Well, it's toilet-flushing time, with the Trump trial resuming, this time with Michael Cohen on the stand again crossed examined by the defense.

Taken in line with the trial's biased judge, its corrupt district attorney, its beyond-trashy witness Stormy Daniels, Cohen managed to top them all in sheer disgustingness, openly admitting in court that he stole $30,000 from his employer like it was a good thing.

According to the Associated Press:

Cohen was the last witness — at least for now — for prosecutors, who are trying to prove that Trump sought to bury unflattering stories about himself and then falsified internal business records to cover it up as part of a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election.

Over several hours of cross-examination, Trump’s attorneys seized on Cohen’s past lies and criminal history, underscoring the risk of prosecutors’ reliance on the now-disbarred attorney. Cohen testified earlier Monday that he stole tens of thousands of dollars from Trump’s company, an admission defense lawyers hope to use to sow doubt in Cohen’s crucial testimony implicating the former president in the hush money scheme.

The exchange went like this, according to Yahoo! News:

Cohen admits to stealing from the Trump Organization: During the defense’s cross-examination, Trump’s defense attorney walked Cohen through a series of payments the Trump Organization made to him in 2017, totaling $420,000. Cohen testified that RedFinch, a tech company hired to rig online polls in favor of Trump, was owed $50,000 for its services. But Cohen said he only paid it $20,000 and pocketed the remaining $30,000.

“You stole from the Trump Organization, right?” Blanche asked, according to NBC News. “Yes, sir,” Cohen replied.

In what universe would this creature not be arrested on the spot for an admission like that? He stole $30,000 which is way more than the average smash-and-grab thief steals from a Macy's in a day's work. This is mega-theft, and it was done with all the typical excuses employees make who steal from their employers. Once upon a time I worked as a private detective detecting employee theft, at Macy's, no less, and the typical miscreant excuse once caught was always that the employer "owed me." That was the excuse Cohen gave, putting him in the same category as basic criminals. He wasn't even subtle.

The admission was brought out, as the press reported it, to show that Cohen was a dishonest human being, which is obvious enough, and by extension would lie about his payoff payments to the porno "star." But witness testimony contradicting him seemed like a stronger argument. Cohen's theft simply stands by itself as a great example of an unprosecuted crime even as President Trump is being prosecuted with draconian threats of imprisonment on a basic bookkeeping argument whose statute of limitations has long expired.

If that doesn't stand out to the jury on the basic unfairness of this case, nothing will. Cohen is not only a liar, he's a thief and you wouldn't want him near your purse in a public place.

It wasn't all the bad stuff he did in court, he also tried to manipulate the jury into convicting Trump:

Cohen says it’s better for him if Trump doesn’t get convicted: During cross-examination, Blanche asked Cohen, “Do you have a financial interest in the outcome of this case?” To which Cohen replied, “Yes, sir,” according to NBC News.

Cohen was also asked if he would financially benefit if Trump is convicted. He testified “it’s better” if Trump is found not guilty because it “gives me more to talk about in the future,” referring to his financial gain from talking about the trial on his podcast and TikTok account.

In other words, he understood how disreputable he was, so in telling the jury to convict Trump, it would be less beneficial to him. Why on Earth was this information allowed to be presented at all, other than to manipulate the verdict into 'guilty' given his general disgustingness? The judge, Juan Merchan, after all, prohibited testimony from an FCC chief who said that Trump's purported crimes were not anything they would prosecute or ever did. Now it's an invented crime and a witness so crummy his general crumminess is used as an argument to convict Trump to ensure that he doesn't profit from it? 

What kind of grossness is this? Flush it down, it's all bad and the pot has gotten full.

Image: IowaPolitics.com. via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0