Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Michael Monday in lower Manhattan
Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet
Michael Cohen Was Paid to Fix Trump’s Problems. Now He’s One of Them.
Mr. Cohen once called himself Donald J. Trump’s “designated thug.” Will he help bring about the ex-president’s downfall?
Donald J. Trump has always surrounded himself with lawyers — all types of lawyers. There are the television-friendly talking heads. The polished criminal practitioners. The pit-bull litigators, the corporate suits and the legal advisers with their own legal troubles.
And then there was the singular Michael D. Cohen, lawyer by trade and enforcer by nature. With the loyalty of a surrogate son, he kept Mr. Trump’s secrets and cleaned up his messes. He was the fixer.
This week, however, Mr. Cohen is poised to unfix Mr. Trump’s life. When he takes the stand as a vital witness at Mr. Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan, Mr. Cohen will unearth some of the secrets he buried, revealing a mess that prosecutors say his former boss was desperate to hide.
It’s worth remembering that Trump is using Sammy “The Bull’ Gravano, famous mobster snitch, as a media character witness, because who does he have left?