How Far Can Trump Go?

So President Trump’s attempt at witness tampering, intimidation, and abuse of power has worked. Michael Cohen has postponed his testimony in front of two House committees “to a later date”, citing “ongoing threats against his family from President Trump and Mr. Giuliani”. Committee chairs Schiff and Cummings are threatening to force Cohen to appear, writing, “We will not let the President’s tactics prevent Congress from fulfilling our constitutionally mandated oversight responsibilities. This will not stop us from getting to the truth. We expect Mr. Cohen to appear before both Committees”.

Trump has threatened to expose criminal behavior in Cohen’s family, specifically Cohen’s father-in-law who was convicted of money-laundering in 1993. The fact is that there is at least some evidence that Trump was actually using Cohen’s father-in-law as a silent partner in some his early business deals which may have been how Cohen got a job with Trump to begin with. Therefore, it is quite possible that Trump is well aware of some criminal behavior in Cohen’s family simply because he was involved in that activity as well. If so, we can be sure that Trump has passed that information to his Republican co-conspirators Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, and Devin Nunes on the House Intelligence and Oversight committees so that they can use it when questioning Cohen.

This follows on the Buzzfeed report that there is evidence that Trump ordered Cohen to lie to Congress about just how long and extensive the negotiations were to build Trump Tower Moscow. Despite the rather cryptic denial from Mueller’s office, Buzzfeed still stands by their story. In addition, Rudy Giuliani admitted that Trump was involved in those talks all the way up to the November election, before later declaring that the admission was hypothetical.

If Schiff and Cummings want to get Cohen to actually testify, they better subpoena him pretty quickly. Starting on March 6th, Cohen will be under the authority of the executive branch, serving his three year prison sentence. Once that happens, the DOJ and Trump may the ultimate arbiter of how and when Cohen might be able to testify.

What’s happening with Cohen is just another example of how Trump is abusing and consolidating power every day. For example, the Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar is refusing to testify before the House to discuss Trump’s family separation policy, the sabotage of the ACA, and perhaps even take questions on his connections with Jeffrey Epstein.  The Trump shutdown is compromising the ability of the criminal justice and national security to function.

What the last few weeks have shown is that we can not afford to wait for Mueller.  Trump’s criminal activity did not end with his election and seems only to be increasing as the Mueller investigation closes in. Yet the American public remains largely in the dark about many of the details of those crimes, while others get committed in plain sight without any repercussions or accountability, further emboldening the President.

No one really knows if Cohen is afraid because of Trump, because of some MAGA nut job driven by Trump’s rhetoric, or because of blowback from revelations about his relatives. What we do know is that the Republicans in Congress are certainly OK with Trump’s witness intimidation based on their deafening silence or outright dismissal of Cohen’s fears. But what exactly are they waiting for, for Cohen to mysteriously “fall” to his death from his apartment like Magnitsky’s lawyer Gorokhov, or be debilitated or killed by some unknown poison like Skripal, or simply get shivved in a prison brawl, before this autocratic mobster gets stopped. How far can and will he go? And will there be anything that is too far for Republicans in Congress?