Why Michael Cohen Fears an Imprisoned Trump Will Sell Out America

Michael Cohen doesn’t think that Donald Trump should be put behind bars—all because of his big mouth.

The former Trump fixer claimed imprisoning the former president could be “dangerous,” arguing that he belongs under house arrest instead.

“He needs to be held accountable,” Cohen told CNN on Monday. “Do I believe if it was anyone else that that individual would already be in prison or jail? The answer is emphatically yes.”

“But, because he was president of the United States, and for four years he was debriefed on a daily basis on our national security secrets, I personally as an American citizen, I would be concerned,” Cohen said, “because Donald is the kind of guy to sell any of that information for a bag of tuna or a book of stamps, and I do really mean that.”

“It’s dangerous for America to have somebody like Donald Trump in an environment where he can share the information,” he added. “Look, he’s shared it already with members of Mar-a-Lago as well as other individuals that came to visit, so why would he not do it if it benefited him somehow, in some way, in a prison situation?”

Last month, Cohen testified in Trump’s $250 million New York bank fraud trial that Trump made up numbers and then told Cohen to artificially inflate the real estate mogul’s net worth, sometimes by as much as billions of dollars, in order to broker better deals with banks and insurance companies.

“I was confused on how I was going to be,” Cohen said, recalling the moment he came face to face with Trump for the first time in years while taking the stand. “And actually, I felt nothing. It was so weird that here I am, sitting directly across from Donald Trump, and I felt absolutely nothing.”

But while Trump doesn’t face the ultimate consequence of prison time in that particular trial due to its nature as a civil case, he does in several other upcoming criminal trials, including the Georgia election interference case, the January 6 insurrection case, the classified documents case, and the hush-money case in which Trump surreptitiously paid off porn actress Stormy Daniels during his presidential campaign and then paid off Cohen while in the White House for helping him do it.

Donald Trump Jr. might have tripped up his legal team’s entire defense on Monday, slipping into his testimony that the family’s Florida property, Mar-a-Lago, is an “estate” rather than a club.

“My father purchased what was one of the finest estates anywhere in the world,” Don Jr. said Monday morning in reference to the building, which he called “amazing” and likened to an “American castle.”

But no amount of embellishment will hide Trump Jr.’s admission: The family’s beloved Florida home at Mar-a-Lago—which, incidentally, Trump has used as his primary residence since leaving the White House in 2021—is perceived by the family as an estate, or residential property.

The contested valuation of Mar-a-Lago is at the heart of the fraud trial against the Trump Organization. Last week, attorneys for the New York state attorney general’s office highlighted incongruous deeds and assessments for the former president’s various international properties, including a development deed for Mar-a-Lago that restricts the status of Trump’s primary residence to a club.

Despite the deed restrictions, the New York Attorney General’s Office argues, Trump overinflated the value of Mar-a-Lago on the basis that it was used as a private home and could be sold as such.

The $250 million bank fraud case hopes to prove that Trump deceived banks and insurers by massively overvaluing his net worth—with properties like Mar-a-Lago. So far, New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron has already ruled that Trump and his two sons, Don Jr. and Eric, committed fraud.

The Supreme Court unveiled a new, incredibly vague “code of ethics” on Monday, following several high profile ethics scandals.

All nine justices signed the 14-page document, which includes five canons of conduct under which the justices should recuse themselves and is based on similar codes used by lower courts.

It requires justices to “uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary” and “avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities,” according to the code. The code does not mention any enforcement mechanisms, however, and disclosures are completely voluntary.

In a statement attached to the code, the justices highlighted that the court has “long had the equivalent of common law ethics rules,” which they believe added to confusion around the court’s behavior.

“The absence of a Code, however, has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules,” the justices said in a statement. “To dispel this misunderstanding, we are issuing this Code, which largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct.”

Yet the new set of rules fails to outline possible consequences should ethics violations persist.

