He did WHAT? A thread for the many Trump bombshell books

The BBQ Pit
1

I’m putting this thread in the Pit because I may want to use insults and obscenities In the future, even though this post is pretty clean.

As mentioned in the clusterfuck thread “September Surprise” books are being released at a dizzying pace. This week the conversation is all about Woodward’s book and Cohen’s book + which was released Tuesday is already yesterday’s news.

The press just can’t cover the hundreds of stories that would be takedown level scandal for any other president. So here are the highlights from Cohen’s book as I saw them. I’ll be reading Woodward’s book next week.

The tone of the first 90% of the book lands somewhere between contrition and self-flagellation. It’s the confessional of a repentant former cult member. But towards the end he staunchly defends himself against the “witch hunt” and bitches that he did absolutely nothing wrong and was coerced into his plea, which leaves me wondering how this will go down with the DOJ. In the last part, as he reminisced like a star-struck teen about meeting rich Arabs because Trump I was left thinking that it would only take one call from Trump to pull him back into the cult.

Here are some of the notable incidents from the book

Trump literally lied to Cohen in the first sentence he spoke to him after they met. Trump told him that he had gotten Cohen a great deal on his apartment at Trump Park Ave, demanding to be thanked. And Cohen, who had paid market price for his apartment, thanked him.

Trump constantly demeans Don Jr and tells him that he’s too stupid to carry the Trump name. He often said in front of his kid that he hired Cohen to clean up his messes.

CNBC ran an online poll allowing their readers to select the most influential business leaders in the country from a list of 200 businessmen. The Trump Organization put out a memo asking all its employees to vote for Trump. Even after this action, Trump was polling at 187 on the list. It got under his skin, so he called Cohen and told him to fix it. The fix involved paying a hacker but the hack involved buying hundreds of thousands valid IP addresses. It was expensive. Trump authorized it and came in 9th in the poll. But CNBC might’ve smelled a rat, or else they just didn’t want Trump stinking up their poll. But in the fine print they said they had the right to alter the poll without explanation so they removed Trump without explanation. So Trump refused to pay the hackers.

Trump called Cohen’s 15 year old daughter a “piece of ass” before he knew she was Cohen’s daughter. But even after he found out and they were introduced, he ogled her , asked her for a kiss and talked about he he might be dating her friends someday. All in front of her father. The daughter, along with the rest of the family. was an avowed Trump hater even before that incident, and let her dad know how she felt pretty much on a daily basis.

Cohen still feels the infamous pee tape might exist.

Cohen detailed the ways in which Trump worked with the National Enquirer to take down his 2016 primary opponents. In a sane world, this would piss off the Republicans and it makes their suckage of Trump all the more pathetic.

The Stormy clusterfuck is still amazing, especially one detail that I don’t think was fully absorbed. Trump agreed to the 130K payment but left Cohen and Allen Weisselberg to work out the details. The problem was they needed a third party to make the payment. The National Enquirer wouldn’t do it because Trump stiffed them on Karen McDougal. Weisselberg claimed he didn’t have the money. They discussed maybe extorting a third party (Weisselberg actually asked Cohen if he knew of any Trump friends that were having affairs and could be extorted)

In the meantime, the pussy-grabbing tape had just been released and Stormy would’ve been the nail in the coffin. So finally, after many promises from Trump overcame his misgivings, Cohen took the money out against his home equity credit line - to hide it from his family -and ran the payment through his shell company.

Of course, Trump still tried to screw him. Cohen expected to be repaid via an adder to his 2016 bonus. But Trump stiffed him on the 2016 bonus, giving him only 50K ( his bonuses in past years had been around 150K). So they worked out the “repayment” deal, whereupon Cohen would invoice Trump monthly for legal work until the amount was repaid. But here’s the kicker ——Cohen was expected to do actual legal work in exchange for those payments. So Trump never repaid him anything. It would be kind of like if you lent a friend 50K and they paid you back by giving you a job that paid 50K a year. But not a fake “job”, a real job that involved real work.

It was a pretty good read, but I still think Cohen is holding back - probably because he couldn’t pull off any immunity deals. But it is an interesting account of the many ways in which he screwed over pretty much everyone he met.

2

I read the Mary Trump book, which offers a lot of insight into Trump’s lack of empathy, his greed, and his personality. Right now I’m reading Donald Trump v. The United States, by journalist Michael Schmidt. It’s primarily about McGhan and Comey, with a lot of interesting background, particularly about the successful Russian hack of America to sow discord and mistrust. Next up is the Cohen book, but I may have to take a break from all the karmic damage before reading it. Trump truly is the worst nightmare that anyone could have predicted.

3

I’m behind the curve and maybe this is way out-of-date information, but owing to an extended power outage, I recently had the time to finish up two I had started: Clint Watts’s Messing with the Enemy, and Andrew McCabe’s Threat. Both are excellent and very insightful.

Watts is a seasoned counterintelligence guy from the FBI. He has made it his life’s work to understand what the Russians are doing and how they accomplish it. I was surprised how topical it is in our current circumstances, since much of what he wrote about was the 2016 election hacks. The Russians really are running the exact same playbook. Why mess with success, eh?

McCabe’s book is important for its explanations of how the FBI does its work and how justified the counterintelligence investigations into Trump and his cabal were (are). Some great insider stuff, and McCabe even maintains a sense of humor throughout.

I’ve got Peter Strzok’s Compromised teed up next, then Brian Stetzer’s Hoax. Hopefully I’ll get to them quicker than the others.

4

Sidebar to a story in Woodward’s book

5

This amused me.

6

I wonder if it is a good or a bad sign that Trumps crimes do not seem to have much traction anymore. One the one hand, the worst thing for him to be is boring, and his scandals are boring. They all fill the same pattern, he is neither original nor amusing. On the other hand his supporters still shrug off everything he does and will vote for him. His detractors and the undecided (how anyone can be undecided by now is still mystifying to me, but never mind) need every incentive to vote him off and anger is a very good incentive, but hate is not good for a country on the long or medium term. So I really do not know what to wish for.
Apart from a little stroke in the Wernicke area during the debates, just to see if that would make any difference to his lack of coherence. Could be interesting to see how his aQolytes claim that was coherently talking it the way it is.

7

Thanks for this great summary. I haven’t read Cohen’s book yet because I didn’t think my stomach (and blood pressure) could take it.

8

Definately a bad sign. No question. The fact that we have come to terms with his behavior that it no longer even raises an eyebrow when he threatens to cutoff funding to a state he doesn’t like, allows him to get away with such behavior with impunity. Its no longer a scandal, its just the way the white house works.

As far as him chaffing at being seen as boring, that just means he will try to get away with even more outragious behavior. This is not a good thing.