorrect fashion.
The bill will be paid when Americans reject Trump, his lies and bigotry, when they reject a desire of fame for its own sake, when they value truth and knowledge and civility and service over conspiracy theories, willful ignorance, crassness and greedy selfishness. Americans will have to reject the GOP and denounce the bargain it made with Trump - power at all costs, turning a blind eye to his myriad sins, abetting his worst impulses and denying reality for the upside down inside out world of his invention. Americans will have to stand up and say not in their name will this go on, not even one more day. They know even if they are in denial who and what Donald Trump is and what he has wrought. As it turns out, the greatest threat to American democracy is not socialism or communism or gun control or one payer health care or even Putin.
There was a comic strip before my time called "Pogo". It appeared in the weekend supplement of newspapers. It was the source of a memorable quote: "We have met the enemy and he is us."
America will have to rid itself of Trump just as it rid itself of Joe McCarthy and the Red Scare of the '50s. The toxic soup of ignorance, bigotry, deceit, corruption, collusion with adversaries, self-dealing at public expense, lies, cheating, slothful indifference to the responsibilities of the office of POTUS, meglomania, egomania, and delusion. Time is running out. The damage grows exponentially each day. Wake up America.
12
Error, Frank. Cohen never lost his moral compass. It never existed. Many Trump supporters suffer the same deficiency. This piece only serves to muddy the waters.
2
If Cohen hadn't been milking his position as Trump's personal lawyer by hiring himself out on retainer after election day to blue chip companies for hundreds of thousands in return for nothing but illusory access to POTUS, this reader may have believed his bogus line than he wasn't in it for the main chance, but simply seeking to satisfy an ogre with no shred of honour, not even the kind which is said to exist among thieves.
6
It is said that ethics is something you do when you don’t think anyone else is watching. To imply that Michael Cohen suddenly had an epiphanous moment during his decades long dependent relationship
with the totally corrupt and mendacious Individual-1 is an insult to everyone’s intelligence as well as to their integrity.
As I’ve said before in these comments, a grifter is a grifter is a grifter. Ditto for the sucker who always chooses to self himself too cheaply to the lowest bidder with the lowest, irredeemable character, regardless of the consequences to himself and his family for generations to come. Once again, the French have an excellent word to describe such behavior: Pathetique.
Ironically, our prevaricator-in-chief was also a higher-up victim in this nefarious food chain since he’s still playing the puppet to Putin’s puppeteer.
Let us now breathe a sigh, Mueller Time is drawing nigh.
6
Sorry. Contrition after conviction is never convincing.
The "led astray" or "wandered from the virtuous path" narrative fails here since there was no moral compass in place to begin with.
3
Cohen feigns contrition and suddenly he gets the benefit of the doubt? I don't think so. This is a kakistocracy and the worst are drawn to Trump and his merry band of liars. Maybe without the Trump presidency Cohen wouldn't have been caught - but he still did everything he was accused of and worse.
3
No Frank a lot us us don't want to be entertained, dazzled or want a patron, that's why we voted for Hillary Clinton,. We wanted a leader.
I have no idea what the excuse was for those that voted for trump. Maybe, just maybe they are as indecent, dishonest, cheating and criminality inclined as he is. Birds of a feather.
15
Bruni deserves the greatest credit not for his perceptiveness or acuity but for the compassion that allows him to see Cohen as both human being and avatar for those of us, whom we do well not to other into inconvenience, similarly awash in the flash flood of spectacle and easy grievance that is the current occupant of the White House.
2
“. . . a famous real estate mogul whose business acumen I truly admired,”
Right. Not.
I lived in Manhattan for 19 years and knew many people who knew Trump. Not a one thought he was a "mogul" or had "business acumen."
Cohen was then and is now a somewhat dim grifter who saw a chance to glom onto a more prominent grifter.
It turned sour and that is his only regret.
4
How can one lose a "moral compass" that wasn't/isn't there?