Amazing 400 tweet thread yesterday from Seth Abramson re: trump and Cohen's relationship

[Hassin Bin Sober]

Including Trump’s decades of fraud and criminality, stiffing contractors, and using attorneys as accomplices/henchmen.

Abramson doesn’t think too much of Cohen’s redemption arc (neither do I). But he serves a purpose.

This thread unroll should be readable by non twitter users.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth_Abramson

Seth Abramson (born October 31, 1976) is an American professor, attorney, author, political columnist, and poet. He is the editor of the Best American Experimental Writing series and wrote a bestselling trilogy of nonfiction works detailing the foreign policy agenda and political scandals of former president Donald Trump

Books
Nonfiction
Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America (Simon & Schuster, 2018)
Proof of Conspiracy: How Trump's International Collusion Is Threatening American Democracy (St. Martin's Press/Simon & Schuster UK, 2019)
Proof of Corruption: Bribery, Impeachment, and Pandemic in the Age of Trump (St. Martin's Press, 2020)
Proof of Coup: How the Pentagon Shaped An Insurrection (Substack, 2022)

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1790010249086206263.html

1/ First, some information on my own brief association with Michael Cohen, in the interest of full disclosure. I’ve been interviewed by Michael Cohen on his podcast, and thereafter was invited back many times; I did not accept those invitations. I have spoken to Michael by phone.
2/ In speaking with Michael by phone, he floated (at a minimum) the idea of me ghostwriting or co-writing his second book, the follow-up to his #1 New York Times bestseller DISLOYAL—a book I candidly thought was surprisingly excellent.

I had no interest whatsoever in doing this.
3/ I do not take the view of Michael Cohen that MSNBC has taken, that after his plea to several federal felonies, a federal prison sentence, and a period of home detention, he is a changed man. I have represented thousands of criminal defendants, and I do not believe this at all.
4/ I believe that Michael Cohen is the same man today that he was five years ago, ten years, and fifteen years ago.

I do not think he was chastened by his conviction, I think he was angered by it—albeit not without good reason. Our justice system usually goes after the big fish.
5/ But in criminal cases and potential criminal cases involving Donald Trump, the behavior of our criminal justice system is categorically different: tiny fish are gobbled up while the big fish—Trump—is self-consciously let go to commit more crimes. Thus: washingtonpost.com/investigations…
6/ So Cohen has a right to be angry; when he was federally convicted in 2018—*by the Trump administration DOJ* (which, in the silly, benighted view of Donald Trump, would mean he was convicted *by Trump*)—it should have mean a means for the FBI to get to Trump.

But it wasn’t.
7/ The Trump FBI—led by a Trump appointee—and the Trump DOJ, led by a Trump appointee, was happy to put Cohen in prison. And though it referred to Trump as an unindicted coconspirator, it thereafter did nothing to pursue him but dither and delay to run the statute of limitations.
8/ This enabled Trump to preposterously claim, just weeks ago, that he was in no way involved in the Cohen federal case—again, he was the *unindicted co-conspirator*—and misrepresent the case as being about taxi medallions when it was almost entirely about his own federal crimes.
9/ The Trump FBI and Trump DOJ letting Trump off the hook—which, again, by Trump’s own standard of how the FBI and DOJ work, was Trump corruptly directing his own people to spare him—also so delayed a *state* investigation of Trump’s crimes that it led to the odd case we see now.
10/ The case Trump now faces is odd in several ways. One way—which Trump is obsessed with—is that the events it considers happened in 2015, 2016, and 2017, which seems a long time ago until you realize that the Trump FBI and Trump DOJ could’ve moved on Trump in 2018 but wouldn’t.
11/ While Donald Trump may not have been eligible to go to trial while still president, he *could’ve* been indicted. Instead, the Trump FBI and Trump DOJ indicted and imprisoned a small fish who *obviously* should have been used to indict the big fish (Trump) in 2018 but was not.
12/ And Trump was involved in the 2018 Cohen case far more than anyone realizes (and certainly far more than the pathological liar Trump, whose spectacular lie is that he had nothing to do with it at all, will admit). Why? Because Cohen was also charged with lying to Congress...
13/ ...which is something *Trump and his lawyers pushed him to do* to *hide facts about the Trump-Russia scandal*. Remember the Trump-Russia scandal? The one Trump said he had nothing to hide in? He and his lawyers got Cohen to commit criminal perjury to hide the truth about it.

[Ponietz]

1. This guy is long-winded to put it mildly

[Irish_Dem]

2. He has a PhD in English and is a college professor.

He gets paid to be long winded.

[Ponietz]

3. Concision is the hallmark of a good writer

[Irish_Dem]

4. Yes but he gets paid to drone on in front of students.

I taught college courses and you have to do a lot of talking, lecturing, pontificating,
dog and pony shows.

It is often hard for a PhD to be concise.
They know a lot about a few subjects.
And their training is to back up everything with information.

He needs a normal person editor.

[Ponietz]

5. Yes, but he's a Harvard law grad

Get to the point, Counsel.

[Irish_Dem]

6. PhDs take the long way around the barn.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

7. .