George Washington University Law professor Jonathan Turley, a frequent critic of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday that President Donald Trump ought to be very concerned about former “fixer” Michael Cohen flipping.
When asked about last week’s leak that claimed Cohen is willing to tell special counsel Robert Mueller that Trump knew about the infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and Russian agents, Turley did not sugarcoat the danger the president faces.
“I think the current development is very serious,” Turley claimed. “He’s one witness away from a potential catastrophe. If any of those five witnesses breaks and supports Michael Cohen, this will get real bad, real fast.”
Turley noted that any witness corroborating Cohen’s account would give Mueller the ammunition he needed to go after Donald Trump Jr., who swore under oath that he did not tell his father about the Russia meeting.
“It’s not that the meeting will establish a crime of collusion, even if what Cohen is saying is true, but what it would mean is that Donald Trump Jr. would be in serious jeopardy of a criminal charge,” he said. “If Mueller was to go after Donald Trump Jr., I think we would see a very rapid chain of events and it would not end well for anyone.”
Among other things, Turley said that going after Trump Jr. could prompt the president to go on a firing spree reminiscent of former President Richard Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre.”
The one silver lining for Trump, said Turley, is that Cohen on his own would not be seen as a credible witness. However, he said that if Mueller could get a witness such as Manafort to flip and back up Cohen’s testimony, the president would be in deep trouble.
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