Michael Cohen just got run through a shredder

You’re an alleged criminal. You know the Feds are going to move in on you eventually. You decide to shred the evidence against you. Do you A) cross cut the documents so thoroughly that they can never be pieced back together, B) throw the shredded paper in the trash and hope no one ever finds it, or C) leave the shreds sitting in the shredder so the Feds can seize them and put them back together?

If you’re a complete idiot, or in particular if you’re Donald Trump’s fixer Michael Cohen, you choose Option C. The FBI is busy piecing the shredded documents back together as we speak, and while NBC News says that they still need a little more time, it looks like they’ll ultimately have no problem reconstructing the paperwork. Wait, is Cohen really this dumb? As it turns out, yes. In fact Cohen did something even dumber.

Let’s say you’ve been recording your conversations with your boss all along, under the premise that you might need them as an insurance policy in case you get nabbed for the boss’s crimes. Then you get arrested for those crimes. Do you A) promptly offer the tapes in exchange for a lenient plea deal, B) keep the tapes a secret until you’re absolutely certain you’ve run out of options and you need to make a plea deal, or C) have your lawyer admit in court that the tapes exist?

Michael Cohen has once again gone with Option C. Not only has he apparently incriminated himself and Donald Trump by recording their conversations, he’s now likely going to have to turn over the tapes under the judge’s order, without being able to get anything in return for them. This guy was the senior most “fixer” in the Trump Organization, and it sounds like he couldn’t steal a pair of shoelaces without tripping over them. But Donald Trump only hires the best people.