After Michael Cohen’s testimony, impeachment is all but inevitable.
The persistent skepticism that has surrounded President Trump’s legal travails arose again toward the end of February when news reports claimed that special counsel Robert Mueller would soon finish his final report. If Mueller was almost done, the thinking went, he couldn’t have much more. The chances of anything touching Trump directly started to appear lower than the nearly two-year investigation’s ending with a whimper.
Michael Cohen’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee all but destroyed that presumption. Trump’s former attorney and fixer alleged not only systematic criminality by his former boss but deep culpability in the Russia scandal itself. In the wake of that hearing, it seems inevitable that Trump will face impeachment in the House (though, given his party’s continued loyalty and the need to obtain the votes of 67 senators, probably not removal). In fact, future historians will likely consider Cohen’s testimony the first hearing in the process.
Cohen’s opening statement reviewed many of Trump’s familiar degeneracies. He is casually racist and habitually criminal, gleefully refusing to pay his contractors and arranging petty scams like using his charitable foundation for self-enrichment. Cohen also produced evidence, in the form of signed checks, that Trump violated campaign-finance law by reimbursing Cohen for payments to Stormy Daniels during the race. Trump signed one of those checks in 2017, as a sitting president. And, incidentally, by signing a Trump Organization check, he broke his promise not to involve himself in any business activities while in office. All of this made for spectacular television, even if Cohen’s explanation of his motivations was self-serving and disingenuous. (The real reason he flipped is simple, amoral, and obvious: He had no choice.)
Denne historien er fra March 4, 2019-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Denne historien er fra March 4, 2019-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.
SLOP started seeping into Neil Clarke's life in late 2022. Something strange was happening at Clarkesworld, the magazine. Clarke had founded in 2006 and built into a pillar of the world of speculative fiction. Submissions were increasing rapidly, but “there was something off about them,” he told me recently. He summarized a typical example: “Usually, it begins with the phrase ‘In the year 2250-something’ and then it goes on to say the Earth’s environment is in collapse and there are only three scientists who can save us. Then it describes them in great detail, each one with its own paragraph. And then—they’ve solved it! You know, it skips a major plot element, and the final scene is a celebration out of the ending of Star Wars.” Clarke said he had received “dozens of this story in various incarnations.”
The City Politic- The Other Eric Adams Scandal The NYPD shot a fare evader, a cop, and two bystanders. He defends it.
On Sunday, September 15, Derell Mickles hopped a turnstile, got asked to leave by cops, then entered the subway again ten minutes later through an emergency exit. This was at the Sutter Avenue L station, out by his mother's house, five stops from the end of the line. Police said they noticed he was holding a folded knife. They followed him up the stairs to the elevated train, asking him 38 times to drop the weapon.
Can the Media Survive?
BIG TECH, Feckless Owners, CORD-CUTTERS, RESTIVE STAFF, Smaller Audiences ... and the Return of PRINT?
Status Update
Hannah Gadsby's fascinatingly untidy tour through life after fame and death.
A Matter of Perspective
A Matter of Perspective Steve McQueen's worst film is still a solid WWII drama.
Creator, Destroyer
A retrospective reveals an architect's vision, optimism, and supreme arrogance.
In Praise of Bad Readers
In a time of war, there is a danger in surveying the world as if it were a novel.
Trust the Kieran Culkin Process
First, he nearly dropped out of Oscar hopeful A Real Pain. Then he convinced Jesse Eisenberg to change the way he directs.
The Funniest Vampires on TV
What We Do in the Shadows is coming to an end. Its idiosyncratic brand of comedy may be too.
The Water-Tower Penthouse
Gigi Loizzo and Angel Molina's apartment on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx looks out on Yankee Stadium.
