During a panel discussion on MSNBC Wednesday, former Donald Trump attorney Michael Cohen predicted that the former president will be indicted “soon,” arguing that unlike many of his other crimes, stealing highly classified documents endangers “national security.”
Explaining the reasons he thinks that the former president would steal documents from the U.S. government and haul them back to Mar-a-Lago, Cohen said he believes Trump was using the documents as leverage in the event that he got indicted.
His comments came after host Joy Reid said that up until now Trump has been known as “Teflon-Don,” bragging that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
He doesn’t pay taxes, she explained. His father didn’t pay taxes. He has defrauded insurance companies, taxpayers and the IRS. “No one will stop him, he’s untouchable,” she said.
“I’m not so sure I would agree with that statement,” Cohen replied. “Yes, he’s gotten away with so much already from obstruction of justice, witness tampering, tax fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, and misrepresentations. He’s gotten away with a litany of things and however, and this makes me scratch my head. The taking of classified documents, I mean, nuclear top secret documents should no longer be a Republican versus a Democratic issue.” he added.
“And I listened to all of the pundits on television whether, you know, it’s this station, CNN, Fox, listen to them all. This is an American issue, and I don’t understand what we’re doing. It’s not a question of whether the law is being applied equally to all. It is not. For God’s sake. The DOJ, they are tiptoeing around Donald as if he was the king, right? The supreme leader or a monarch…”
“I do think there’s going to be an indictment and relatively soon,” Cohen predicted. “I believe there will also be congressional hearings with Donald in the hot seat where, you know, either he’ll come in willingly which I don’t think he will, or via subpoena. I mean, the real questions that they have to be asking right now is, you know, where are the documents that were in the empty top secret files that were found at Mar-a-Lago? I mean, that’s really the big question, and who did Donald give them to or show them to.”
He also said that he’s considered Trump “a clear and present danger for the national security and safety of this country, from the start of his administration,” adding that “if this doesn’t prove it I’m not sure anything will. So, I don’t agree with you that he won’t be held accountable for this. This is too big at this point in time.”
Watch the discussion below from MSNBC:
