This morning, as John has noted, President Trump tweeted: “What kind of a lawyer would tape a client?” Trump was referring to his former lawyer, Michael Cohen. It’s a fair question.
Here’s another: What kind of a client would hire a sleazy lawyer like Michael Cohen? Perhaps Trump got the attorney he deserves.
Now Rudy Giuliani is Trump’s personal lawyer. Michael Cohen is being represented by long-time Democratic operative Lanny Davis.
Giuliani is 74 year old. Davis is 72. What is this, old-timers day?
As John suggests, Giuliani seems to be past his sell-by date. Davis’ skill-set, obfuscation and deception, erodes less quickly.
David Harsanyi at the Federalist looks back at Davis’ history of “corrupt hackery.” He writes:
Cringingly slavish to those in power, a consigliere, fundraiser, surrogate, and cheerful liar, Davis was a perpetual presence on cable TV during the Clinton scandals. Few men in history have ever been able to summon his kind of loyalty in the pursuit of shameless, transparent deceit and corruption. . . .
For years, Davis told America that what they were seeing and reading was not what was happening. After tapes emerged of the Clintons illegally soliciting donations from big-money donors at the White House in 1997, for example, Davis sprang into action, not only contending that there was “no suggestion that there was any solicitation for money” — despite the fact that the tapes suggested exactly that — but that many of the big contributions of those who had attended the event and only days later donated to the Clintons were merely an “incidental” occurrence.
This is what he did. Every day.
The irony of President Bill Clinton’s leading apologist peddling a womanizing scandal involving President Donald Trump isn’t lost on Harsanyi:
Perhaps these recordings [of Trump’s conversations with Cohen] will reveal campaign finance violations or some other criminality. Perhaps they won’t. Either way, the political price is likely to be minimal. At this point, any person who is honest with himself will not be surprised that our billionaire president might have paid a former Playboy model to sign a non-disclosure agreement. It would be more surprising if he hadn’t.
In some ways, though, you can thank Davis, who played a part in corrupting the value of personal responsibility, civility, and morality in our political culture. His unwavering defense of Bill Clinton’s corruption and extramarital dalliances (and possibly worse) is a valuable reminder of how we got to this place. . . .
Anyway, there was Davis last night, imploring CNN’s audience to be scandalized by the tapes of a president and his lawyer discussing how to hide an alleged affair. Davis was likely familiar with the ins and outs of these kinds of uncomfortable interactions, considering he was once tasked with dealing with “bimbo eruptions” and smearing women he surely suspected were telling the truth about President Clinton’s habitual womanizing.
CNN’s audience likely was scandalized, the rest of America not so much. Lanny Davis, of all people, should not be surprised.
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