On Thursday night, former Attorney General Eric Holder weighed in on reports that came out late at night about just how involved in Michael Cohen’s lying Donald Trump was and has been since well before the election. Holder tweeted,
If true – and proof must be examined – Congress must begin impeachment proceedings and Barr must refer, at a minimum, the relevant portions of material discovered by Mueller. This is a potential inflection point. https://t.co/iaZmiHgL7L
— Eric Holder (@EricHolder) January 18, 2019
“Inflection point,” of course, is nerd-speak for “game changer.”
That’s important because much of the conversation has been about whether or not Democrats even want to pursue impeachment proceedings, or whether they would rather wait until the Mueller report finally comes out and take other possible legal actions against the President.
Now, after what has been revealed in a BuzzFeed piece that was issued Thursday evening, Democrats may not have much of a choice — what’s inside are the details of a number of felonies that would have been committed by the President directly, some during his time in office. And that doesn’t just merit impeachment — it rightly calls for it.
Sources who contacted BuzzFeed told reporters at the news agency that Trump, as President, personally instructed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the duration and seriousness of the Trump family’s pursuit of a real estate deal that would have allowed them to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. That Cohen did lie was previously known; he testified to as much in federal court. In fact, we knew already that Trump had told Cohen to lie immediately before the election, concerning a pair of “hush money” payments to two women with whom Trump had affairs shortly after the birth of his son Barron.
But this is the first confirmation we have that Trump himself told Cohen to lie about the Russian real estate project in order to possibly cut short an investigation into his dealings with Russia.
And this is not just “sources say” stuff. From the report:
The special counsel’s office learned about Trump’s directive for Cohen to lie to Congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents. Cohen then acknowledged those instructions during his interviews with that office.”
Trump’s tweet from just this morning…
Kevin Corke, @FoxNews “Don’t forget, Michael Cohen has already been convicted of perjury and fraud, and as recently as this week, the Wall Street Journal has suggested that he may have stolen tens of thousands of dollars….” Lying to reduce his jail time! Watch father-in-law!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2019
…is rendered utterly pointless by the fact that it’s not just Cohen he should be worried about, because Robert Mueller learned about the direction to lie first, and then Cohen simply confirmed it to the special counsel’s office.
Featured image via screen capture
