A few days ago, I posted my thoughts after reading the first parts of Michael Cohen’s book Disloyal, the story of his relationship with Donald Trump. Cohen, of course, will be a major witness in the “Stormy Daniels” trial and, while it is doubtful that he will saying anything too surprising, his credibility as a witness is very important. Because he had plead guilty to lying to Congress and served jail time, it is important that the prosecutors convince the jurors that he is believable.

My main point earlier was that Cohen, likeable as a TV commentator, is not likeable based on how he conducted his life pre-Trump, nor how he conducted his life during his first years working with Trump. Having now read the full book, I still find him a rather scurrilous individual. Perhaps the Michael Cohen of 2024 is not the same as the Michael Cohen of 2020 and before. It will be up to the prosecutors to convince the jury of that.

Cohen was a self-admitted sycophant of Donald Trump, mesmerized (he uses that word) by him for reasons he claims not to understand. He also was a successful lawyer and businessman, who had earned many millions of dollars (taxi medallions, law practice and real estate), who had no need of employment by Trump. But he enjoyed the challenge, he says, and he liked playing with the big boys and yes he was mesmerized by Trump.

But Cohen was already a big boy. He had run for public office twice (lost both times) and had met, and kept in contact with, New York’s top journalists and politicians. He was interested in money over everything and strove successfully to hob nob with those who controlled money. Without Donald Trump, he would have been fine.

I have met people like Michael Cohen, of course. And every time I meet someone like him, my reaction is: boy, he sure is different from me.

I have never understood the concept of making money (really a lot of money) as a major goal. I’d like to have the money, of course. I think everyone would. But doing what you have to do to get it has just never interested me.

Go back to when I practiced law. The firms I was with were generally connected to the low income, assisted housing industry. Representing people connected with constructing, developing, maintaining and financing government assisted low income housing projects. I enjoyed that work – thinking I was doing good for the world. But there were aspects of that work that I didn’t enjoy. I didn’t enjoy representing clients in transactional work. Buying and selling land or property. I never cared who owned the property. And I certainly never had any interest in the negotiations leading to a deal. Do I care if the price of a building is $17 million or $18 million? Not at all.

But for people out to make millions (billions, in fact) in New York real estate (and there are a lot of them), transactions and the details of transactions, are their love and their life. And they also like to buddy up with rich and powerful people who can introduce them to deals, or smooth their deals through approvals once the deals are underway. I myself don’t ever think I have made a friend because of what I think that person could do for me financially. But Donald Trump certainly does. So does Michael Cohen.

The other thing I learned about Michael Cohen from his book is that (even if he didn’t know it), Michael wanted to be another Donald Trump, and he thought he could be one if he stuck around Trump enough. I learned that, just like Donald Trump, Michael Cohen has an enormous ego. An enormous ego. Unpleasantly enormous.

But it, at the same time, is a mystery. How Michael Cohen, who wanted so much for Michael Cohen, could in effect stick around as Donald Trump’s fixer for so long.

What else did I learn? Of course I learned that every bad story I have heard about Trump is true. I learned that Trump does not believe what he says. I learned that he really does want to be a dictator. I learned that Cohen, in 2000, believed that if Trump lost in 2020, he would not leave office, but would do whatever he could to stay in office. There would be no peaceful transition of power. You gotta give it to Cohen here.

I learned one more thing about the Trump phenomenon. I now know why Trump is so popular among evangelicals. Cohen didn’t tell me why. But I think it is clear from what he does say. He says that, early in the campaign, there was a fear that believing Christians would not be able to support Trump, and that something needed to be done about that. It was decided to hold a large meeting for about 50 of the biggest personalities in Evangelical Christianity, where Trump could present his case. The meeting was held. And, according to Cohen, Trump was able to end the meeting with each of the guests eating out of Trump’s hands.

Cohen attributes this to Trump’s duplicitous being convincing style. I go one step further. Trump got along with the top evangelicals because they are clones of Trump, or Trump is a clone of them. They too strive for money, and respect, and a large audience, and don’t believe a thing that they say as literally as they say it. They were a natural audience and partners for Trump and, of course, their congregants listen to them and believe everything they say. So while it might seem an impossible partnership in one sense, in a different sense it seems obvious and inevitable.

Cohen was investigated as part of trying to determine why he paid Stormy Daniels $133,000, and his Congressional testimony that he never got reimbursed made no sense. Of course, he did get reimbursed, being paid “legal fees”, so it might have been inevitable that he was indicted. But Cohen’s telling of his indictment and prison experiences are interesting. Cohen says that, after the FBI raided his house and took his computers and papers, he was indicted not only on lying to Congress, but on some things related to his taxi medallion business and on tax evasion. He was also told that his wife (whom he describes as unbelievably honest and innocent) would also be indicted (I assume on the tax charge, with them filing jointly). And that all the charges would be increased against both unless he pleaded guilty. And so he did, even though that, on other than the lying to Congress, he never understood what he did that was criminally wrong. He finds himself a victim of the American judicial system as do so many others.

I am not quite sure what to make of that. I did have a client who served time in prison for something having to do with overcharging the government in connection with a low income property. He told me that he did not do what the government said it he did, but that his brother (who worked for him) did commit the crime. But his brother, he said, was divorced and had young kids, and he couldn’t let his brother go to jail, so he pleaded guilty and served a year in federal prison. Was my client telling the truth? Is Michael Cohen? Who knows?

Finally, one other thing. Perhaps obvious. He and Donald Trump may have been partners in crime for 15 years or so. But as soon as he was indicted, Trump dropped him like a hot potato. Between the time when Cohen’s apartment was raided by the FBI and he called the President to tell him, and when he wrote this book three years later, Cohen and Trump had not spoken at all.