The Democrats Take Note (Cough) of Cohen's Plea

In case you're wondering if House and Senate Democrats have taken notice of Michael Cohen's guilty plea and its details and what those details actually reveal about Donald Trump, the answer is FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

Garrett Haake, Frank Thorp V, Alex Moe, and Dartunorro Clark at NBC News: Democrats Pounce After Cohen Admits He Lied to Congress About Trump Tower Project in Russia. (Emphases mine.)

Top Democrats on Thursday excoriated [Donald] Trump after his former longtime personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about a project to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said there is a "culture of corruption" surrounding Trump and renewed calls to protect special counsel Robert Mueller, who brought the bombshell charges against Cohen on Thursday morning in Manhattan federal court as part of his investigation into Russian election meddling.

...Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the vice chairman of [the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence], said Cohen's admission is just another example of one of Trump's "closest allies lying about their ties to Russia and Russians."

"You've got all these close associates of the president, one after another, pleading guilty, often pleading guilty about their ties to Russia and Russians, and what are they covering up for?" Warner added.

He said Cohen was "obviously" one of the witnesses "we've always wanted to have come back" before the committee.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, called Cohen's deal a "very significant plea and statement" and suggested that there were others who possibly lied to congressional investigators.

"It means that when the president was representing on the campaign that he has no business interests in Russia, that that wasn't true," Schiff said. "This, I think, only underscores I think the importance of not only bringing Mr. Cohen back before our committee but also looking into this issue of whether the Russians possess financial leverage over the president of the United States."

...Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement on Thursday that Cohen's admission "raises serious questions about the president’s relationship with Russia and whether he and his family have been honest with the American people."

"Today's guilty plea clearly shows that we still don't know the full story and that Special Counsel Mueller must be allowed to complete his investigation without interference or delay," Feinstein said.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said that Cohen's guilty plea is a serious offense and that he wants to know why he lied to Congress originally.

"He lied to Congress apparently about dealings between Trump and Russia. And that leads me to suspect that there are more dealings that the president wanted hidden," Nadler said. "And this raises all kinds of questions with respect to the question of how much — whether the Russian government has any kind of hold on the president because of his financial dealings and whether the president knew about the obvious collusion between his campaign and the Russians."

He said that he thinks it is a sign that Congress needs to step up and have "an honest investigation."

I hope you're all resting comfortably on your fainting couches before you read this next bit, but it turns out that Republicans DON'T AGREE with Rep. Nadler that it's time for "an honest investigation" into Donald Trump's collusion with and possible (ahem) personal compromisation by the Russians.

My favorite is the loathsome Sen. John Thune, who ran to Fox News to disgorge his execrable talking points:

"I don't think at this point that there has been anything that, in any way, changes the landscape, so to speak, where the president is concerned," Thune said in an interview with Fox News Thursday. "He has argued all along there wasn't any collusion on the part of his campaign team or his administration with Russia. And I haven't seen anything that disproves that."

Thune added that the Mueller probe should be thorough and complete, but can't go on forever. He said Trump has important work to do for the American people and it is time to "move on."

"And the longer these things drag on, it just, it gets, I think, very wearing on the American people," he said. "The report needs to come out. We need to know what happened, but I agree with my colleagues that the time I think has come to start drawing this to a conclusion."

The unmitigated temerity of this fucking guy! As if the Republican Party really gives two fucks about what wears on the American people. (If they did, they wouldn't spend their time passing massive tax cuts for the wealthy and destroying the social safety net.) The reason Thune wants the probe to end now is because it hasn't directly implicated anyone in the White House which would oblige the Republican Party to take down their own president or permanently implode their party in a refusal to hold accountable an Oval Office traitor from their ranks.

That the probe has lasted as long as it has, has only served Republicans, giving them egregious amounts of time to consolidate their power behind Donald Trump. They lost the House in the midterms, which was a big blow for them and a big success for us, but they continue to orchestrate their takeover via the federal courts every day.

They've wasted no time, despite their transparent complaints about the duration of Mueller's probe, and I sure hope to fuck that Mueller hasn't been wasting any time, either.