August 22, 2018

Cohen Ready to Tell Mueller Potentially Explosive Info on Trump, Would Not Accept Pardon

“There is no dispute that Donald Trump committed a crime,” Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis said.

Lanny Davis, the lawyer representing Michael Cohen, said that his client would “never accept” a pardon from President Donald Trump, telling NPR in an interview Wednesday that Cohen considers the president to be “both corrupt and a dangerous person” in the White House.

“He has flatly authorized me to say under no circumstances would he accept a pardon from Mr. Trump, who uses the pardon power in a way that no president in American history has ever used a pardon,” Davis said before referencing the president’s controversial decision to pardon former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio last year.

Davis on Wednesday also repeated his claim that Cohen possesses information “of interest” to special counsel Robert Mueller and the ongoing Russia investigation. The remarks came hours after Davis told Rachel Maddow that Cohen is willing to provide investigators potentially explosive information regarding Trump’s knowledge of the infamous 2016 hacking of the Democratic National Committee, along with details on the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

Cohen on Tuesday pleaded guilty to eight counts of federal crimes and implicated Trump, a man he once claimed he’d “take a bullet” for, in a criminal conspiracy to prevent women from publicly speaking about alleged affairs they had had with the president.

Davis’ media blitz continued through Wednesday morning, as he appeared on Morning Joe, New Day, and The Today Show, where he also promoted a new GoFundMe page to help pay for Cohen’s mounting legal troubles. As of this writing, the “Michael Cohen Truth Fund” has raised $16,692 of its $500,000 goal.

Listen to Mother Jones DC bureau chief David Corn discuss the consequences of the Paul Manafort conviction and Michael Cohen guilty plea on this week’s episode of the Mother Jones Podcast:

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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