July 1973, Alexander Butterfield walked into Congress holding a loaded gun. A starter gun. The revelations made during the testimony to Congress made the knowledge of a secret White House taping system public for the first time.
This revelation led to a year long legal battle to publicise the contents of the tapes, which would incriminate President Nixon by showing him as the orchestrator of the Watergate cover up.
Fast forward to February 2019 and Michael Cohen just had his Butterfield moment. Walking into the United States Capitol, Cohen held the information and subsequently revealed the prior knowledge that President Trump had regarding the leaking of hacked Democratic Party emails.
Cohen’s revelation has huge implications for the presidency of Donald Trump, implicating him in one of the largest scandals in modern presidential history.
Cohen alleged that whilst he was present, Roger Stone – a long time republican ‘dirty trickster’ and Trump friend – called Trump to inform him that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was set to “dump” a massive leak of democratic emails online, aimed solely at damaging the Clinton campaign and boosting Trump’s electoral chances.
Roger Stone, who was arrested earlier this year for lying to Congress about his communications with Wikileaks, was allegedly acting as a go between for Trump and Assange, creating a huge violation of American campaign laws.
Foreign organisations are prevented from such activities in elections and Trump’s coordination of this would be a huge and fatal crime for the president.
Cohen was the president’s former personal attorney, putting him extremely close to all financial and legal matters effecting trump, going back several decades.
During the testimony, Cohen also made several other damaging revelations, including the fact that he was directed by Mr Trump to pay off porn actresses that the president had slept with, in order to influence the outcome of the election.
He provided evidence that Trump had reimbursed him for the payments made to Stormy Daniels, by waving a document that showed an instalment of the repayment by Trump, a direct violation of campaign finance laws.
More damaging, Cohen again revealed that Trump had prior knowledge of the infamous ‘Trump Tower’ meeting that allegedly aimed to dig up dirt on Hillary Clinton.
This meeting, attended by Trump’s son and several of his campaign aides, was subject to much controversy as it seemed to suggest direct collusion – or at least the intent to collude – between the Trump campaign and foreign entities, again violating American law. However, it has not been proven that any action was taken on the ‘dirt’ that the Russian officials allegedly offered the Trump campaign.
Although there has been no evidence presented that this collusion ever materialised – an outcome Cohen supported in suggesting he had no knowledge of collusion during the campaign – the sole intent to do so could still place Trump and his presidency in severe legal jeopardy.
These revelations made by Cohen are not necessarily new – setting it apart from the Butterfield testimony – but it did seem to confirm much of the circumstantial evidence surrounding potential wrongdoing.
Cohen also spoke on the Trump tower project that the president had planned for Moscow. The president ‘knew and directed’ the Trump Tower Moscow project, whilst publicly denying its existence, largely because he stood to make ‘hundreds of millions of dollars’.
This project saw Trump attempting to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, which allegedly had financial support from Russian backers. This would potentially place him in a difficult position of being indebted to a foreign nation and making his position as president practically untenable.
Although the building never materialised, if Trump did direct the project – which continued throughout the primaries – the potential conflict of interest and indebtedness would create a significant legal issue for the president. Whilst Trump’s denial of such a project even existing has only plunged himself into a more dangerous position in this legal quagmire.
Perhaps more interestingly, rumours have been whirling around Washington this week that special counsel Robert Mueller’s 21-month investigation into potential election wrongdoing – including collusion with the Russian government – is set to be released very soon.
This would be far more damaging for the president, as the revelations that many expect the report to make are potentially severe enough to bring down his presidency.
Given that Mr Mueller’s investigation has already seen eight guilty pleas, for crimes mostly related to the campaign, it is expected that any revelation directly related to the president will be severe and potentially impeachable.
This allegedly includes knowledge of financial misdealing’s between the president and the Russian government, as well as more evidence of illegal communications between his campaign and foreign entities.
After Butterfield’s July 1973 testimony, Nixon faced a year of legal battles before resigning the presidency on August 9th, at noon.
Cohen’s revelations, although largely in the public domain, could perhaps be the start of that process for Trump. Over the coming months expect a long battle over the president’s wrongdoings; that if found to be true, will almost certainly lead to his premature departure from the White House.
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Calum Paton is a History and Politics student at the University of Warwick. His writing focuses on American and British politics. Twitter: @Paton_Calum
