Cohen advisor: 'Charlottesville' violence explains fear of Trump
The Senate Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, requiring his testimony before his prison sentence begins. Cohen’s legal advisor, Lanny Davis, tells MSNBC Chief Legal Correspondent, Ari Melber, that President Trump’s lawyer, Giuliani, has “committed a crime” by “threatening and impugning” Cohen’s family. Davis tells Melber that Giuliani “doesn’t have the arguable immune position of a president. He committed a crime as far as I’m concerned, and indictable, at least, crime by threatening and impugning a man’s family as a way of getting into the man’s brain. We’ve seen that in movies and Godfather 2 how you can silently threaten somebody and it’s a mob tactic that Mr. Schiff, the chairman of the intelligence committee and Mr. Cummings put out in a public statement last night”. Davis also notes that he is “not accusing Donald Trump of physically threatening” Michael Cohen, but cites violence in Charlottesville to describe the possible result of “violent words and violent threats”. Davis says that by Trump calling Michael Cohen “a rat”, the “message being sent” is “fear”.