What The Fuck Is Going On With Michael Cohen?
Ever since we published our hilarious Pulitzer-worthy blog post this morning on Michael Cohen's lawyers deciding to kick him to the curb, the weirdest news has been trickling out about Cohen. Is he flipping? Is he not flipping? Is he going to jail very soon? Did his lawyers quit because he didn't pay them? Did Cohen fire them to try to send some sort of signal to Donald Trump? YADDA YADDA YADDA, LOCK HIM UP!
Katy Tur from MSNBC has a scoop on the "Michael Cohen Arrest Watch" front, and here it is:
Tur explains that a source tells her prosecutors at the Southern District of New York (SDNY) have contacted Cohen's legal team (you know, the ones quitting!) to say they are "preparing paperwork" to have him arrested. This jibes with reporting from Gabriel Sherman that Cohen expects to be arrested any old day now, and Sherman added in the clip above that he thinks he might even be arrested tomorrow. Wouldn't that be a nice Christmas morning in June if that happened? It will really go well with watching Paul Manafort go to jail on Friday! (Fingers crossed.)
Tur also says "a number of people" think Cohen fired his lawyers as a "smoke sign" to Donald Trump to warn him that Cohen is thinkin' about flipping. Perhaps Trump might want to make like a pard'ner and pardon him? But maybe there is more to it than that, because Fox Business correspondent Charlie Gasparino reported this afternoon that Cohen's lawyer Stephen Ryan may indeed be out the door, but the primary reason may be because deadbeat Michael Cohen can't pay his legal bills:
"There's a lot of speculation about whether Mr. Cohen can pay Mr. Ryan's fees," the Fox Business correspondent continued. "There's also speculation that maybe Mr. Cohen needs a different type of lawyer if — lots of talk right now about Mr. Cohen cooperating with the feds in exchange for leniency if he faces a possible indictment over God knows what."
Gasparino added on the Twitter machine that Ryan has complained about Cohen not paying his legal bills in the past. So! Maybe that is what happening, and Cohen is going to flip on Trump because he is a loser without any dollars and maybe he's trying to send up flares to the White House that Trump better hire him some lawyers, otherwise he's gonna flip and ...
Oh Christ, Maggie Haberman says everybody is wrong and stupid and Cohen is definitely not signaling Trump:
No https://t.co/hublxORIV3
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) June 13, 2018
Haberman further reports that prosecutors have not reached out to Cohen about flipping on Trump, but that he really is having trouble paying his lawyer bills, but she adds on Twitter that Cohen is close to flipping, so there's your daily example of Maggie Haberman's reporting conflicting with Maggie Haberman's reporting. Anyway, CNN says Haberman is full of shit, and ... where does that leave us? Fuck if we know!
The Washington Post adds more to the mix, with a thing about how actually Cohen's lawyer bills have been paid by the Trump campaign, or more specifically that it's the Trump campaign stiffing the lawyers, and that if Cohen is about to flip, being paid (or Not Paid) by the Trump campaign would necessarily conflict those lawyers out, were Cohen to make a deal.
All of this is very confusing, and the only solution Wonkette sees that would make all of America happy would be for the FBI to arrest Michael Cohen tomorrow morning, preferably while we are having our morning coffee.
After that, TIME TO FLIP ON MIS-TURR TWUMP, Michael Cohen, you dumb bag of hammers.
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