Lanny Davis, the attorney for President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, has been in conversation with the lawyer who helped collapse Richard Nixon’s presidency, Politico reported Sunday.
Davis told Politico that he’s been in touch with the former White House counsel, John Dean, because he saw some “parallels” between what Cohen is dealing with and what Dean experienced during Watergate.
“I certainly don’t want to raise expectations that Mr. Cohen has anything like the level of deep involvement and detailed knowledge that John Dean had in the Nixon White House as a witness to Nixon’s crimes, but I did see some similarities and wanted to learn from what John went through,” Davis told Politico.
Davis said he is not consulting Dean for legal advice, but rather just to jog his memory on the Watergate investigation. This isn’t the first time Dean’s name has been raised in recent days: Trump tweeted suggesting his White House counsel Don McGahn was not a “rat” like Dean after it was reported over the weekend the McGahn has cooperated extensively with special counsel Robert Mueller.
Cohen, like Dean under Nixon, is under investigation for a slew of financial crimes, has also been interviewed by investigators probing the Trump campaign and Russian meddling in the 2016 election. As Trump and his new lawyer Rudy Giuliani bad mouth Cohen via Twitter and cable news interviews, Cohen has hinted that he’d be willing to cooperate with federal prosecutors even if it put Trump in jeopardy.
The best part of this (slightly overblown) episode is not in the article:
Because, well Cohen needs someone to walk him out through the wall of G-men with guns, to make sure he is not shot?
All I can say is that Cohen is preparing to try to monetize this all. Line up surrogates, supporters, a book agent. I can definately see having another republican “rat” in his corner as being part of that plan…
But gee wiz, can’t we go back to a simpler era when you just answered the FBI’s questions when they can asking, and the chips fell where they fell?
Heh, heh, heh.
Davis probably wants to know how Dean has managed to rehabilitate himself so completely. I would not expect that of Cohen, who is a much more repellent creature. Dean, after all, was a relatively young and callow member of the Watergate cabal. Hardly true of Cohen.
It is a different culture, the era of “accept jesus and be saved” or here more “go on TV and confess you have changed.” As long as Cohen puts the shank into his smarmy grifter ex-“client” 50% of the Country (i.e. 50% of the 58-59% who want to see Don the Con in chains) will want to hear his story of turning on the wannabe Mussolini.