I'm Back
I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to subscribe, you can sign up here.
I’ve returned from a week-long vacation in Portugal with my kids. So let’s do this.
Will The Bell Toll For Trump?
Funny story: on my last Zoom chat before I left town, I joked that because I was taking a week off from punditry, it was practically guaranteed that Donald Trump would be indicted. While that didn’t happen, we got a big piece of news that an indictment might be coming.
A special grand jury that investigated election interference by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies in Georgia recommended indictments for multiple people on a range of charges in its final report, most of which remains sealed, the forewoman of the jury said on Tuesday.
Asked whether the jurors had recommended indicting Mr. Trump, Ms. Kohrs would not answer directly but said: “You’re not going to be shocked. It’s not rocket science.” In the slim portions of the report that were released last week, the jurors said they saw possible evidence of perjury by “one or more” witnesses who testified before them.
“It is not going to be some giant plot twist,” she added. “You probably have a fair idea of what may be in there. I’m trying very hard to say that delicately.”
I’ve assumed for a while that Trump would be indicted in Georgia. What we know already makes the case appear fairly strong, and the political impediments that might hold back the Department of Justice aren’t present in the Georgia case. If anything, the political incentives for a Democratic prosecutor point toward charges being levied against the former president. I suppose one should be careful about reading too much into these comments, but on the other hand, this feels like a compelling piece of evidence that Trump is in the legal crosshairs. We shall see, but if you think American politics are crazy now, an indictment of a former president would be an unprecedented level of insanity.
Ukraine: A Year Later
Last week we marked the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I’m not sure how much I need to say about this that I didn’t say in February 2022.
The very fact that Ukraine was willing to accept war rather than Russian domination means that unless Moscow is willing to devote years (perhaps decades) of blood and treasure to stamping out Ukrainian independence, it will inevitably lose.
Beyond the borders of Ukraine, Putin’s disastrous decision will reverberate for years to come. Tough international sanctions are coming, and Russia’s economy (and the Russian people) will pay a price. So, too, will the Russian oligarch elite, who will likely find that their ability to jet off to London or the French Riviera or move their money to safe harbors around the world will be severely constrained.
But even worse will be the hit to Moscow’s international reputation. Russia is now a pariah state and its leader persona non grata. There will be no summit meetings with Western leaders in Putin’s future, and certainly no attendance at international conferences. So long as Putin remains in charge, Russia will be on the outside looking in when it comes to being a member in good standing of the international community.
… The Russian leader decided that preventing Ukraine’s drift to the West was worth the price of war. Ukraine will pay a terrible price for that strategically inept decision. But Putin and Russia will, as well—not just today, but for many years to come.
My assumption that Russia would quickly overrun the Ukrainian military proved incorrect, though, in my defense, this was a near-universally held view. Still, a year after Russian troops breached the Ukraine border, we can say with certainty that the war was a disaster for Ukraine and a catastrophe for Russia. Moreover, the war has strengthed NATO and the international system, which has largely held together in sanctioning and isolating Russia for its actions. While Moscow has, economically, weathered that storm better than expected, the long-term consequences will still be dire — no international engagement, no foreign investment, and the transformation of Russia into a pariah state. Even if the fighting ended tomorrow (unfortunately, it won’t), Russia’s global status is unlikely to get better soon.
It’s yet one more reminder that launching wars rarely turns out well. Even when military conflicts are won easily (see: the US in Iraq and Afghanistan), the herculean tasks of providing security and post-conflict reconstruction quickly take the bloom off the rose. And keep in mind that the international community broadly supported the twin US disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan. There was no diplomatic isolation or international sanctions for the United States. Of course, there would always have been a price for Russia to pay, but the wrongness of their cause and the subsequent international revulsion has made the situation far worse. It will be a long time before Russia is again a nation in good standing.
I get asked all the time (and I ask frequently) how this war ends, and my answer (and the response I usually get) is that I don’t know. Both sides (Kyiv and Moscow) appear committed to fighting this war, no matter the cost in blood and treasure. One has to imagine that Russia has the advantage because they seemingly have an inexhaustible number of troops (and little concern if they are lost on the battlefield). Ukraine’s resources, as well as manpower, are more finite. I imagine that the West will continue to provide military support, but the well could run dry at some point due to exhaustion or simply a lack of industrial production. Diplomatically I don’t expect the US or Europe to pressure Ukraine to negotiate — and if they did, I’m not sure the point since Russia has shown no inclination to seek a peaceful exit to the war. It’s unsatisfying — and horrifically tragic — to say that the war will end when both sides exhaust themselves and decide they have more to gain at the negotiating table than the battlefield, but that’s how wars like this usually end.
