The “unlawful” bombing of Syria, the curious pardoning of Scooter Libby, and the expanding criminal case against Michael Cohen

Quite a bit has happened over this past week. For the purposes of this post, I’d like to focus on just three of the many story lines that I’ve been following; our bombing of Syria, the Scooter Libby pardon, and the criminal case against Donald Trump’s “fixer,” Michael Cohen.

Let’s start by talking about Michael Cohen, who, as you may recall, had his New York home, hotel room, and Rockefeller Center offices raided last Saturday by FBI agents, who seized both computers and financial records. We knew at the time that New York State prosecutors were after information concerning Cohen’s roll in the intimidation and silencing of Trump’s numerous unsatisfied sex partners, but, over the last several days, it’s become clear that prosecutors are going deeper into the sordid past of the Trump corporation, and the central role Cohen played, as the most senior non-family member of the organization, in securing questionable deals with our planet’s most shadowy figures. On this subject, I’d encourage you to read Adam Davidson’s new piece in the New Yorker, titled, “Michael Cohen and the End Stage of the Trump Presidency.” Here’s a taste.

…This is the week we know, with increasing certainty, that we are entering the last phase of the Trump Presidency. This doesn’t feel like a prophecy; it feels like a simple statement of the apparent truth. I know dozens of reporters and other investigators who have studied Donald Trump and his business and political ties. Some have been skeptical of the idea that President Trump himself knowingly colluded with Russian officials. It seems not at all Trumpian to participate in a complex plan with a long-term, uncertain payoff. Collusion is an imprecise word, but it does seem close to certain that his son Donald, Jr., and several people who worked for him colluded with people close to the Kremlin; it is up to prosecutors and then the courts to figure out if this was illegal or merely deceitful. We may have a hard time finding out what President Trump himself knew and approved.

However, I am unaware of anybody who has taken a serious look at Trump’s business who doesn’t believe that there is a high likelihood of rampant criminality. In Azerbaijan, he did business with a likely money launderer for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. In the Republic of Georgia, he partnered with a group that was being investigated for a possible role in the largest known bank-fraud and money-laundering case in history. In Indonesia, his development partner is “knee-deep in dirty politics”; there are criminal investigations of his deals in Brazil; the F.B.I. is reportedly looking into his daughter Ivanka’s role in the Trump hotel in Vancouver, for which she worked with a Malaysian family that has admitted to financial fraud. Back home, Donald, Jr., and Ivanka were investigated for financial crimes associated with the Trump hotel in SoHo—an investigation that was halted suspiciously. His Taj Mahal casino received what was then the largest fine in history for money-laundering violations.

…The narrative that will become widely understood is that Donald Trump did not sit atop a global empire. He was not an intuitive genius and tough guy who created billions of dollars of wealth through fearlessness. He had a small, sad operation, mostly run by his two oldest children and Michael Cohen, a lousy lawyer who barely keeps up the pretenses of lawyering and who now faces an avalanche of charges, from taxicab-backed bank fraud to money laundering and campaign-finance violations.

Cohen, Donald, Jr., and Ivanka monetized their willingness to sign contracts with people rejected by all sensible partners. Even in this, the Trump Organization left money on the table, taking a million dollars here, five million there, even though the service they provided—giving branding legitimacy to blatantly sketchy projects—was worth far more. It was not a company that built value over decades, accumulating assets and leveraging wealth. It burned through whatever good will and brand value it established as quickly as possible, then moved on to the next scheme…

And, since these raids, there have already been two significant new developments pertaining to the case against Cohen. First, the Washington Post has reported that Cohen was, like Richard Nixon, in the habit of recording his conversations, and that the FBI may have seized these tapes during their raids. And, second, we learned that, contrary to what he might have said, investigators believe that Cohen was in Prague in 2016 to meet with Russians on Trump’s behalf. [If this is true, it would confirm yet one more detail in the so-called Steele dossier, and establish that the Trump campaign was in fact colluding with the Russians.] So, given all of this, it’s not really any surprise that, after hearing that Cohen’s computers and files had been secured by the FBI last Saturday, Trump lashed out during a press conference about recent chemical attacks in Syria, ranting about how these raids against his corporate attorney amounted to “an attack on our country” on the part of Rod Rosenstein and the Department of Justice. [Rosenstein authorized the raids against Cohen.]

