In a discussion with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Tuesday, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, explained the great lengths to which the president will go to avoid criminal charges and prison time.
Cohen told Maddow he believes that if Trump loses to Joe Biden, he will resign and have Mike Pence pardon him before the new president takes office in January 2021.
“If he loses … he will resign as president, he will allow Mike Pence to take over, and he will then go ahead and have Mike Pence pardon him,” Cohen said.
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Michael Cohen says Trump will go to great lengths to avoid criminal charges: “If he loses … he will resign as president, he will allow Mike Pence to take over, and he will then go ahead and have Mike Pence pardon him.” #ctl #p2 #maddow pic.twitter.com/e5ReWb4bEs
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) September 9, 2020
Cohen said:
My theory is that if he loses, there’s still the time between the election and the time that the next president would take office. And in during that time, my suspicion is that he will resign as president, he will allow Mike Pence to take over, and he will then go ahead and have Mike Pence pardon him. And it’s a very, let’s just say it’s a very Nixon type of event and it was probably discussed between Roger Stone and President Trump at some point, that this is certainly one way to avoid any potential prison time.
Trump is running for reelection to avoid legal trouble
It’s pretty clear that Donald Trump doesn’t particularly like the work part of being president, which is why he rarely participates in it between golf outings and Twitter implosions.
What is truly fueling Trump’s desire to keep this job for another four years is a deep fear of falling into legal jeopardy if he loses.
As PoliticusUSA’s Jason Easley noted last year, “Trump hates being president, but his motivation for wanting to keep the job is that the moment the next president is sworn into office, former president Trump could face a criminal indictment on a wide variety of charges.”
Michael Cohen’s theory may seem far-fetched, but this president has demonstrated time and again that he will do anything to protect himself, even if it undermines the rule of law or hurts the American people.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.