It was Oscar Wilde who noticed that “hatred is blind.” In contrast to love, it destroys the hater. It’s a corrosive poison that slowly consumes the human spirit and extinguishes all values.
Former Trump private lawyer Michael Cohen is exhibit A of a person who grew to become debilitated by anger and bitterness towards his one-time boss Donald Trump. He blames the previous president for his personal self-destruction that culminated in a three-year jail sentence.
However nobody made Cohen mislead Congress, mislead courts, mislead banks, mislead the particular counsel, mislead the Federal Election Fee, and mislead the IRS. He did all of it on his personal as a result of, as he confessed in court docket, he’s a liar and a bully.
THE PROSECUTION’S STAR WITNESS AGAINST TRUMP, MICHAEL COHEN, IS A CHRONIC AND HABITUAL LIAR
Disbarred and disgraced, Cohen’s identify is now synonymous with “serial perjurer,” an invective coined just lately by a federal choose who accurately assessed Cohen’s absence of character. He’s mendacity nonetheless, mentioned the court docket. It’s a vice that satiates his hatred.
Given Cohen’s odious file, it’s baffling why any accountable prosecutor would name him to the stand, a lot much less dangle his whole case on the credibility of an unhinged and incurable fabricator. It’s a measure of Manhattan District Lawyer Alvin Bragg’s desperation that he did. With out Cohen, the D.A.’s ambition to place Trump behind bars would dissolve.
Bragg and his staff of partisans knew their star witness would get clobbered on cross-examination. That’s why on the finish of Tuesday morning’s court docket session they tried to preempt the inevitable assault by inviting Cohen to account for his avalanche of lies. It was an extended checklist. His explanations had been vacuous and his apologies appeared hole.
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The protection lastly obtained its probability in an abbreviated afternoon session. Cohen pleaded amnesia when questioned about how he’d been coached by the prosecution and advised to place a sock in his mouth on social media. He was confronted with the animus he has spewed at Trump over the past six years on infinite TV reveals and tons of of podcasts. He feigned the sort of acute reminiscence loss that plagues a dementia affected person.
It doesn’t matter as a result of a lot of Cohen’s screeds had been recorded digitally and are mendacity in wait. When ultimately offered, they are going to provide a placing distinction. In court docket, jurors have seen a well-dressed Cohen. His comportment was calm and deliberate, even well mannered. His venom was properly hid underneath what should have been strict directions from prosecutors. It was a con, after all, by an inveterate charlatan.
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As soon as the movies are performed, they are going to expose the actual Michael Cohen in all his true ugliness. In lunatic rants, he rages that Trump “belongs in a cage like a f***ing animal.” He refers back to the former president as a “dictator douche bag” and a “Cheeto-dusted cartoon villain.” These are simply a few of the TikTok tirades that occurred in the course of the trial as Cohen was trolling for {dollars}. There are extra.
Anybody who has ever had the misfortune to take care of Cohen describes him in essentially the most detestable methods. Nasty, vile, and loathsome. A churlish bully bereft of morals. It’s constant along with his seething hatred — as seen on the movies. In a single, he’s sporting a T-shirt with a photograph of Trump superimposed behind jail bars. He was compelled to confess in court docket Tuesday that he needs Trump convicted.
That alone is a motive to lie, which is second nature to Cohen. It’s in his DNA. He’s pathological. It’s compounded by one other motive —greed. His livelihood depends on trashing Trump. He has no different supply of revenue. With out Trump to fulminate in opposition to, he’d be a pauper.
Attorneys name cross-examination the engine of reality. It strips the veneer off a phony witness and exposes him to the scrutiny of onerous details and uncomfortable truths. There isn’t any hiding Cohen’s thirst for vengeance. You’ll discover it in plain sight in his ebook, “Disloyal,” and one other one titled, “Revenge.”
If jurors are taking note of Cohen, they’ll see a misanthrope extraordinaire devoid of morals and conscience. He’s untruthful and untrustworthy, which makes him the worst sort of witness conceivable.
And the proper witness for the Manhattan District Lawyer. As a lot as jurors could hate Cohen, Bragg is banking on the hope that they are going to hate Trump extra.
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