The other possibility is that an enterprising Russian general puts a bullet in Vladimir Putin’s head, but I’m not sure that will resolve matters. The war has broad support among the Russian people, and any leader who replaces Putin will be under pressure to continue the fight until victory (or something resembling it) is achieved.
Read More
The Economist's long read on one Ukrainian’s experience in the war’s trenches is both riveting and devastating.
For all of Ukraine’s stoic heroism in confronting and stopping Russia’s military, it’s easy to forget the many tragic stories that will long come to define this war — and how much of a price Ukraine has already paid.
A fascinating oral history from the first day of the war. One point it captures, which might seem quaint now, is that the first reports of Russian troops crossing the border were genuinely astonishing, even to those of us who assumed the war was inevitable. As one Russian analyst told me then, “I knew it was going to happen, but I still didn’t expect it.”
The Lab Leak Hypothesis
Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal dropped a bombshell story: the Department of Energy has concluded (in a classified report) that COVID-19 originated because of a leak from a Chinese lab. This so-called lab leak hypothesis has been floating around since 2020, embraced by conspiratorial skeptics and shunned by much of the public health community (not surprisingly, the question of COVID’s origins quickly took on a political bent with Republicans blaming the Chinese for the leak and even claiming that COVID was part of a biological weapons program). Now there are quite a few caveats with this report. First, the Department of Energy drew its conclusion with “low confidence.” Second, while the FBI has also embraced the lab-leak theory, most US intelligence agencies have rejected the theory and concluded that COVID emerged organically.
I'll be honest that I don’t have a strong take on this one way or the other. My sense is that the notion of a lab leak appears far-fetched, and being a devotee of Occam’s Razor, I’m inclined to reject it. But the Energy Department report is allegedly based on newly available classified intelligence. I’m more troubled by the continued and strenuous rejection of the theory by public health officials and scientists in the United States. For months, they argued that the entire notion of a lab leak was a hoax and not worthy of investigation. The DOE report, even at low confidence, suggests otherwise.
If the lab leak theory is true, it opens up a very messy can of worms for China and its relationship with the rest of the world. If Chinese officials are caught lying about the spread of a virus that has taken millions of lives around the world and fundamentally disrupted the global economy, there will be an ugly reckoning. Still, this is an issue that needs to be explored further. Understanding how COVID emerged is essential to stopping future pandemics. So it would be best to keep an open mind about how COVID began, no matter one's ideological priors.
Read More
According to the Washington Post, DOE’s analysis cannot be easily dismissed.
On The Campaign Trail …
There are three interesting tidbits from the Republican candidates jockeying to become the 2024 presidential nominee. First, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, who is widely expected to throw his hat into the ring, refused to name one policy position on which he disagrees with Donald Trump. Second, at a town hall in Exeter, New Hampshire, Nikki Haley criticized Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for his Don’t Say Gay law but took the position that it doesn’t go far enough. Lastly, former Vice President Mike Pence, who will almost certainly announce his presidential bid in the next few weeks or months, also went after DeSantis for his lack of support for Ukraine.
This is consistent with the argument I made a few weeks ago here that the odd dynamics of the 2024 race will likely lead to GOP candidates remaining mum about Trump while consistently attacking DeSantis. No Republican wants to get on the wrong side of Trump and his supporters — and taking DeSantis down a notch positions them to take his place as the most likely Trump alternative should the Florida governor falter. It’s still too early to say how much all this matters, but it seems increasingly clear that DeSantis will have to withstand an onslaught of attacks — and that isn’t even taking into account the mud that Trump will throw at him.
One more thing from a Washington Post report on DeSantis’s efforts to win over voters in Trump’s political territory. He still struggles with retail politics.
Some people who have met with him in recent weeks say he remains stilted in one-on-one conversations and sometimes struggles to make small talk or appear enthusiastic while engaging in the glad-handing critical to winning states such as New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina.
I don’t care how much Republican voters want to get rid of Trump because they think he’ll lose to Biden; if DeSantis can’t handle the rudimentary aspects of political glad-handling, he ain’t gonna win.
Read More
Good piece in the Washington Post on how the Trump-DeSantis alliance fell apart.
What’s Going On
Who knew that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is an excellent movie critic?
Supporters of Bernie Sanders took over the Nevada Democratic Party … you will absolutely believe what happened next.
Excellent reporting from the Washington Post on why it’s usually a mistake to take police accounts of officer-involved shootings at face value.
Jennifer Szalai eviscerates Ron DeSantis’s new campaign book.
You couldn’t pay me $7.5 million to live in this apartment.
I adamantly oppose capital punishment, but I might make an exception for this guy.
I love the pitch clock!
Musical Interlude