“This is a long-overdue step by the justices, but a code of ethics is not binding unless there is a mechanism to investigate possible violations and enforce the rules,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, noting that the court’s “honor system” holding justices accountable hasn’t worked in the past.

The court has faced increased scrutiny since several ProPublica investigations revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas had been pocketing favors from Republican real estate developer Harlan Crow, including private school tuition for his nephew, the renovation of the home where his mother still lives, and undisclosed trips on the billionaire’s yacht, private jet, and at his private resort. Two months later, the outlet unveiled a similar scandal with Justice Samuel Alito, who failed to report a luxury fishing vacation to Alaska with hedge fund billionaire ​​Paul Singer in 2008.

Donald Trump’s lawyers shared faulty evidence on Monday during his business fraud trial in New York, accidentally adding further fuel to the allegations against him.

The New York attorney general has accused Trump, his sons Don Jr. and Eric, the Trump Organization, and other company executives of fraudulently inflating the value of various real estate assets to get more favorable terms on bank loans. When Don Jr. took the stand Monday, Trump’s lawyers appeared to demonstrate exactly how the family overrepresented their assets.

Trump’s lawyers displayed a screenshot of a property tax document for 40 Wall Street, now called the Trump Building. The slide described the property as a “72 story landmark building in the Financial District, directly across from the New York Stock Exchange.”

The Trump Building is only 63 stories, according to filings from New York City and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and is actually around the corner from the Stock Exchange. The Trump Organization’s chief legal officer, Alan Garten, explained to Forbes a month ago that 40 Wall Street has 63 floors of commercial space, but “when you add the space from 63 to the cupola, the building totals 72 floors.”

Trump’s lawyers also showed a slide claiming the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas is 64 stories. But an architectural drawing shows it likely has fewer levels because the floor numbers jump from eight to 16.

New York Attorney General Letitia James has alleged that Trump lied about the size and value of his many real estate holdings. His lawyers’ evidence, shared to make Trump’s case, actually appears to undermine it.

Trump may want to consider getting new lawyers, as his team seems to continually blow up his defenses in his various legal disputes. In addition to the New York fraud trial, Trump’s lawyers stumbled trying to defend against his federal indictment for attempting to overthrow the 2020 election.

His lawyer Alina Habba, who is also working on the fraud trial, undermined his defense in the other case by admitting that “everybody was made aware that he lost the election,” and his lawyer John Lauro also publicly confessed that Trump asked then–Vice President Mike Pence to delay certifying the nation’s votes (which is illegal).

Donald Trump’s team defended his authoritarian comments over the weekend by doubling down on dictatorial language, a frightening preview of what could happen if Trump wins the presidency.

During a Veterans Day speech on Saturday, Trump called his political opponents and critics “vermin” and accused them of being a bigger threat to the U.S. than countries such as Russia, China, and North Korea. Historians and researchers were quick to warn that his language was reminiscent of authoritarian leaders including Hitler and Mussolini.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung defended the former president’s comments with some reasonable language of his own.

“Those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House,” Cheung told The Washington Post on Monday.

Cheung later added that he meant to say their “sad, miserable existence” instead of their “entire existence.”

Cheung’s statement is a chilling example of just how extreme Trump has become. His team isn’t even trying to downplay or explain away his authoritarian tendencies. Instead, his team is leaning into it.

During his speech, Trump promised to “root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections.”

“The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within,” he said.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University, warned that Trump is following in Hitler and Mussolini’s footsteps.

“Calling people ‘vermin’ was used effectively by Hitler and Mussolini to dehumanize people and encourage their followers to engage in violence,” she explained to The Washington Post.

Brian Klaas, a political scientist, told MSNBC on Monday that Trump is “lifting not just rhetoric but actual plans from the authoritarian playbook.”

“I study the breakdown of democracy, and I don’t know how to say this more clearly: We are sleepwalking towards authoritarianism,” he said.