Fixer Michael Cohen has history of ties to the Russian mob

[meow2u3]

Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, once told Vanity Fair: “I’m the guy who stops the leaks. I’m the guy who protects the president and the family. I’m the guy who would take a bullet for the president.”

During a Wednesday appearance on MSNBC, former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci confirmed that Cohen is as loyal as the day is long, telling Katy Tur there was no chance Cohen would turn state’s evidence against the president because he “is a very loyal person.” Scaramucci didn’t even pretend to believe that Cohen would have nothing to offer prosecutors. It seems to be a given that he knows where bodies are buried, but is willing to go to jail rather than betray Trump. That arguably says more about the latter than the former.

I wrote recently that I think this passionate belief in Cohen’s loyalty may be wishful thinking on Trump’s part. Apparently I’m not the only one. According to a Wednesday article in the Wall Street Journal, Trump’s former attorney Jay Goldberg has issued exactly the same warning:

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/04/trumps-personal-lawyer-michael-cohen-history-ties-russian-organized-crime/

Innocent man? I don't think so.

[WhiteTara]

1. my favorite part

According to Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo, Cohen’s father and uncle were both doctors, but the uncle also owned a “social club” in Brooklyn called El Caribe that was a known Mafia hangout in the 1970s and ’80s. The Russian mob, then run by a legendary godfather named Evsei Agron then by his successor, Marat Balagula, (who was suspected of killing Agron) had offices in El Caribe and pretty much ran their nefarious business out of it for some years. Sater’s dad, Marshall reports, was “a reputed capo in the Mogilevich organized crime syndicate.”

So Cohen has been associated with mobsters and con men his whole life, which probably explains the widespread assumption that he would adhere to the pledge of omertà, the mafia code of silence. That code isn’t what it used to be. In 2001, Sammy “The Bull” Gravano finally turned on Gambino crime boss John Gotti and sent him to prison. Do you know who made the deal with Gravano? It was an assistant attorney general in the criminal division of the Department of Justice. His name was Robert Mueller.

Michael Cohen may be mobbed up, but he’s no Sammy the Bull. Those who know him best seem to believe he’ll crack even before he has his fingers printed.