Michael Cohen, the longtime personal attorney and “fixer” to Donald Trump and former Republican National Committee deputy finance chair has officially changed his political party registration as of today, according to Jonathan Swan of Axios.
In a blurb filed Thursday afternoon on the Axios website, Swan noted that Cohen had changed the registration from Republican to Democrat online via the Albany, NY board of elections website, and was not an entirely unexpected move from the former Trump associate.
Since the President abandoned Cohen after the release of the FBI-raid-produced audio recordings implicating Trump in a hush-money scheme just before the 2016 presidential election, Cohen has been steadily distancing himself from any association with Trump and his entire apparatus, telling ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in July that he intends now to “put country and family first” after famously declaring at one point that he would “take a bullet” for Trump in the past.
The following month, Cohen pleaded guilty to multiple felonies and in the course of his testimony implicated the President, telling the court that Trump had directed him to make payments to former mistresses on his behalf in advance of the election. Those payments would constitute illegal campaign activity if a court determines that this was indeed the case, as they would be payments intended to affect the outcome of the election, paid for ultimately out of Trump Organization funds after reimbursing Cohen.
Ironically, since Cohen’s sentencing is scheduled for December of this year, he will be able to vote a straight Democratic ticket in the midterms just before losing his right to vote after becoming a convicted felon.
One more interesting twist: Everyone involved with the iteration of the RNC finance committee that Cohen served on is now gone — chairman Steve Wynn, the Vegas casino and hotel magnate, stepped down amid sexual harassment allegations, and fellow deputy chair Elliot Broidy resigned after the exposure of his own affair with a Playboy Playmate who he also paid off for her silence.
It almost seems like a pattern in the Republican party, although Cohen has never been accused of anything of the sort — perhaps part of his reason for joining the Democrats.
Featured image via screen capture
