Thread by @aliasvaughn

1. What Cohen's actually explosive knowledge of facts covers, that can make the entire house of cards crash: the hacking and the Trump Tower meeting, both of which TRUMP KNEW about and in the hacking case, an event Trump even encouraged.

2. In the case of the hacking, there's a $50,000 mysterious payment Cohen made to an undisclosed tech company to help the Trump campaign, that awfully sounds like the arrangements the Steele dossier says Cohen made to pay off Russian hackers "without it being traced".

3. Cohen's lawyer Lanny Davis specifically said on @maddow that Cohen has knowledge about the hacking that is of interest for Mueller. And the detail of the tech company payment emerged from the indictment. If the connection is accurate (and it seems like it is), this is huge.

4. Davis also said specifically that Cohen's knowledge includes whether Trump not only knew in advance but encouraged hacking, in which case this is referred to Trump's message to Russians to hack HRC emails.

5. If the connection between hacking and the report in the Steele dossier re: Cohen meeting in EU with Russian representatives to discuss how to conceal payment to hackers is it, as it seems, then the significance is enormous legally speaking bc this would prove CONSPIRACY.

6. Cohen paying Russian hackers (valid even if they were located in the US by the way) and concealing the payment on behalf of the Trump campaign is CONSPIRACY TO INTERFERE in the election. It's an extremely serious crime, and it could involve espionage among other things.

7. Again, if the above deductions are accurate, then the Trump campaign conspired with a foreign power to interfere in the US election in order to get its candidate elected. That would also have the consequence of MAKING THE ELECTION PROCESS ILLEGAL.

8. If the election process was indeed ILLEGAL because vitiated by criminal acts on part of Trump and his campaign, then to me it is no question that Trump WOULD be indicted and MUST BE, not to mention impeached. See here:

https://twitter.com/karolcummins/status/1032664081897910272

9. The US is a nation of LAWS, so there is no question that if a candidate committed crimes during his campaign that facilitated his election AND made the election process illegal, that's conspiracy against the US and in this case with a foreign adversary, no less.

10. This is the real point: Cohen seems to have evidence, DOCUMENTED, of the infamous "Collusion" as the foolish enfant orange calls it, between Trump himself (who would be directly involved, per Davis), the Trump campaign as a whole and Russia. To steal an election in the US.

11. Needless to say, this would include multiple people in the campaign and ANYONE elected by illegal means wouldn't be able to keep their post, that would mean PENCE would also go.

12. Again, this is an IF because we don't know exactly what Cohen has, though it seems pretty clear based on what Davis said AND on the indictment, BUT if this is confirmed, then Trump & co are not simply done but they reached the WH by illegal means, so it's buh-bye busters.

13. ON top of all the above, there's the fact Davis clearly said that Cohen was present during a conversation between Trump Jr. and the orange baboon BEFORE the Trump Tower meeting took place, that supposedly had Jr. inform Trump of the meeting.

14. Jr. knew it was a meeting with Russians to GET DIRT on HRC and informed his father of it, Trump can't claim ignorance. This was a meeting, as we now know, with RUSSIAN SPIES, that included various people who have been interviewed by Congress who CONFIRMED its content.

15. There is absolutely NO way to slice this as being in ANY way, shape or form, legal. It's fully illegal, one absolutely CANNOT get dirt on an election adversary from a foreign govt, or involve foreigners directly in the election process. Cambridge Analytica went down for it

16. Further, Jr. AND Trump's lies about it, that happened in a very public setting, show their INTENT to conceal the meeting. Depending on what was said during the convo between Jr and Trump that Cohen witnessed, Cohen may have DIRECT evidence of criminal intent on their part.

17. Criminal intent means showing that Trump's & Jr.'s intention when meeting with the Russians was criminal, as it involved a crime bc they were willfully getting dirt on HRC from Russians, which is a crime in and of itself, but even worse, in EXCHANGE for lifting sanctions.

18. The "adoption" language that was used by the Russians to lie about the meeting as well as by the Trump side to lie, is in fact code for "lifting Magnitsky sanctions" that has been used before by Russians. Now this do ut des part would need to be proved with witness accounts.

19. Guess what? Mueller has Manafort's notes on the meeting and has interviewed MULTIPLE direct witnesses who were either present or informed about facts. Further, two Russians, Ike Kaveladze & Rinat Akhmetshin were interviewed MULTIPLE times by Congress over their texts about it

20. For a primer on Kaveladze, Akhmetshin and the entire deal see both threads here:

https://twitter.com/aliasvaughn/status/981688029134934016

21. Whatever Cohen knows re: the Trump tower meeting is a SIDE show bc Mueller has evidence from OTHER people on it, and more importantly bc if the hacking and computer crimes are proven, it is absolutely OVER for the entire Trump lackey wagon. So buckle up. #MuellerIsComing /END