Ex-White House staffer: 'The Cohen news is very bad' — Mueller may have laid a perjury trap

Tricking Donald Trump into lying is not exactly sporting. It’s sort of like hunting manatees with an Uzi and a stick of dynamite.

But Robert Mueller has a job to do, and it looks like he may have just done it.

The redoubtable Gabriel Sherman at Vanity Fair has given us yet another peek behind the mildewy orange curtain, and it’s not looking promising for Mafia Don:

The detonation began on Thursday, when Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress, accompanied by a detailed plea agreement, a new set of facts that begin to fill in a picture. To the Trump camp, it looked ominous. “The Cohen news is very bad,” a former White House staffer said.

The fear in Trumpworld is that Mueller may have laid a perjury trap for the president, the former staffer said. Mueller waited until after Trump submitted written answers under oath to the special counsel’s office—some of which reportedly included responses to questions about Trump Tower Moscow—before revealing the evidence prosecutors had gathered to secure Cohen’s plea. “Trump was totally caught off guard by the Cohen plea,” the source said.

That explains why Trump appeared to be frothing even more than usual today. It might also explain why Trump and his lawyers couldn’t get their stories straight:

In comments he made to reporters before departing for the G20 summit in Argentina, Trump called Cohen “weak” and accused him of “making up a story.” But hours later, Giuliani changed tacks, telling The New York Times that Trump’s sworn answers to Mueller matched Cohen’s version of events. “Why would the president come out and say Cohen lied?” the former staffer said.

So, not a great day for Donny.

Ah, I love the smell of schadenfreude in the evening.

***

Yo! Dear F*cking Lunatic: 101 Obscenely Rude Letters to Donald Trump by Aldous J. Pennyfarthing is now available at Amazon! Buy there (or at one of the other fine online retailers carrying it), or be square.

****

But wait, there’s more! The Fierce, Fabulous (and Mostly Fictional) Adventures of Mike Ponce, America’s First Gay Vice President is also available at Amazon! You can get two great political humor ebooks for less than the price of the coffee you’ll be spitting out on your tablet when you read them!