A lot of normally smart people seem to be missing this: Trump pardoning Cohen would be the stupidest possible thing Trump could do. That's bc: 1) Up until seating of jury in federal trial, Cohen's presumed charges could be refiled in NYS, where Trump couldn't pardon.
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We don’t know what Cohen has on Trump, and to what extent it’s embarrassing, despicable, relevant to Trump violating federal law or violating state law. The value to Trump of pardoning Cohen would turn on those answers. But I doubt he’ll do it — Cohen is too hot to pardon now.
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Given Rudy and others' repeated concerns about Cohen flipping on Trump, I think we can be sure it's embarrassing, despicable, and relevant to Trump violating federal law. Given his repeated claims that Mueller rather than SDNY is going after Cohen suggests it's RU related.
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+1. And I have no idea who thinks NY state prosecutors don't have the resources. The problem before was political will and corruption (ahem, Cyrus Vance Jr.). But Manhattan prosecutors under Vance wanted to go after Ivanka and Jr. before. They are super-ready now.
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Is it likely that SDNY will hold Cohen’s charges in wait, go straight to others that this evidence burns? There’s very possibly garden variety of financial crimes which Ivanka, Jr & others could face. It does seem like the optimization here is NYS takes on Trump family members.
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Cohen seems to have confidence they want him to flip. We shall see.
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One dynamic that hasn’t been discussed: maybe Cohen has indicated willingness to cooperate, but because SDNY hasn’t seen the documents from search, they don’t want to offer a deal yet. Why offer deal to prove X if documents prove X? Demand Cohen give up X, Y, and Z for any deal.
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Yes, thought that myself.
End of conversation
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