Michael Cohen Talks Jerry Falwell Jr

Last night as I was finishing up a large book on the history of the flood of 1927 at bedtime my Kindle went into auto download mode and the Michael Cohen book – “Disloyal” downloaded. I am currently reading it. A fascinating look at how we as a country got to where we are right now, trembling on the brink of no longer being a democracy, devolving into chaos.

I’ve reached the parts where the author has met and befriended Becki and Jerry Falwell Jr. He met them after Donald Trump asked Michael to see if he could get them front row tickets to an event starring Justin Bieber. The Falwell’s twelve year old daughter had contracted Bieber fever. Cohen did, and it started a friendship between him and the Falwells, with them laying hands on him and praying, the two families getting together to have dinner every now and then.

I was surprised by the friendship. I guess I thought everything was always a cynical trade off in that world.  And then we get to Cohen’s involvement in the situation between the Falwell’s and Giancarlo Granda. Cohen says that Jerry told him that Granda was just someone they met in Miami, at the Fountainbleu Hotel’s pool, and they’d tried to help him with a real estate investment. No monkey business between the sheets.

Then Cohen describes those incriminating photos of Becki, taken on a brand new tractor on the Falwell farm:

“Jerry said, now speaking like a man who knows he did something stupid that he regrets but he had to just own up to it and get it out. Becki had started to pose for photos with her top open a little bit, and then a lot, and then the top came off, then the bra, and soon she was vamping like a softcore MILF.”

Michael explains why this is so terrible for the Falwells:

“If Becki Falwell was seen half-naked by the students of Liberty University, let alone evangelicals all over the country, it would be an unmitigated disaster.”

Cohen turned heavy immediately, contacting Granda’s lawyer and telling him if the photos weren’t turned in to him quickly he would advise the Falwell’s to involve the FBI on this extortion attempt. Granda’s lawyer backed down immediately. Not surprising. I’m not to the part yet where Cohen leaned on Falwell to bring all the evangelicals to Trump, but I’m sure it’s coming.

It reads far differently than I dreamed. More like a friend helping a friend out instead of a shakedown. Apparently Jerry Falwell Jr. was less than forthcoming, in fact he out and out lied to Cohen, about the relationship between the Falwells and Granda. He didn’t tell Cohen that there was a personal sexual relationship between them, he neglected to tell Cohen about the hostel that they funded for Granda in Miami Beach. positing simply like an attempt to help someone that impressed them better his life.

Oh what a tangled web we weave when we first practice to deceive.

Cohen is not coming across as the most personable and likeable guy in this, but its easy to see how he got sucked into Trump’s orbit and so bedazzled by that world that he abandoned what he knew was right to part of it. All very interesting.

I became interested in reading this book last year during Cohen’s testimony in a congressional hearing. He seemed like a man who’d seen the elephant, and realized the reality and gravity of the situation. I’d tuned in to gloat only to find myself feeling just a trifle sorry for Cohen, even if his wounds were all of the self inflicted variety. We live in interesting times, my friends. It will be intriguing to see what he does with the rest of his life now, if he ends up just as a sad little footnote in history, or if Cohen does that thing that America seems to love, a reinvention and resurrection of self. We will see.

Here’s the ad Cohen did right before the Republican National Convention a few weeks ago.