Michael Cohen to Trump: I will flip on you if I need to

“Once I understand what charges might be filed against me, if any at all, I will defer to my new counsel, Guy Petrillo, for guidance,” Cohen said.

Pressed on his past commentary about being willing to do anything for Trump, Cohen again hinted at flipping: “To be crystal clear, my wife, my daughter and my son, and this country have my first loyalty.”

..  he was unhappy with Trump for not helping with his legal bills.

..  Then Cohen resigned as deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee by citing not just the investigation he faces, but his disagreement with the Trump administration’s policy of separating families at the border.

.. And Cohen’s interview came with another big signal: the reported end of a joint agreement between Cohen and Trump’s legal team to share information. Such things often presage a more antagonistic relationship or even cutting a deal to inform on someone else. Michael Flynn’s lawyers stopped sharing info with Trump’s lawyers, for example, shortly before he flipped.

..  if we’re really reading between the lines, it could also be significant that Cohen declined to downplay criticisms of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. “I don’t like the term ‘witch hunt,’” he said.

Cohen faces problems unrelated to the Russia probe, but if he flipped he would be providing evidence for that investigation.

.. And in fact, the opposite seems to have occurred. Trump and the White House have minimized Cohen and suggested that his legal problems have nothing to do with it. Asked by Stephanopoulos about that treatment, Cohen grew rigid and assured. “I will not be a punching bag as part of anyone’s defense strategy,” he said. “I am not a villain of this story, and I will not allow others to try to depict me that way.”

.. Does he not think he can pardon Cohen or pay his legal bills, politically speaking? Or is this just part of the intense (if thoroughly and strangely Trumpian) public negotiations that are going on around this whole thing right now?