Blue State Blues: Clinton Lawyer Lanny Davis Exploited Michael Cohen to Attack Trump

Attorney Lanny Davis represented President Bill Clinton in the 1990s during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the subsequent impeachment. He did enough to keep Clinton in office, and went on to serve as a surrogate for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns.

But it is unclear what, if any, benefit Davis provided to his client Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney for President Donald Trump who was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison.

Cohen hired Davis last July — though Davis’s statement at the time suggested it was he who selected Cohen, not the other way around.

Davis said he had followed Cohen’s case in the media and had spoken to him for two weeks. “Then I read his words published on July 2” — an ABC News interview with former Clinton spokesman George Stephanopoulous, in which Cohen hinted he could turn on Trump — and “recognized their sincerity,” Davis said.

So after a former Clinton aide elicited the right responses, a former Clinton lawyer was convinced to take the case.

Davis had already published a book claiming Clinton deserved to win the 2016 presidential election, and calling for Trump to be ousted from office. In addition to removing Trump under the 25th Amendment for “mental disorder,” Davis argued that the way Trump had won the election was sufficient grounds for impeachment.

He concluded:

Whether to decide to impeach and remove President Trump cannot be clear until all the evidence is fully and fairly examined, giving Trump due process and the right to present his own evidence and rebuttal. But not to begin the process and conduct a bipartisan impeachment investigation, given the undisputed facts and conduct already on the public record, is not acceptable. The American people, who saw him achieve the highest office in an impaired election process, deserve no less.

Davis understood that Cohen could provide new “facts” to bring down the president.

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