Key witness against Trump called in for 7th time by Manhattan D.A.

His name is Michael Cohen. You know who he is.

More bad news for Donald Trump emerged yesterday as Michael Cohen, his former “fixer” attorney, told Reuters he would be making a seventh appearance before the Manhattan District Attorney.  Cohen was interviewed as he took a court-approved walk around his apartment building and before he went back upstairs to be virtually questioned by the DA, apparently in a Zoom call.

Famous former witness John Dean, who was Nixon’s White House lawyer, tweeted this upon hearing the news: “From personal experience as a key witness I assure you that you do not visit a prosecutor’s office 7 times if they are not planning to indict those about whom you have knowledge. It is only a matter of how many days until DA Vance indicts Donald & Co.”

Dean and Cohen are both referring to the investigation of Trump and the Trump Organization currently underway by Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., the Manhattan DA, who has told reporters he’s looking into “possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct” at the Trump Organization.  Vance hasn’t gone into detail about the probe, but it is known that he is interested in whether Trump committed tax and banking fraud by falsifying the value of various properties he owned when he was applying for insurance and bank loans.  Trump would allegedly inflate the value of his properties when he was seeking mortgages and devalue the properties when he was applying for insurance policies.

Cohen told reporters Trump’s tax records, which were recently released to Vance’s office after the former president lost a Supreme Court decision, are the “holy grail” for the Manhattan D.A. in his investigation of potential crimes by Trump and his company.  Because Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, and its 500 or so subsidiaries are owned by Trump as an individual and not through a corporation, income from the companies appears on his personal tax forms. Thus Trump himself would be liable for any crimes committed as the owner and principal officer of his corporations.

A new tape was released yesterday by the Wall Street Journal of yet another conversation between Trump and a Georgia election official, during which he urged the official to help him overturn Georgia’s election results.  Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has previously confirmed that she is investigating a January 2 phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during which he asked the Georgia election official to help him “find” enough votes to flip the election win from Biden to him.  Willis also announced yesterday that she had hired an expert on Georgia’s racketeering law to assist in her investigation of Trump.  Lawyer John Floyd was sworn in as a “special assistant district attorney” yesterday by a Fulton County superior court judge.

When you add to the mix the new call, which Trump made in late December to the chief investigator for Raffensperger, it’s not looking very good for The Donald in Georgia either.

It’s too bad John Dean lost his license to practice law when he was convicted in the Watergate case.  He’s exactly the kind of lawyer Trump needs right now.

.