Stormy Daniels, AOC, and the Long Arc of Donald Trump’s Possible Downfall

By David Corn  September 27, 2022

New York State Attorney General Letitia James announcing a $250 million civil lawsuit against Donald Trump on September 21, 2022. Michael Nigro/AP

Though I have 973,300 followers on Twitter, I rarely zap out a tweet that receives over 1 million impressions. Yet last week I did with a simple response to the news that New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a civil lawsuit against Donald Trump and his adult children (sans Tiffany), accusing them of a wide variety of fraudulent business practices and seeking $250 million in repayments and a ban on them engaging in certain business activities in the state. Here was my quick take: “A reminder: this case against Trump and his kids might never have materialized were it not for…Stormy Daniels. That led to the criminal case against @Michael Cohen212, and Cohen’s testimony helped lead to the probe of Trump’s alleged fraud. #TheStorm.”

The tweet hit a nerve and skipped across the Twitterverse at high velocity. At one level, the reason is obvious: Trump was getting his comeuppance because of his alleged extramarital tryst with a porn star, and that dalliance may end up costing him a bundle. This is definitely a cause for tittering. But along with this prurient schadenfreude, there was perhaps a deeper reason this observation resonated: This is what justice looks like in the Age of Trump.

If you need a refresher course on the Stormy connection, Steve Benen, a producer for Rachel Maddow and the editor of MaddowBlog, outlined the case after my tweet hit. The Cliff notes: In the final weeks of the 2016 election, Michael Cohen, then an attorney and loyal fixer for Trump, paid $130,000 in hush money to Daniels, the adult-film actress, who allegedly had an affair with Trump. The goal was to keep another sex scandal from exploding, especially while Trump was dealing with the Access Hollywood video in which he had boasted of using his celebrity to sexually assault women. In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to a series of charges, including campaign finance violations related to the Daniels payment and to another payment of $150,000 to former Playboy model Karen McDougal to suppress her tale of an alleged affair with Trump.

Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison. (He would end up serving 13 months and then spend a year-and-a-half in home confinement.) Before Cohen was shipped off to a federal penitentiary, he gave dramatic testimony to Congress in February 2019, savaging Trump and predicting he would not accept a loss in the 2020 election. In his opening statement, Cohen, while lambasting Trump on many fronts, raised an intriguing topic:

Mr. Trump is a cheat… It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes.

Later in the hearing, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex (D-N.Y.) drilled down on this point:

Though much of the coverage of Cohen’s testimony focused on his remarks about Trump, the Stormy Daniels episode, and the Trump-Russia scandal, James and her investigators pricked up their ears when Cohen referred to Trump’s shenanigans about possibly fraudulent asset valuations. Cohen’s statement got the ball rolling in their office. When announcing her sweeping lawsuit last week against Trump and his family, James made this clear: “I will remind everyone that this investigation only started after Michael Cohen, the former lawyer, his former lawyer testified before Congress and shed light on this misconduct.”

The Stormy Daniels caper had helped the feds indict Cohen, and because of that criminal case, Cohen had flipped against his old boss and spilled the beans about Trump’s allegedly crooked accounting. Two-and-a-half years later—presto—Trump is facing a lawsuit that could cost him a quarter of a billion dollars and yield extinction-level penalties for his business.

The wheels of justice move slowly. The long arc of the universe bends toward justice. Pick your homily. Trump has gotten away with much wrongdoing throughout his entire career, including during his presidency. (Inciting insurrection? No big deal. He’s still the leading GOP candidate for 2024.) His substantial list of pay-no-price-for misdeeds includes his supposed assignation with Daniels (a few months after his wife had given birth to their son Barron) and the illegal hush money payment to Daniels.

As with all his personal misconduct—grab ‘em by the pussy!—the Daniels rendezvous did not sour Trump for the so-called family-first Christian fundamentalists and social conservatives who have supported this liar and varlet. More important, though Trump was part of the conspiracy to pay her off, for which Cohen did hard time, he never was prosecuted for his participation in this crime. Trump was referenced in the Cohen case as a participant—identified as “Individual-1”—but as Geoffrey Berman, the former US attorney, notes in his new book, Trump’s Justice Department pressured Berman’s office to strike all references to Individual-1. That didn’t happen, but the charging document was watered down to remove references stating that Trump acted “in concert with” and “coordinated with” Cohen in the illegal scheme.

As Cohen has frequently wondered aloud, why was he prosecuted and hauled off to the hoosegow and the boss who was in on the crime and who covered the cost of the payment allowed to walk? That sure wasn’t fair. This episode seemed to symbolize Trump’s knack for evading accountability.

