Cricketing and politico-philanthropic icon Imran Khan is making history by breaking a long-time bipartisan parliamentary rivalry with his ‘third force’ Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf victory in last Wednesday’s general election. Meanwhile, in the USA, the on-going political ferment remains spiced with an unsavoury, heavy, dose of presidential sexual intrigue that parallels matters of regular government like the economy, national security, foreign relations.
The biggest news from Washington last week is that the ongoing federal special investigation has formally summoned President Donald Trump’s closest corporate aide who knows all about Trump’s corporate doings.
For the first time in American history, a US presidential regime is, from its inception, equally pre-occupied with a high state level probe into personal sexual intrigue-cover-up and suspected personal illicit foreign political dealings, election law violations, even as it attends to normal governance. Last week the Trump presidency became further embroiled in legal, private and corporate-political entanglements in full public view following more betrayals to investigators by one of Trump’s closest personal legal ‘fixers’, Michael Cohen.
If not the larger American society, the whole of Washington is agog with the vicious nature of these acts of betrayal on the one hand, and, on the other, the scandalous and, possibly criminal, implications of these revelations to both the President, his personal family and, numerous political and corporate associates and allies.
In the first place, American society has watched aghast the failure of Donald Trump to provide moral and financial support to his long-time supposed lawyer, Michael Cohen who seems to have been instrumental in managing controversies in Trump’s private life for more than a decade.
Originally implicated in the cover-up of Trumps illicit sexual affairs, Michael Cohen, due to his very proximity to Trump, has now got dragged into the on-going federal special probe into the Russian cyber sabotage case and its possible links with the Trump presidential campaign. But for the past year of this burdensome legal-criminal tangle, Michael Cohen does not seem to have received any support, whatsoever, from Trump!
It must be recalled that, when first confronted with the exposure that he ‘fixed’ the silence of one Trump illicit lover, Cohen claimed that Trump was not involved and that the (paltry) US$ 130,000 pay-off to erotic film star Stormy Daniels was from his own pockets. Clearly, Cohen attempted to shield Trump by taking personal responsibility.
How is it that an honourable man could fail to come to the aid of such a loyal associate?
Many American commentators point out that Trump has been notorious for such failures to reciprocate the work of his aides and partners in his support. So there is little surprise that Trump is failing to help Michael Cohen, now dealing with federal indictments, raids and seizure of personal data and, running a legal defence. Already Cohen is reportedly heavily in debt over legal fees.
The Cohen affair has now deteriorated into a series of betrayals and counter-betrayals between Trump on one side and Cohen on the other. Although Cohen is a registered lawyer, at least one Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) affidavit against him questions whether he is formally a ‘lawyer’. The FBI points out he does not seem to have any ‘client’ except Trump and even that relationship, too, involved more personal negotiations and contracts rather than legal work.
Amazingly (entertainingly to us), Cohen has been found to have been secretly recording all his phone and possibly personal conversations with his boss, Trump, even though some of these conversations were to do with the most intimate, personal, crises of Trump’s life.
As the legal heat on him worsens, Cohen has begun releasing information about his dealings on behalf of Trump to the world. Reportedly, the FBI has seized millions of paper and electronic documents belonging to Cohen in their parallel multiple probes into various aspects of Cohen’s activities. Apparently, they have more than a dozen recordings made by Cohen of conversations with Trump.
Last week, Cohen’s personal lawyer sensationally released to the news media one such recording in which Cohen advises Trump on how to deal with another illicit affair – a ten-month affair with a ‘Playboy’ erotic magazine model (known as a ‘Bunny’). Now being played the world over, this tape records a recognizable Trump voice discussing with Cohen about the setting up of a ‘shadow company’ to channel the pay-off, the role of Trump’s top finance manager along with the owner of the magazine which bought up that woman’s story.
The hottest debate on American airwaves last week was not so much governmental politics but whether, in that tape, it is Trump or Cohen who suggests using cash rather than a cheque for the money transaction. Trump’s legal team claims that the voice recommending cash payment – a covert means of payment – was that of Cohen while it was Trump who argues for a cheque transaction – which is the normal, legitimate practice.
Many American commentators seem to think that this tape release only further implicates both Cohen and Trump as well as, for the first time brings focus on to the other actors, namely Trump corporate financial manager, Allen Weisselberg. Having served as the executive vice president and chief financial officer of the Trump Organization for decades (starting under Trump’s father), Weisselberg is now the closest Trump associate after the Trump family itself, to be drawn into the FBI special probe.
The FBI investigation has got that close to Donald Trump himself.
Also, last week, Michael Cohen publicly claimed for the first time that Donald Trump, when campaigning for the presidency in 2016, had prior knowledge of that sensational secret meeting between his core campaign team (including son Donald Trump Jr. and son-in-law Jared Kushner) and a group of Russian government-linked persons. The Russian group included a woman lawyer knowing for her Putin regime links as well as other persons known for their activities close to the murky world of intelligence, espionage and other kinds of international intrigue.
The rest of the world outside America, must watch all this amid monitoring Washington’s far more dangerously controversial official, governmental actions – such as dismantling of rules and codes of governance and administration, undermining of traditional American foreign policy, bitter political enmities, etc. It is a picture of a giant modern state gone (or, going) wild.
In colonial America, to the modernising East Coast USA, it was the region further west - yet to be properly governed, and therefore replete with no-holds-barred social behaviour, including a culture of gun violence – that was described as the ‘Wild West’. Today, for the rest of the world, the whole of America is beginning to look and sound like a new Wild West.
Meanwhile, South Asia is anxiously watching the results of last Wedensday’s general elections in Pakistan, in which Imran Khan’s party, the PTI, seems to be emerging as the biggest parliamentary group although perhaps not with a working majority.
The results are yet to be officially announced, but if it is, indeed, a victory for Khan (one should emphasise both the ‘k’ and ‘h’ when pronouncing the name), then it is deservedly so for this ageing one-time cricketing virtuoso. Imran Khan used his sports stardom not just for an affluent retirement but to engage in social development across his native land and then proceeded with a political initiative that seems to have inspired many Pakistanis.
According to reports as at Friday, Khan’s Pakistan Movement for Justice party (PTI) won 116 out of the 272 directly elected National Assembly seats. Results from four constituencies were awaited. The election monitors – local and foreign – also have to officially indicate whether the conduct of the elections was fair and free.
The PTI needs 137 seats to form a stable government, and has reportedly begun approaching smaller political forces with the aim of putting together a coalition. It is expected that Khan will be elected Prime Minister although he is likely to govern with the help of several smaller political parties.