Michael Cohen’s Friends on Former Trump Fixer: “He’s Not Averse to Talking, in the Right Situation”

Well, this sounds intense.

Friends of Donald Trump’s “fixer” and longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, say their friend is giving them the heads up that he’s willing to roll over on his former client.

Who can blame him? Trump treated him like garbage for the extent of their association, according to others in the know about that relationship. Maybe Cohen is sick of being a patsy.

Of course, this is assuming there’s anything to tell that investigators care to hear about.

“He knows a lot of things about the President and he’s not averse to talking in the right situation,” one of Cohen’s New York friends who is in touch with him told CNN. “If they want information on Trump, he’s willing to give it.”

Specifically, what investigators want to know has to do with the payments made to Trump’s former mistress, porn star Stormy Daniels, in October 2016, a month before the election.

Was it a payoff to buy her silence about the affair? Does that count as a campaign finance law violation?

Speaking of which:

“He feels let down by him and isolated by him,” another friend of Cohen’s told CNN. Cohen has famously said he would take a bullet for Trump and he has fashioned himself as Trump’s “fixer,” willing to help handle situations quietly. Cohen facilitated a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels weeks before the 2016 election to keep quiet her allegations of an affair a decade earlier with the then-candidate. The White House has denied any affair.

Meanwhile, Cohen has had to recruit new legal help.

Cohen is looking to hire Guy Petrillo. He formerly worked the criminal division of the US attorney’s office in Manhattan, with the kind of experience Cohen was hoping for.

Details, such as the retainer paperwork have yet to be finalized.

Petrillo is a well-respected former prosecutor who has ties to the same US attorney’s office that is investigating Cohen. He was an assistant US attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1990 until 1997. While there he overlapped with Robert Khuzami, the deputy US attorney overseeing the Cohen raid.

After a decade in private practice, Petrillo returned to the US attorney’s office in January 2008 and, until October 2009, was chief of the criminal division, where he had broad oversight of all investigations. He was recruited by Michael Garcia, who was nominated by Republican President George W. Bush.

Currently, there are nearly four million files and encrypted messages that were confiscated in the April raid by federal authorities of Cohen’s home, hotel, and office space. He has yet to be charged with anything, but even if indicted, those charges won’t come until the mountain of materials has been thoroughly inspected.

According to another Cohen friend, whether he decides to cooperate with federal investigators would depend on what is ultimately in any indictment. If the indictment is deemed relatively less serious than expected, for example, it’s possible that Cohen would choose to plead guilty. CNN reported on Friday that Cohen had not yet met with prosecutors to discuss a potential deal, and it’s unclear whether either side is seeking one.

“Anything is a possibility,” the person said.

Anything, indeed. And if Cohen, who has been described as knowing “where the bodies are buried” actually does flip, can you imagine the explosive tweets to follow?