But…not so fast. The James lawsuit—which Trump could conceivably win—is an indication, at least for now, that Trump might not continue to escape those wheels of justice and that long arc. (And we’ll see what happens regarding his theft of sensitive government documents and the various coup investigations.) The $250 million civil case deliciously demonstrates the ripple effect. A sordid romp in a Lake Tahoe hotel room in 2006 during a celebrity golf event set in motion events that could possibly cause financial ruin for Trump. Cohen went to prison; Trump let him take the rap and skated. Daniels lost the defamation lawsuit she filed against Trump; and Trump earlier this year won his demand that she pay $300,000 in his legal fees. Yet now Trump faces the prospect of being the biggest loser by far in this sordid tale.

Trump never took a political hit for paying hush money to a porn star and conspiring to cover up another affair. He was not prosecuted for his direct involvement in these crimes. He faced no consequences for his transgressions. Once again, he was above the law and free of the governing rules of society. Yet now, due to those actions, he confronts a threat that might destroy his business and endanger whatever fortune he has. It’s not quite an Al Capone scenario. There’s no prospect of jail time (unless the civil action spurs a criminal case). It’s an instance of indirect justice. And for the every-slippery Trump, that might be the best we get.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com

American Psychosis in the News (Still)

I’m still over the moon about my new book, American Psychosis: A Historical investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy, making the New York Times bestsellers list. But I keep wondering if the subtitle should have been different. Does it errantly suggest the GOP only recently went nuts? The point of the book is to chronicle the 70-year-long Republican Party interaction with far-right fanaticism (including hatred, bigotry, paranoia, tribalism, and fundamentalism) to show that what has happened under Trump is a continuation—albeit, an escalation—and not an aberration. That means getting rid of Trump will not solve the problem. Perhaps the subtitle should have been A Historical Investigation of the Republican Party’s Very, Very Long Relationship with Extremism. Well, it’s too late now.

Meanwhile, I continue to plug the book wherever I can. My pal Jimmy Tingle, a wonderful comedian, interviewed me for his podcast. On her podcast, The Daily Beans, which describes itself as “news with swearing,” Allison Gill—known for the @MuellerSheWrote feed on Twitter­—chatted with me about the use of the word “psychosis” to describe those Trump supporters who buy his Big Lie.

It’s tough to get attention for a book after its initial launch. (NPR, where are you?) But I’m still flapping my arms. If you’re tiring of my promotion of the book, bear with me a little bit longer. This obviously cannot go on forever. Meanwhile, I’m heading into a fun phase of authorship: hearing from people who have actually read the book. If that’s you, let me know what you think. Authors love hearing from readers—if they say nice things. But feel free to critique the work—politely and gently, that is. 

The Watch, Read, and Listen List

The Strange Story of Havana Syndrome. For the past few years, the national security community has been trying to solve a mystery: What’s the cause of Havana Syndrome—a set of medical ailments that befell American diplomats and intelligence officers stationed overseas? It was first reported in Havana, Cuba, in 2017, with people saying they heard a high-pitched buzzing sound and then experienced headaches, dizziness, memory loss, cognitive impairments, and other problems. This prompted speculation that the sufferers had been zapped by some sort of top-secret microwave or sonic weapon wielded by the Cubans, Russians, or another adversary, with this speculation generating dramatic and sometime hyperbolic headlines. Yet to this date, there has been no evidence of any such device. And the question remains, is Havana Syndrome even real?

Michael Isikoff, chief investigative correspondent for Yahoo and a friend and co-author of mine, has taken a good stab at sorting this out. The third season of his excellent Conspiracyland podcast—The Strange Story of Havana Syndrome—is dedicated to resolving this riddle. And here’s a spoiler: he doesn’t break the case wide open. But that’s because there may not be anything to solve—and that’s the revelation.

Isikoff chases down various government officials who have been working on this issue, and again and again he comes up with the same story: there is no evidence the reported ailments were caused purposefully by a weapon. Certainly, a group of diplomats and intelligence officers in Cuba, China, and elsewhere have been struck by various maladies. Yet nothing close to proof establishes their afflictions were the results of a weapon or an undercover operation. Several experts explain this episode as a case of false pattern recognition or even mass psychogenic illness. Moreover, with the Cubans eager for (and desperately needing) the better relations with the United States that President Barack Obama brokered, why would they risk it all by targeting mid-level and clerical embassy employees? And if the Russians were behind all this, why have there been no reports of similar illnesses in Ukraine, where Moscow would certainly have a keen interest in deploying such a weapon?

