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According to Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former lawyer, and contrary to what Trump has been saying for months, the Republican presidential candidate would have known about the meeting between his top advisers and Russian agents in their polls. Trump Tower offices, July 2016. These revelations of a privileged witness could increase the burden of proof against Donald Trump in the Russian case.
One by one, the pieces of the puzzle of the Russian case put in place and the image that emerges is not very favorable for Donald Trump. Cohen told CNN reporters on Thursday that the president had been informed in advance of a meeting between his son Donald Jr, his campaign director Paul Manafort and several other members of the Trump campaign and a group of Russians who promised them to provide incriminating information about Hillary Clinton. This revelation completes what was already known about this meeting, but the direct involvement of the president is a major new element in the Russian affair.
It was already known that there had been multiple contacts between members of the the campaign of Donald Trump and agents of Russia. It was also known that Trump's son had responded to an e-mail announcing the possibility of meeting with a lawyer close to the Vladimir Putin regime who would provide him with information which, Donald-Donald had said, was part of the government's efforts. Russian to help the campaign
This meeting is a major element of the evidence that could demonstrate the existence of collusion (or, in legal terms, a conspiracy) between the Trump campaign and agents of Russia , whose attorney also established that she was directly responsible for the computer attacks on the Clinton campaign and a package of interventions through social media in the 2016 campaign. What was missing from this evidence was a testimony that the President had been informed of the meeting before or after it. The same evening, the president made a strange public statement calling on Russia to publish Hillary Clinton's missing e-mails. However, his son swore before a congressional commission that he never spoke about this meeting to his father, either before or after it.
If the words attributed to Michael Cohen are true and the candidate Trump was aware of this meeting and the offer of help that had been made to him by the Russians, this would not necessarily mean that the president himself would be vulnerable to criminal charges. Indeed, the burden of proof in criminal cases in conspiracy cases is quite heavy and it is not certain that the elements that are publicly known to date would be sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the President actively conspiracy "with the 25 Russian nationals already indicted in this case. Among other obstacles to overcome, it is certain that Trump's lawyers will do everything they can to undermine the credibility of Michael Cohen as a witness. Moreover, even if the president were aware of this meeting, it would not necessarily mean that this knowledge could be used to establish his involvement in a conspiracy.
At least three things must be remembered. First, the prosecutor Mueller certainly knows a lot more about what really happened the public knows today. This testimony of Cohen will be one more piece in a puzzle that begins to look like a very well-filled mosaic. Secondly, the president himself will be ill-placed to plead the lying propensity of an embarrbading witness for him, since he himself has a well-established reputation for abusing the truth. Thirdly, this testimony, especially if it is corroborated by other witnesses, would contradict many statements by Trump and his entourage that vehemently denied, first that this meeting took place and then that the president was aware. For example, Donald Junior testified under oath before a Senate committee that he had not spoken to his father about this meeting. He thus exposes himself to accusations of perjury.
No collusion! Whether in his speeches, interviews or on Twitter, Donald Trump constantly repeats that there was never any collusion between his campaign and Russia's interference in the 2016 campaign. For a long time, Trump denied with As vehement as there were contacts between his campaign and agents of Russia, but evidence of such contacts has become so numerous that it has become impossible to deny them. If this last revelation of Donald Trump's former lawyer and right-hand man is reliable, the claim that there has never been collusion will become a lot more difficult to defend. And that's not all. Michael Cohen knows a great deal about Donald Trump's more or less lawful business practices. Therefore, to save his skin, he is more than likely to unpack his bag and provide ample evidence that could expose Donald Trump to a large number of potential charges. The evidence from the search at Cohne is endless. We heard one in a whole different case earlier this week, as the media was streaming an audio recording in which Cohen and Trump were discussing payments made to buy the silence of an old playmate with Qui Trump allegedly having an affair for a year.
It is not for nothing that the president fizzled after the FBI's search of the offices of his former lawyer and henchman Michael Cohen. If Donald Trump does not finish his term, it is quite possible that this search is identified as the beginning of the end of his improbable presidency.
Of course, it's not impossible that Donald Trump is above suspicion, whether it's his 2016 campaign or his decades as a hyperactive businessman. If that's the case, why not open the books of his companies? Why not testify before the prosecutor Mueller? Why all these secrets and all these lies?
Pierre Martin is professor of political science at the University of Montreal and director of the Chair of American Political and Economic Studies at CÉRIUM. You can follow him on Twitter: @PMartin_UdeM
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