LEGAL/MICHAEL CHOEN/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/WOMEN: “Lanny J. Davis’s client list, like his quintessentially Washington career as an all-purpose lawyer, lobbyist, crisis consultant and television-talker, is lengthy, international — and more than occasionally contradictory. Mr. Davis has represented Harvey Weinstein and Penn State, a Ukrainian oligarch with links to President Trump’s indicted former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and an Ivory Coast strongman whom Mr. Davis today insists he was trying to help dislodge as part of a secret arrangement with the State Department. Now, Mr. Davis — best known as a high-profile spinner for Bill and Hillary Clinton, first in the White House and then on any cable news network that would have him — has set off on perhaps his least likely partnership: He is defending Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, who released a recording this week of a conversation that suggests Mr. Trump knew about hush money payments to a former Playboy model. It was Mr. Davis who went on CNN on Tuesday [7-24-18] evening to tell the world about their gambit. ‘Don’t believe me, I’m a Democrat,’ Mr. Davis said, addressing ‘red America’ as he stared into the camera. ‘Believe your own ears.'”
–Matt Flegenheimer, “Representing Michael Cohen, ‘Classic Lanny’ Davis Comes Out Swinging,” The New York Times online, July 25, 2018