Along the way, Isikoff revisits Cold War chapters in which the Soviets did bombard US diplomatic facilities in Russia with microwaves—was Henry Kissinger zapped?—and US intelligence attempted to create microwave weaponry to incapacitate victims. But, once more, there is no confirmation that such weapons exist.

The Havana Syndrome controversy has been fueled by both real concern for the victims and by geopolitics. The Trump administration used it to justify its reversal of Obama’s opening to Cuba. And Isikoff points out that the Havana Syndrome continues to be exploited by opponents of improved US-Cuba relations, as the Biden administration moves rather slowly to undo Trump’s policies. Real or not, the Havana Syndrome continues to influence US-Cuba relations, and that’s why the bottom-line of this gripping and well-executed podcast—there’s no there there…yet—is so important.

The New York Times Concurs

In the previous issue of Our Land, I sought to identify the nuttiest (and perhaps most dangerous) Republican candidate running in this fall’s elections. It was a tough task, and I settled on Mark Finchem, an Arizona Republican state legislator campaigning for secretary of state. In a recent editorial entitled “This Threat to Democracy Is Hiding in Plain Sight,” the New York Times validated this choice. The newspaper observed that the Trump cult, in the aftermath of the 2020 election, has been trying “to take over America’s election infrastructure…by filling key positions of influence with Trump sympathizers.” This includes poll workers, county commissioners, and secretaries of state who are responsible for overseeing the casting, counting, and certifying of votes.

The Times noted that in several states Republicans have nominated election deniers—let’s call them Big Lie Liars—to run for secretary of state. The party’s choice in Nevada, Jim Marchant, says he would not have certified Joe Biden’s 2020 win in that state. (Coincidentally—or conveniently—he also blames voter fraud for his own loss in a US House election that year.) In Michigan, the GOP candidate for secretary of state is Kristina Karamo, a diehard Trumpist who has baselessly claimed that she witnessed voter fraud in Detroit in 2020, that Dominion voting machines flipped votes for Biden, and that the January 6 riot was a false flag operation orchestrated by antifa.

But, the Times stated, the “most outrageous GOP choice may be Arizona’s Mark Finchem,” and it cited many of the obvious reasons I had listed: his election denialism, his alliance with the QAnon movement, and his participation in the events of January 6. The Gray Lady further observed, “The real threat to America’s electoral system is not posed by ineligible voters trying to cast ballots. It is coming from inside the system… Mr. Trump and others looking to pervert the electoral process are full of intensity and are playing a long game. Only an equally strong and committed countervailing force will meet that challenge.” The first true test of this threat will be how Finchem and his comrades in conniving fare at the ballot in six weeks. Their races, granted less media attention than congressional races, may determine the future of American democracy.  

Read Recent Issues of Our Land

September 24, 2022: The craziest GOP candidate in the nation; American Psychosis becomes a bestseller; Dumbass Comment of the Week (FPOTUS); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

September 21, 2022: Donald Trump and the birth of QMaga; American Psychosis in the news; House of the Dragon versus The Rings of Power; and more.

September 17, 2022: American Psychosis and the reckoning of history; the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

September 13: What Barack Obama said to me about the 47 percent video; the release of American Psychosis; and more.

September 10, 2022: A death in Washington and a very Trumpian conspiracy theory; American Psychosis update; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Donald Trump Jr.); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

September 7, 2022: Donald Trump and gaslight fascism; the conservative crazy gets crazier; American Psychosis: the first review; a brilliant after-the-Vietnam War novel and Dark Winds; and more.

September 2, 2022: Snowflake fascists and the GOP politics of rubber and glue; American Psychosis tease of the week; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Blake Masters); Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat’s Table and Sara Watkins’ “You and Me”; the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

August 26, 2022: In praise of preaching to the choir; American Psychosis tease of the week; J.D. Vance and the podcaster who said “feminists need rape”; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Mitch McConnell); comparing The Old Man, Westworld, and For All Mankind; the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more

August 19, 2022: Has Biden learned from Obama’s big #fail?; American Psychosis tease of the week; conflicted feelings about Liz Cheney; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Ted Cruz); Better Call Saul’s magnificent finale; MoxieCam™; and more.

August 5, 2022: The January 6 Rudy Giuliani mystery; American Psychosis tease of the week; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Alex Jones); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

Got suggestions, comments, complaints, tips related to any of the above, or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.