Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's lawyer slash fixer knows a thing or two about breaking
the law.
After all, this was a guy who was sentenced to three years in prison because he just wanted
to keep up with the Joneses and basically have this very lavish lifestyle that, uh,
he funded not quite legally.
Now here's the thing, Michael Cohen this week.
Cause he is not in prison right now, due to the COVID.
Uh, every, not everybody obviously, but a lot of people on non-violent offenses have
been let go on early release on house arrest, whatever it is, uh, because COVID is horrible
in prisons and we're doing virtually nothing to stop the spread.
So anyway, Cohen's out of jail at the moment.
And he did an interview with MSNBC earlier this week, where he talked about the fact
that Donald Trump's pardons could actually end up hurting him legally.
Now this is not the same argument that Lawrence tribe, uh, Harvard law professor, uh, discussed
earlier this week.
Tribe had said that Trump could actually be prosecuted for the pardons themselves because
they could possibly be seen as obstruction of justice, even though proving the intent
on that.
Proving the intent on that as I had talked about is virtually impossible.
We all know it exists.
You can't prove it though.
Correct.
And on the other hand takes a different approach.
Cohen who in spite of his, you know, criminal conviction is in fact, a lawyer understands
that many years ago, over a hundred years, years ago, the us Supreme court ruled that
the acceptance of a presidential pardon is in fact an admission of guilt because it is
an admission of guilt.
You are no longer protected under the fifth amendment of the us constitution as such Michael
Cohen explained if Trump does get prosecuted for some of the crimes, he is alleged to have
committed.
These individuals could be forced.
They could be compelled to testify against the president because they have already admitted
guilt and would no longer be protected by the fifth amendment.
Uh, you know, the, uh, uh, self implication there that's a big deal or maybe not.
I hate, it's always have to be the bearer of bad news about these things with the Galilee
of what Trump may or may not have done.
But here's the problem with this scenario.
This would rely on the bikes and administration actively pursuing criminal charges against
Donald Trump because the people he is pardoning are not people who were involved with any
of the alleged criminal activity up in New York state.
These are people who were involved with the, uh, Russia investigation and things of that
nature, obstruction of justice type thing.
So if Biden's DOJ does not decide to go after Trump for those specific crimes, these pardons
are not going to come back into play, and you're not going to be able to compel these
people to testify anything because they're not involved in the other investigations that
we know of.
And even if they were, they weren't pardoned for anything related to those investigations.
So they would still be protected under the fifth amendment.
Now, the other part of this is that those crimes alleged crimes that Joe Biden could,
or his administration could investigate Trump for are still things that Trump could end
up pardoning himself for, at which case, at which point, excuse me, none of this matters
because he would have been pardoned.
Sure.
It's an admission of guilt, but it's over.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that if you're wanting Donald Trump to go to jail,
if you're wanting him to actually be prosecuted, don't put any stock into the pardons coming
back to bite them.
Don't put any stock in Biden's DOJ going after him.
He's made it clear.
He doesn't want to do that, but do have faith in that New York attorney general Latisha
James, she knows what she's doing and she's good at it too.