If there's anything Democrats and Republicans both agree on it's that Michael Cohen has told a lot of lies. But I'm not sure they agree on which things he said were lies.
First, he said a lot of things supporting Donald Trump and that was because he worked for Trump for a long time and Trump trusted him and said he was great and, for example, when reporters asked Trump questions about a possible payment to a porn star, Trump referred them to Cohen. I don't get that Republicans had a lot of problems with those lies. He's admitted that a lot of those statements were lies and some of them are among the reasons he's going to prison.
But Republicans aren't mad at him for those lies, nor do they seem to be outraged that Trump ever hired this guy. They all seem mad about what Cohen's saying now and they insist it's his current statements that are outrageous lies. They don't seem to have any proof of that, not are they trying to rebut any of it. Their proof that Michael Cohen is now lying in that he's going to prison for the lies he told before in service of Trump even though they don't want to say most of those were lies, especially the ones Cohen now says Trump was in on.
Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani says we can't believe anything Cohen says because, after all, he's going to prison for the lies involved in covering up Trump's illegal payments to Stormy Daniels. But — and here's where I get a bit confused — Giuliani also insists paying off Stormy Daniels wasn't illegal even though he and his client used to fervently deny he'd done this.
In any case, Rudy joins the chorus of those who say that because Cohen lied when he was making big money lying, you can't believe him now when he isn't…unless, of course, he has a book deal. They don't seem to buy the argument that if Cohen lies now, he's facing additional prison time and further prosecution. Question: Don't most of the Republicans saying this also believe in waterboarding and otherwise torturing people in order to get accurate information out of them?
Meanwhile, Democrats are saying that, sure, Cohen lied before and he lied again when he started to get caught and now he's not lying. The proof of that is that he's implicating the guy he worked for…you know, the guy who could grant him a full and complete pardon for some of the laws he's broken. They say we should believe Cohen now because to them, he sounds credible now. And he will until he says something that's not useful to them, which he might do if someone offers him money or a pardon or a condo in some country without an extradition treaty.
And Independents have it easy. They can say he was lying then, he's lying now and so are Trump and everyone else. Do I have this right?