Partners in crime

What a glorious moment to be alive!

It’s like the ancient Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.” Like millions of Americans, I watched, rapt, while Michael Cohen – Trump’s lawyer, confidante, and go-to fixer for a dozen or so years – testified in front of Congress. The night before, I sat, stunned, as Republican congressman Matt Gaetz threatened Cohen on the eve of his testimony. At the same time, our fearless leader – having finally overcome those debilitating bone spurs that kept him out of Vietnam when our country actually needed him there – finally flew to the other side of the world to meet the North Korean dictator that he’s now calling his “friend.” All while Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, aka Boy Wonder, flew to the other side of the world to talk with Saudi Arabia’s murderous Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman – you know, the guy who had a “Washington Post” reporter cut up into pieces with a bone saw and then lied about it – about selling them (illegally, of course) American nuclear technology.

In any normal world, just one of the above would be a national and international news story for days, if not weeks. Under Trump, it’s just another day. But a few notes on this amazing harmonic convergence are in order.

First, Congressman Gaetz. The Florida congressman – who is almost Kevin Cramer-esque in his obsequious cheerleading for Trump – seemed to threaten, on the eve of Cohen’s testimony, to reveal some information about Cohen’s “girlfriends” and then wrote, “I wonder if [your wife] will remain faithful when you’re in prison. She’s about to learn a lot.” This is what’s known in legal circles as “felony witness tampering.”

Two notable things about this: First, Gaetz is a fairly young and inexperienced congressman— but for some reason, he and Trump have a very close relationship. According to Gaetz, the two of them talk on the phone almost constantly, with Trump giving him advice on everything from what issues he should be investigating to what kind of haircut looks best on him (I’m not making this up— Gaetz has bragged about this in interviews.) So who’s feeding Gaetz information about Michael Cohen’s dalliances with women? Any guesses?

Secondly: Since we seem to be operating under mafia protocol here, it’s worth noting that in that world, you generally only threaten witnesses when you’re afraid that they’re going to tell the truth. The official line from Trump’s White House – and from the Republican National Committee – is that Cohen’s nothing but a lying liar whose word can’t be trusted. (Never mind that he was Trump’s right-hand man for a dozen years – or that he was the Deputy Finance Chairman of the RNC for more than a year.) Let’s also remember what Trump said of Cohen as late as last August: He said that the crimes that Cohen pleaded guilty to weren’t really crimes. He defended the felon. Of course, this was before Cohen started talking to the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller. Once he did that, the Republican damage control machine kicked in.

And about this much-ballyhooed summit with Kim Jong Un, the murderous dictator of North Korea and Trump’s new “friend:” Why does Trump like him so much? Well, according to Trump, Kim Jong Un writes him “beautiful letters.” Seriously— that’s the reason. What’s at stake? Oh— just the little matter of whether we’re going to do anything about stopping North Korea from developing a nuclear weapon. In other words: The safety of the free world.

I can hear some of you asking: But what’s wrong with being friends? Maybe that will help us get what we want? I’m guessing that some of you same people thought it would be a great idea to have a businessman try to run our government, but let’s set that aside for a minute. Here’s what’s wrong with that: Kim Jong Un assassinated one of his family members with a nerve agent in an airport; he murdered another family member with an anti-aircraft gun; he murdered a young American; he’s threatened to level American cities; he oversees and endorses a nationwide system of mass rape; he’s thrown hundreds of thousands of his own citizens in gulags, and he kills dissidents for fun. He’s no one’s “friend,” and he should be crushed like a bug – metaphorically speaking – and his regime decimated, not coddled.

Then again, maybe Kim Jong Un isn’t the whole show in Vietnam? Russian news reported, in the days before the summit, that the White House reached out to certain Russian figures for advice about the meeting with Kim Jong Un. And – surprise! – whose private plane was tracked flying into Vietnam just ahead of Air Force One? Why— Sergei Lavrov’s private plane!

Lavrov, some of you might remember, is the high-ranking Russian intelligence maestro – assumed by some to be Trump’s handler – who Trump was photographed with in the Oval Office, laughing and backslapping, on the day after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. Firing Comey, Trump told Lavrov, eased the pressure he was under because of the whole Russia thing. Ha! How do we know this? American media wasn’t allowed to cover the meeting and our photographers weren’t allowed in the Oval Office. Russian media – and Russian news photographers – were. So maybe – just maybe – Trump’s got another sort of summit planned in Vietnam?

Only about 31 percent of Americans now don’t feel confident that Russia isn’t blackmailing Trump. Let’s remember, briefly, how we got to where we’re at: We started off with “we had absolutely no deals with Russia and no contact whatsoever with Russians.” When both of those things were proven to be lies, Trump’s people moved on to “Well, you know, the contacts we had weren’t planned.” When that was proven to be a lie, they trotted out, “Okay, maybe they were planned— but they didn’t have anything to do with the campaign.” When they got caught in that lie, they tried, “Okay, sure, but it wasn’t meaningful contact, and we didn’t, you know, use the meetings to advance our campaign.” When that excuse didn’t work, they were out in the wilderness. That’s when we were subjected to a legal genius like Rudy Giuliani trying to sell the Sunday morning political shows on a unicorn-like legal notion: “Collusion is not a crime.” Once the laughter subsided, their fallback then became, “Well, in any case, you can’t collude if you don’t know Vladimir Putin, and Trump didn’t know Vladimir Putin then.”

When it’s then pointed out that Trump had, at the time, already boasted about knowing Vladimir Putin, you almost feel sorry for not just Trump and his administration but the entire Republican party, which has done absolutely nothing to get at the truth of the matter.

Senator John McCain’s former Chief of Staff, Mark Salter, is withering in his appraisal of today’s Republican party. “The party of Reagan is dead,” he writes. “The House GOP killed it. It’s now an association of grifters, self-dealers, racists, and cowards.”

Michael Cohen began his testimony by saying, of his former boss, “He is a racist, he is a con man, and he is a cheat.” Then he showed the evidence that proved that Trump – as president – lied to the American people. About what? About virtually everything.

What happens now? It’s anybody’s guess, really, but we seem to be entering the final act of what could have been the greatest reality show that any of us have ever seen— if our country wasn’t hanging in the balance. And if you can consider all of the above and make any kind of prediction that Trump emerges from this as our knight in shining armor... well, I’m guessing that there’s a different kind of oxygen you’re breathing on the planet where you live. 

Corey Seymour is a proud NRHS graduate and former writer and editor on the National Affairs Desk at “Rolling Stone” and at many other magazines,. He now works as a senior editor at “Vogue” in New York. Write him at [email protected].