Quote:
Originally Posted by Chloé Palmas
Pretty much spot on, on the former. No matter how much Cohen squeals though, it is up to the discretion of the judge as to whether he will take the co-operation of Cohen (with SP / counsel) into any farther consideration. The latter (if executed upon) could lead to the government appealing Cohen's sentence to an appellate court (which they are perfectly entitled to do) and it would or could lead to an entirely new sentence. Perfectly plausible if the government feels that it is warranted. Though that varies from jurisdiction to level / type of crime etc. (Sentence is too lenient, at the federal level, for example etc). BoP could release early which king of complicates things, too.
The other thing to bear in mind is that some crimes do have mandatory minimum sentences (like with sex crimes for example) so a judge is bound by statute. The problem becomes, that at the point of wanting an early release, "co-operation" will go in a defendants favor ; so in the case of Cohen if he were to ask for Parole then perhaps the board will look at his behavior favorably. (That is why some sex offenders plead guilty and take the 25 to life in the hope of getting out after 25).
The issue of his flipping on Trump though, will have nothing to do with this sentence. That was referred to the SDNY's office and the US attorney's office there was the one that filed and charged. It was just a referral from Bob Muller through discovery of a crime. It has nothing to do with the Russia probe so like with all other relevant crimes (at the federal level) it is passed on to the relevant office for prosecution.
Now the prosecutors may have privately told Cohen (more than likely) that if he just says what he knows, they will recommend a lesser sentence to the judge, which is the most likely outcome. However, and this is the important part : the judge is in no way bound by their recommendation and in some cases will have his hands tied in the case of a MM. I think the judge (in this instance) will be lenient if he gives anything less than 60 months and Cohen will be very lucky ; he deserves a much longer sentence IMO.
He is one passive aggressive POS, too - saying that he would not appeal anything up to 63 months. His backhanded way of telling the judge "I'll go away quietly if you go easy on me". This is why (among everything else), Cohen is also a terrible lawyer himself. I hope the judge throws the book at the little weasel.
|
I'm starting to think Cohen got wrapped up in more than he should have.
Lanny Davis, Cohen's attorney, was on CNN just a little while ago kind of walking back a lot of stuff he'd said. For example, he walked back the idea that Cohen had evidence related to the Trump Tower meeting.
This is just me shooting from the hip but I think Cohen knew he was screwed when it came to the tax evasion stuff. He was looking at decades of jail just for that. Then Lanny Davis came along to "save" him. Davis is a well known Clinton devotee. Davis probably discussed the possibility of Cohen dropping some kind of dirt that could be used against Trump in exchange for lenience in the tax matters. Cohen, unfortunately for him, didn't have much to say about Trump. The best they could come up with was campaign finance violations...and that was pushing it.
The prosecutors, however, loved the idea of the campaign finance stuff. Their whole reason for going after Cohen had been to get an inroad to Trump. Anyway, the deal was made and Cohen had his name in the papers as a potential savior of the nation if he could say something to put Trump away. So he opened up in the court room and let his big secret out...Trump had ordered all the payments and was the mastermind behind the whole thing.
It was a lie.
The tape Davis and Cohen released where they discuss the McDougal payment indicates that, contrary to Cohen's courtroom assertion, Trump was unaware that a payment was to be made until that call. Furthermore, the tape reveals Cohen saying how he arranged things with someone named Alan Weiselberg regarding how to "set the whole thing up". That's definitely not Trump telling him to make the deal. That's Cohen working with others to set up the payment and all he's doing is letting Trump know a payment will need to be made.
Cohen made one heck of an assertion in court and will likely need a whole lot of supporting documentation to prove his assertion if the Democrats that are pushing for impeachment try to use this thing. It's all political showmanship and, like most other things purported to portend Trump's demise, lacking desperately in substance.