Lynne Patton: “Michael Cohen turned on the President because Mueller threatened to throw his wife in jail for up to 30 years”…

The appearance of long-time Trump confidante Lynn Patton at the congressional testimony of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen created a considerable stir amid Washington DC.   However, the context of her appearance takes on even more drama when considered against Patton’s Facebook post from January 18th of this year:

Lynne Patton: […] 3) Many of you may already know that I considered Michael Cohen to be one of my very best friends. Countless people can confirm that we were virtually inseparable during my employment at Trump – and that he is, single-handedly – responsible for introducing me to the Trump family and effectively changing my entire life. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that my heart still breaks for him and for his family, with whom I had grown extremely close.

4) What many of you may not be aware of is the fact that I can personally confirm that the ONLY reason Michael Cohen “turned on” the President of the United States is because Mueller threatened to throw his wife in jail for up to 30 years. Period. She is the co-guarantor of a $20M personal loan that Mueller discovered Michael secured back in 2015 by falsely inflating the value of his taxi medallions – effectively making her part & parcel to the federal charge of “Making False Statements to a Financial Institution,” to which Cohen ultimately plead guilty. This is also the reason why Cohen’s longtime taxi medallion partner, Evgeny “Gene” Freidman, was granted immunity. (read more)

This is a rather stunning statement.  However, it holds the elements of truth and explanation as to why the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller/Andrew Weissmann, would pass off their assembled Cohen prosecution to the Southern District of New York.

If this leverage against Cohen’s wife to gain virtually unlimited legal and political cooperation is true; and it does follow a pre-established pattern of unethical prosecutorial conduct previously displayed by Andrew Weissmann; then many of the issues surrounding the behavior of Michael Cohen do begin to make sense.

Interestingly, this type of unlawful coercion and threat to compel a guilty plea and cooperation from a defendant are specifically prohibited:

In fact, when Michael Cohen appeared before Judge Andrew Carter on November 29th, 2018, part of the plea questioning from the court goes directly to this issue.

The judge specifically asked Cohen, twice, if any threats or promises were made to Cohen in exchange for his cooperation.  [TRANSCRIPT]:

[pdf court transcript – here]  
If it is accurate that prosecutors leveraged the potential prosecution of Mr. Cohen’s wife in order to gain his plea agreement – then not only were those threats unethical, demonstrably prosecutorial misconduct and potentially illegal, but also Michael Cohen’s denial therein means he would have lied to the court in his plea hearing as noted above.

However, this could explain how much control is being exerted over Cohen for maximum political value.  Remember this same prosecution twice agreed to defer Cohen’s imprisonment to afford him time to testify to congress.

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