Editor’s Note: Michael D’Antonio is the author of the book, “Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success,” and co-author with Peter Eisner of “The Shadow President: The Truth About Mike Pence.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are the author’s. Read more opinion articles on CNN.
“THE SYSTEM IS RIGGED!” warned then-candidate Donald Trump in the summer of 2016. He was talking about the upcoming presidential election, and oh how right he was. The system and surrounding media coverage was being rigged, by Russians, and Macedonian trolls and now, we know, by the President’s self-described “fixer,” Michael Cohen.
Cohen, who will soon testify before Congress, is becoming the John Dean of this era of political scandal. (Dean, you’ll remember, was central to the downfall of the Nixon presidency.) The latest Cohen revelation, offered by The Wall Street Journal and confirmed by Cohen to CNN, finds him handing a literal bag of cash to a tech wizard named John Gauger, chief information officer at Liberty University, which advertises itself as a wholesome Christian institution (and released a statement Thursday making clear it allows employees to engage in “side work”). Gauger’s ostensible side hustle in this case for Cohen apparently involved rigging online polls to show Trump was favored by respondents to CNBC and Drudge Report polls. Cohen confirmed the story, saying, “What I did was at the direction of and for the sole benefit of [Mr. Trump]. I truly regret my blind loyalty to a man who doesn’t deserve it.”
Regret is a theme Cohen has sounded again and again as the facts of his work for Trump have been revealed in court documents and press reports. Much of his behavior over the past year, including pleading guilty to making hush-money payments to protect Trump from potential sex scandals, which Trump denies, can be seen as an effort at atonement. Cohen spent years acting as a bully and a shield for a boss he tried to emulate. This brought him to a point where he has become an object lesson in the perils of making a deal with a narcissistic devil whose fear of honest competition drove him to cheat. Trump’s team is now trying to discredit Cohen as a liar, a cheat, a low-life. The obvious question in response: If that’s true, why did Trump employ him for a decade?
The Journal scoop shows Cohen acting as the devil’s apprentice as he tried to use the methods that he had employed for his boss to benefit himself. In 2016, according to the report, Cohen had Gauger create a Twitter account called @WomenForCohen, which declared Cohen: “Strong, pit bull, sex symbol, no nonsense, business oriented and ready to make a difference!”
Cohen’s qualifications for sex symbol status rest in the eye of the beholder. The effort to persuade the country – and perhaps himself – that he is a hunk was truly, and pathetically, Trumpian.
Throughout his life, businessman Donald Trump offered himself to the world as a sex symbol, even as his physique succumbed to hamburgers and gravity and his hair required heroic measures to address obvious balding. The creepy sexual banter on the “Howard Stern Show” and the extra-long ties, which he reportedly believes make him look slender, are, instead, evidence of a man trying to cheat even Father Time. Poor Cohen was only trying to follow Trump’s lead.
Seen as an emblem of Trump’s effect on those around him, @WomenForCohen and the alleged poll manipulation are a perfect illustration of the boss’ values and his long-established habits. Terrified of being revealed as a loser in any arena, Trump has always been preoccupied with puffing up his image. Inflated claims about his personal wealth and ventures like Trump University were typical examples of the ways Donald Trump tried to distort reality. As a private businessman and a master manipulator, he succeeded well enough to become the host of a TV show that revolved around the fiction that he was a giant in his industry.
What worked for Trump the promoter apparently became a main ingredient in his campaign as Cohen helped establish the myth of his popularity with cooked polls that presumably bolstered the false narratives about everything from immigration to the supposed crimes for which his opponent should be locked up. Add the yeasty factor of Russian interference on Trump’s behalf and you get an election so stained by corruption that it’s hardly surprising its leader, former campaign manager Paul Manafort, stands convicted of a host of offenses and special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation threatens to bring a constitutional crisis.
Emerging from the mire of what is left of Trumpworld, Michael Cohen is an unlikely truth teller. When he worked for Trump, Cohen did whatever he could to intimidate the boss’ critics or opponents and to inflate his accomplishments. This makes him, in the words of Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani “a pathological liar.” (This was after Giuliani called Cohen “honest and honorable.”) Cohen has been working at becoming honest and honorable ever since he came under investigation for campaign finance law violations. One could say this change of heart was a matter of convenience, but whatever the reason, it is in the public interest for the nation to learn what Cohen knows about a President who rose to power via the lifelong practice of deception and misdirection.
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In the past, Cohen’s association with Trump made his statements easy to dismiss. Today it gives us reason to pay close attention.
