Michael Cohen, former Trump personal attorney, is a prime example of a man debilitated by bitterness and anger toward his former boss, Donald Trump. He blames the former president for his self-destruction that reached its peak in a three-year sentence to prison.
However, no one forced Cohen to lie to Congress, lie to banks, lie to the special counsel, lie to courts, lie to the IRS, and lie to the Federal Election Commission. He did that all on his own because he’s a bully and a liar, as he confessed in court. Disgraced and disbarred, Michael Cohen’s name is now synonymous with “serial perjurer,” an epithet coined recently by a federal judge after correctly assessing Cohen’s lack of character. He continues to lie, said the court. Lying is a vice that satisfies his hatred.
With Cohen’s abominable record, it’s bewildering why any responsible prosecutor would put him on the stand, much less hinge his entire case on the credibility of a hopeless, unhinged fabricator. It is an indication of the desperation of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg that he did.
Without Cohen, the District Attorney’s ambition to put the former president behind bars would dissolve. Bragg and his partisan team knew their star witness would be destroyed on cross-examination. That is why, at the end of Tuesday morning’s court session, they tried to preempt the unavoidable attack by inviting Michael Cohen for his deluge of lies. It was a lengthy list. His explanations were empty, and his apologies seemed hollow.
Finally, the defense got its chance in a shortened afternoon session. Cohen pleaded not to remember when questioned about how the prosecution had coached him. He was confronted with the venom he spewed at Trump over the past six years on numerous television shows and hundreds of podcasts. He pretended the kind of acute loss of memory that plagues dementia patients.
It makes no difference because several of Cohen’s proclamations were digitally recorded and are lying in wait. They offer a compelling contrast. In court, jurors have observed a calm, deliberate, well-dressed Cohen. His hatred was concealed well under what must have been strict instructions from the prosecution. However, it was a con — of course — by an established swindler.
The videos expose the true Michael Cohen in all genuine ugliness. In unhinged rants, he rages that Trump “belongs in a cage like a f***ing animal.” Cohen refers to the former president as a “dictator douche bag” and a “Cheeto-dusted cartoon villain.”
Those are only some of the tirades on TikTok that took place during the trial while Cohen was trolling for money. But wait… there’s more.
Anyone who has had the misfortune to deal with Cohen describes him in the most abhorrent ways: vile, nasty, disgusting, a bully completely lacking morals. This, of course, aligns with his raging hatred, as seen in the videos.
In one video, he’s clothed in a T-shirt with a photo of Trump that shows him superimposed behind prison bars. He was forced in court Tuesday to admit he wants Trump convicted.
That’s a motive to lie, which comes naturally to Cohen. He’s a pathological liar who is also motivated by greed. His entire livelihood is dependent on eradicating Trump. He doesn’t have any other source of income. Without Trump to berate, he’d be penniless.
Attorneys refer to cross-examination as the engine of truth. It strips the veneer of a bogus witness and exposes him to the scrutiny of uncomfortable truths and hard facts. There is no disguising Cohen’s thirst for revenge. You see it lying in plain sight by looking at his book titles — “Disloyal” and “Revenge.”
