July 31, 2018--A Fixer Scorned

To paraphrase a line from The Mourning Bride, a play by English author of the late 17th century, William Congreve, Hell hath no fury like a fixer scorned.

The fixer in this case is Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's longtime flunky and factotum who, to save his skin, seems to be singing like a canary to special counsel Robert Mueller and various DAs in New York City.

Last week we had a taste of the beans he is likely spilling since, being no fool, Cohen is able to corroborate some of their dirty dealings through dozens of tapes he made of their larcenous conversations.

The first recording to be leaked was just a morsel, an appetizer. In a two-minute tidbit we heard Trump and his personal lawyer talking about how to pay off Playboy model, Karen McDougal, with whom Trump had an 10-month-long affair. This was two weeks before the 2016 election and the last thing Trump needed was yet another, as they, forgive me, referred to these matters during Bill Clinton's randy time, a "bimbo eruption."

I am certain that Cohen's very clever lawyer and Clinton intimate, Lanny Davis, dangled this before prosecutors as part of a potential plea bargain arrangement with Mueller and the federal attorneys in the Southern District who raided Cohen's various offices and dwellings in April to get the goods on him so he in turn, to avoid spending the rest of his life in jail (Trump will not be able to pardon him from non-federal crimes he assuredly committed in New York) Davis previewed what his client would share as part of the deal--the rest of the tapes and everything else Cohen wisely squirreled away as he knew in his heart that eventually it would come to this: to save himself Trump would throw him under the bus. 

The very same Trump loyalist who proudly said on many occasions that he "would take a bullet" for the big guy.

If there was so much that could be implicating in only these two minutes what more would the dozens of other tapes reveal? One can only imagine. But one can imagine that before signing a get-out-of-jail-free card for the fixer in chief the various prosecutors will insist on hearing all the dirt Cohen has to dish. 

Get ready for a banquet of dish.

For the literary-minded, here is the larger context for the Congreve quote--

"Heav'n has no Rage like Love to Hatred turn'd, Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd."

This connection between love and hatred is instructive to a full understanding of the Cohen-Trump bromance.

First a little background--

Cohen grew up in Lawrence, a middle class suburb on Long Island. A place adjacent to Kennedy Airport where jumbo jets thundered over the Cohen house every minute or two, seven days a week, day and night, shaking the building's foundation. But from Lawrence high ground (there isn't much of it) on a clear day little Michael could catch a glimpse of the New York City skyline, 20 long miles away. Sort of like Gatsby peering at the green light at the end of Daisy's dock that symbolizes his hopes and dreams of breaking free from his origins. And sort of like the similar view that the adolescent Donald could strain to see from his Queens, outer-borough childhood home.

Cohen's mother was a nurse and his father a surgeon.

Cohen earned a bachelors degree from American University and, as a less then stellar student, a law degree from Thomas M. Cooley Law School, a diploma mill that came close to losing its accreditation in 2017 and 2018.  After attending a place such as Cooley, no white shoe-law firms in Manhattan were recruiting Cohen and so he had little choice but to began his law career as a personal injury attorney, as an "ambulance chaser," the bottom rung of the plaintiff food chain.

When some years later Trump laid eyes on him he saw a desperate striver, someone hungry to move on and up, but without equivalent street smarts. Someone to use and from whom he could expect unquestioning fealty. Someone if needed who would take a bullet for him.

Cohen was not difficult to reel in. He deluded himself, thinking Trump viewed him as a colleague and kindred spirit, a surrogate son, coming from similar places, having similar aspirations (to get out) but he should have known the truth about the nature of their relationship when Cohen had literally to plead with Trump to get him to come to his son's 2012 bar mitzvah.

Trump came so late, the Wall Street Journal reported, that the blessings were delayed. The future president then gave a speech in which he said he hadn't planned on attending but opted to come after Cohen "begged him to" by repeatedly badgering him, his secretary, and his children. The WSJ said the guests laughed at this, finding it believable, considering what they knew about the one-direction nature of the Trump-Cohen relationship.

And so we now have a sense of the depth and causes of scorned Cohen's feelings and how that unrequited love has turned to hate. 

Cohen thought he was a member of the Trump family but came to discover he was merely hired help.

And we can understand why Trump is again unhinged when he contemplates what Cohen has to share with prosecutors and where as a result the Mueller investigation is heading. 

Over the weekend in a tweet storm Trump (and current flunky, Rudy Giuliani) turned once again to personally excoriating the special counsel, claiming he should step aside because of his having numerous "conflicts of interest," including one I find most bizarre--that Mueller is pursuing Trump because in 2011, when Mueller was F.B.I. director, he had complaints  about membership fees at one of his golf courses. I assume overcharging as he did with Trump University.

Bottom line--Congreve got it right.

Trump National Golf Course