Why Cohen Matters

Cohen has maintained that Trump did know about the June, 2016 meeting between Manafort, Trump Jr., Kushner and the Russians.

Trump sent his response to Muller's questions last week. Apparently, they say that "to the best of his knowledge", Trump did not know about this meeting. He has previously been very firm in saying that he did not know about that meeting before it took place, including on Twitter.

And today - only after Trump has provided answers directly to Mueller on this issue - Cohen has entered a plea to providing misleading testimony to Congress.

Thoughts.

Case Management. Mueller is so far ahead of these people that it is scary - his management of this case is a masterpiece. 

I think he waited until Trump may have implicated himself by providing a written lie to the FBI regarding what he knew about the above noted meeting, before moving ahead to convict the person who will provide contrary evidence. 

If he had convicted Cohen sooner, Trump may not have offered the lie. This is not entrapment or baiting someone - Trump chose to answer as he did - he was free to tell the truth at any time, and was not coerced in any way.

It Was Trump's Meeting. It is inconceivable that Trump did not know about a meeting between his son, his son-in-law, and the head of his political campaign for the presidency of the United States - the three most powerful people in his campaign other than Trump himself - with anyone else during the campaign, especially the Russians. He knew.

Six Days in June. Trump Jr., heard about the meeting on June 3, 2016. The meeting was held six days later. What Mueller may actually know, but needs someone to provide evidence to prove, is what transpired during those six days.   

As noted here before, I think it is very likely that a tentative deal was hammered out in those six days. In short, if the Russians actually had evidence that would have destroyed Hillary Clinton and therefore handed the presidency to Trump, in return Trump would have relax sanctions on Russian that were imposed after they annexed Crimea, after he was elected. Such a deal would have been tantamount to treason.  

What happened in those days is the key to this entire sad episode, and it still remains to be revealed - "Six days in June" may soon become as important to US political history as the 18 missing minutes of tape recording was 45 years ago.

Hope. The other person who would know all of this is Hope Hicks. She is no doubt watching very carefully as Trump continues to fail to pardon Manafort, and the fact that as Manafort continued to lie to the FBI, they knew of every single lie as he told them.

Is she going to plead to obstruction to avoid prison and cooperate?  Has she already been cooperating for months? She does not want to spend the rest of her life in prison. 

Seth Rich. If the Russians did provide the leaks regarding Clinton to Wikileaks, as seems obvious now, then Seth Rich did not. Was he killed to throw off any investigation into the source of those leaks - that is, was he killed by the same people who stole the e-mails in the first place? 

And what do we make of Julian Assange's offer of $25 K for information leading to his killers? This offer reinforces the impression that he was the source, and further obscures the matter.

Trace the statements and assertions and their sources here...do you believe Trump, Assange and the Russians; or Mueller and the FBI?

Clinton. She was in Toronto recently with her despicable husband, getting ready to run again in 2020. She needs to go away.