THE OFFICIAL MEA CULPA WITH MICHAEL COHEN ARCHIVE

Mea Culpa welcomes legal legend, Nick Akerman. Akerman was formerly a federal prosecutor and the Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York, where he specialized in going after white-collar crime. Prior to the SDNY, he made his name as the Assistant Special Watergate Prosecutor with the Watergate Special Prosecution Force under Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski. There Akerman was instrumental in helping crack open the vast conspiracy orchestrated by President Nixon and his co-conspirators that resulted in Nixon’s resignation and several prison sentences for his underlings. Akerman joins us today to discuss how Trump is basically screwed in his election interference trial and why televising the trial will be a terrible idea.

Mea Culpa welcomes podcaster, radio host, and columnist Joe Walsh. Walsh was elected to the House of Representatives in 2011 from Illinois’s 8th District. He also ran for president and then blew up his life when he spoke out against the MAGA cult and gave Trump the bird. To quote Joe, Republicans “have become fully radicalized and anti-democracy.” Joe’s podcast, “White Flag” strives to find a path to unite, not divide us politically, but he pulls no punches in his latest book, “F*ck Silence: Calling Trump Out for the Cultish, Moronic, Authoritarian Con Man He Is.” He has of late, railed against the GOP establishment, who voted for Trump in 2020 and believe the rest of us simply forgot their actions. He is also deeply worried about the future of the GOP and the idea that there is no longer space for a sane, anti-Trump candidate who supports small government and fiscal conservatism. What happens next is anyone’s guess. 

Mea Culpa welcomes back Reed Galen. Co-founder of The Lincoln Project and a veteran public affairs and political commentator with more than 20 years of experience, Reed has been involved in politics, government, and business at the highest levels. Galen has spent more than a decade advising Fortune 50, 100, and 1000 companies in need of high-level counsel in the fields of strategic communications, procurement, and legislation. In addition to his private sector work, Reed has managed several high-profile ballot measure campaigns in California, Texas, and Colorado – Before moving to the private sector, Reed served as Deputy Campaign Manager for John McCain’s presidential campaign and Deputy Campaign Manager for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s successful 2006 re-election campaign. Galen also worked on both of President George W. Bush's campaigns and served the Bush Administration at both the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Department of Homeland Security. As founder of the Lincoln Project, Galen has lead the group's vision and created some of its most memorable attacks against Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, and others. He is now focused on not only ridding the nation of Trump but attempting to purge the GOP of its love affair with MAGA ideology. We had the opportunity to speak to him in the midst of these historic indictments. 

Mea Culpa welcomes our ole friend, Joe Trippi, heralded on the cover of The New Republic as the man who “reinvented campaigning,” Trippi pioneered bringing politics into the digital age. Most recently, he’s brought his campaign savvy to the Lincoln Project where he serves as a senior advisor. With Trump a target of Federal Prosecutors and State DAs, Trippi is targeting the MAGA machine that continues to prop up divisive politics. Lately, his scorn is being directed at Ron DeSantis, who the GOP hoped to dress up as a more palatable Donald Trump but instead got a zombie hall monitor with a mean streak. You can listen to Joe’s podcast, “That Trippi Show,” everywhere podcasts are found or see him on MSNBC, CNN and NBC. Today we’ll go into all things Trump indictment but also look at how the GOP has lost an entire generation of voters as it clings to the poisonous politics of its MAGA base. 

Mea Culpa welcomes back our old friend, Harry Litman, the former US Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General. Litman is currently the legal affairs columnist for the Los Angeles Times and a professor of Constitutional Law at UCLA and UCSD. Harry can be seen as a legal and political commentator on CBS, NPR MSNBC, and CNN. Litman is also the creator and host of the Talking Feds Podcast. You’d be smart to subscribe to the “Talking Feds” YouTube channel. New episodes are posted daily and he features the greatest legal minds and tough-as-nails former prosecutors breaking down the legal news and all things Trump indictment. But today Harry is here to give us the rundown on that pesky target letter and the imminent Trump indictment number three. 

My next guest on Mea Culpa is Neal Kaytal. The former Obama administration Solicitor General of the United States and New York Times bestselling author, of “Impeach,” The Case Against Donald Trump. In addition, Neal runs one of the largest Supreme Court practices in the world where he occupies the role formerly held by now Chief Justice John Roberts. From a legal perspective, the man is an absolute heavy hitter and one of the sharpest minds we’ve had on this show to date. He has orally argued 43 cases before the Supreme Court with 41 of them in the last decade. At the age of 50, he has already argued more Supreme Court cases in U.S. history than any other minority attorney, breaking the record of Thurgood Marshall. Make sure to check out his new podcast Courtside where each week Neal discusses a major Supreme Court case with a non-lawyer guest. This week it’s all about the prosecution of presidents and the landmark, Morrison V. Olsen. Comedian John Mulaney joins the proceedings. on He joins us today on Mea Culpa to unpack the Target Letter and to discuss the myriad ways Trump will likely end up behind bars. 

Mea Culpa welcomes back our old friend Norm Eisen. There’s pretty much nothing going on in politics today that Eisen doesn’t have an educated opinion about. Eisen is a CNN Legal Analyst. And the founder and executive chair of “States United Democracy Center”, a nonpartisan organization advancing free, fair, and secure elections. His articles for the Brookings Institute and elsewhere have made the case for why Trump and his band of criminal conspiracists represented a clear and present danger to democracy. His latest work of art is a model prosecution memo that came just days before Trump received his target letter that lays out the case against him in startling clarity. Eisen writes that “the memo builds on the work that has been done by the Jan. 6 Committee and many others but is the first comprehensive application of the law to the facts to establish that DOJ standards for bringing charges are met. We offer an in-depth look at the vast factual record through prosecutorial eyes to describe a relatively simple three-part theory of the case that prosecutors can try to verdict in a year or less.” It’s that three-part theory that Norm is going to break down for us today. Settle in folks and get educated, you’re about to get a masterclass in how to bring down Donald Trump. 

Mea Culpa welcomes back one of our favorite people from the Lincoln Project, Tara Setmayer. She’s a former CNN political commentator, a contributor to ABC News, and a former GOP Communications Director on Capitol Hill. Setmayer has appeared on ABC's The View, ABC's Good Morning America, and HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. She was named a Harvard Institute of Politics Spring 2020 Resident Fellow. Also in 2020, she joined The Lincoln Project as a senior advisor. Setmayer hosts the live show "The Breakdown" alongside co-founder Rick Wilson, on the organization's streaming channel, LPTV. She’s also a fierce critic of the ongoing MAGA agenda as well as the damaged GOP that has grown like a cancer from the hard right. 

EXCLUSIVE!!! Robert Kennedy Jr. Vs. Michael Cohen…If You Thought He Was Crazy Just Wait Until Your Hear This Interview

Mea Culpa welcomes back Michael Smerconish, the host of the TV program on CNN fittingly called "Smerconish." He is also the host of The Michael Smerconish Program on SiriusXM. He’s been nationally syndicated in more than 100 markets and has authored seven books: two New York Times best sellers, and his novel TALK! was optioned for television by Warner Brothers. When the pandemic hit in 2020, Smerconish was about to embark on a new tour called "Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Talking," a one-man show commemorating his 30th anniversary in talk radio. A taped version of that presentation was aired worldwide as a one-hour CNN special in 2020. Nowadays he is focused on pointing out the foibles of the MAGA mob while trying to find a middle ground in our divisive nation; hoping somehow that this nation can find a way to come back together before the 250th Anniversary of this nation.