Apologies for the false start below...
The Trump administration continues its relentless march to change what defines reality. In their world, it's whatever Donald Trump says it is.
On Sunday, Rudy told us all that truth isn't truth; much like the existence of "alternative facts", the only one who could possibly believe that is a first-year philosophy major. In a court of law truth is not determined by what one party says, it is determined by the weight of evidence.
In the case of Michael Cohen's plea deal, the Trumpsters are insisting that Cohen should not be believed because he has a history of lying. Guess what? So does Donald Trump. Prosecutors would have vetted Cohen's statements, so there is corroborative evidence to support them in the form of documentation and audio tapes. Cohen made his statements under oath; will Trump be willing to dispute them under oath? We may soon find out - Michael Avenatti plans to depose Trump in the Stormy Daniels lawsuit against him, and there is precedent that a sitting President CAN be deposed in a civil suit. And Trump's record in depositions is not exactly stellar - in his lawsuit against author Timothy O'Brien, Trump was caught lying during the deposition over 30 times (Trump lost that suit).
But then we get this today from Trump - he claims Cohen pleaded guilty to something that wasn't a crime. I'm not sure how that's even possible - how do prosecutors indict someone for doing something that is perfectly legal? And why would a judge accept such a plea? The fact is that what Cohen described - secretly paying off two women to remain quiet in order to avoid a negative effect on the campaign and then lying about it - is a serious violation of federal election law.
And then we have the law firm of Dershowitz, Giuliani & Sanders insisting that Cohen's plea didn't implicate the President at all, when a simple reading of the documents would show that that is EXACTLY what he did.
This is classic Trumpian gaslighting - tell a lie, then deny that you told the lie despite all evidence to the contrary, then deflect the blame to someone else. What you see with your own eyes and what you hear with your own ears is not what's really happening, so there must be something wrong with you.
George Orwell would be proud... |