And, since then, things have only gotten stranger and more terrifying, with Trump becoming increasingly belligerent on social media, going so far as to call the FBI a “den of thieves and lowlifes.” And, to make matters worse, on Thursday, he announced that he’d be pardoning Scooter Libby, the Dick Cheney staffer found guilty of having liked the identity of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame in retribution for the fact that her husband had exposed the fact that we’d been led to war in Iraq with falsified evidence. “I don’t know Mr. Libby,” said President Trump, “but for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly. Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad portion of his life.” Why the President would do this, given that Libby hadn’t even requested a pardon, no one knows. It seems likely, however, that it was a message to Cohen and others that they should stay quiet, as presidential pardons may be coming their way. [A presidential pardon, by the way, wouldn’t get Cohen out of New York State charges.]

If Trump were to pardon his co-consiprators, like Flynn, Manafort or Cohen, it would certainly be obstruction of justice, adding to the several instances that Mueller is already thought to have documented. As I understand it, though, there’s nothing legally that we can do to keep a president from exercising his pardon power. What we can do, however, is support Congressman Adam Schiff in his effort to pass legislation that would increase transparency in instances where the individual receiving the pardon happens to be involved in a case where the president is implicated.

Scooter Libby's pardon is meant to send a message to potential witnesses against Trump. That's why I’ve drafted a bill requiring that in any case with a pardon in which the president’s implicated, investigatory files must be given to Congress to see if it’s obstruction of justice pic.twitter.com/WXC2wWMaqQ

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) April 15, 2018

Oh, and Trump didn’t just float the idea of a pardon my making the sudden and unexpected announcement about Libby. He also apparently called Cohen the following day. When asked why the President would call someone who was being investigated for the commission of several felonies, White House Spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said only that the call was made because they “have a long relationship.” [She left out the word “criminal.”]

But then the bombs started falling on Syria, so we all stopped talking about Michael Cohen, the odd and unexpected pardoning of Scooter Libby, and everything else.

Given that Trump absolutely abhorred the idea of military intervention in Syria back with Obama was president, and celebrated the fact that the Republican Congress stopped Obama from using military force in response to President Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons against his own people in 2013, it’s unclear as to why he decided to launch missiles against the al-Assad now. Some, however, are speculating that it was done primarily to burry the stories noted above. And, given that we’re hearing today that Trump, prior to calling for the strike, had run the idea of an attack by the attorneys defending him in the Russia probe, you can certainly see why people might think that.

[Wag the Dog: “To ‘wag the dog’ means to purposely divert attention from what would otherwise be of greater importance, to something else of lesser significance. By doing so, the lesser-significant event is catapulted into the limelight, drowning proper attention to what was originally the more important issue.”]

The thinking, if you ascribe to this interpretation, must have been that an attack against al-Assad, an associate of Putin’s, would not only take the attention from Cohen, but also give the appearance that the President was taking a strong stance against Russia. This, however, doesn’t hold much weight in light of the fact that, in the wake of the attack, the French defense minister said that Russia had been warned in advance.

Oh, and Trump authorized these attacks without going to Congress, which, according to Congressman Schiff, is “on thin legal ground“… And, again, it’s something that Trump stated that Obama categorically could not do when he was president.

Obama, when he was in a similar position in 2013, attempted to strike back at al-Assad after he’d launched chemical weapons against his own people. In that case, though, Obama went to Congress, argued his case and [was denied. This time, though, Trump, perhaps not remembering his words to Obama, just went ahed and did it without seeking approval from Congress. And, because we live amid constant chaos, that part of the story doesn’t so much as warrant a tiny blip on the American outrage meter. Had Obama bombed Syria without Congressional support at that time, they would have moved to impeach. Now, though, it’s not even a front page story. Some, however, are taking notice. Congressman Jerrold Nadler, for instance, tweeted the following. “As I said in 2013, under Pres. Obama, Constitution requires congressional authorization for use of military force in Syria,” he said. “Trump’s actions tonight,” he went on to say, “appear to be unlawful if not unconstitutional.”

And, on top of it all, we’re told that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein expects to be fired at any minute… Oh, and over in the parallel universe we know as Fox News, they’ve got former FBI Director Jim Comey on trial along with Hillary Clinton.

So, with that, the stage is set for the final act to play out… Buckle up, America. I’m afraid it’s going to get a hell of a lot uglier.