Of Course Sean Hannity Didn’t Want Us to Know Michael Cohen Was His Lawyer

Michael Cohen has a very particular set of skills. When I think of Cohen, it immediately conjures up Liam Neeson’s famous scene from the movie Taken in which Neeson speaks to his daughter’s kidnapper by phone warning them, “I don’t have money, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills…skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.”

To me, that’s Cohen. He has unique skill set that is perfect to address shady and unsavory situations. And that’s exactly why Sean Hannity didn’t want his name revealed as Cohen’s “mystery client” in federal court yesterday. As Cohen’s lawyer argued to Judge Kimba Wood on Monday, this mystery client was a “prominent person” who wanted to keep his identity a secret because he’d be “embarrassed” to be identified as Cohen’s client.

Would you want to be associated with Cohen given the type of work he engaged in? But even if you wanted Cohen’s help, he doesn’t offer these services to all—you won’t see ads for him on the New York city subway. Rather, Cohen has a very exclusive cliental. As his lawyer told the judge yesterday, Cohen only had three clients he provided legal advice to since 2017.  (Cohen’s lawyer represented to the court that all together Cohen had ten clients but the other seven he served by providing “strategic advice and business consulting,” not legal.)

Of these three legal clients, there was Donald Trump. In that capacity, Cohen negotiated a payment of $130,000 to Stormy Daniels so she wouldn’t go public with her alleged affair with Trump.  Cohen even claims that to fix that mess he personally paid the $130,000 via his home equity line of credit. That is a real fixer — Cohen not only makes your problems go away, he pays out of his own pocket to see that happens!

Also apparently on Trump’s behalf, Cohen threatened — on the record — a reporter at The Daily Beast when the publication was on verge of running an article in 2015 that Trump’s ex-wife Ivana had once used the term “rape” to describe an incident between her and her then-husband back in 1989. Cohen, while on the phone with a Daily Beast reporter, threatened to sue him and the publication, declaring: “I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know.” Cohen then added ominously, “So I’m warning you, tread very f***ing lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be f***ing disgusting. You understand me?”   (In recent reports, Cohen also threatened a lawsuit against publishers at Us Weekly and effectively buried a story the publication was going to run in 2013 about an affair Donald Trump Jr. was having with singer Aubrey O’Day.)

The second Cohen legal client was high ranking Republican National Committee official Elliott Broidy. As we recently learned, Cohen helped Broidy facilitate a $1.6 million payment after the GOP fundraiser had “a consensual relationship with a Playboy Playmate” who became pregnant and then had an abortion.

And the third client, which was revealed to audible gasps in the courtroom yesterday, is Hannity.  To be clear, Hannity has the absolute right to seek legal advice from any lawyer he chooses. And apparently Hannity has done just that, assembling a team of lawyers he consults with depending on the issue he needs guidance on. Hannity explained that yesterday in detail on his radio show: “I have eight lawyers who I talk to.” Adding, “I have contract attorneys, tons of different attorneys for on-air, TV, radio, etc.”

As a lawyer myself, that makes absolute sense, you go to the lawyer who specializes in the issue you need help to solve. For example, if you have a tax problem, you go to a tax lawyer. A real estate issue, you seek the help of an attorney known for that.

To that end, it’s crystal clear why a person seeks Cohen’s particular set of skills. You have a problem that you need to be fixed that only Cohen can help you resolve. That’s why it’s so challenging to believe Hannity’s claim yesterday that his dealings with Cohen focused “exclusively almost focused on real estate.” That’s like seeking advice from a lawyer who specializes in slip and fall cases to represent you in a complex antitrust lawsuit.

That’s why Hannity didn’t want anyone to know that he was Cohen’s client.  Hannity understands that we all get what Cohen’s particular set of skills are all about.

While we don’t know for certain why Hannity spoke with Cohen, one thing is now clear: I hope Hannity knows a really good lawyer because it looks like he could use some legal help.

Dean Obeidallah, a lawyer, hosts SiriusXM radio’s The Dean Obeidallah show and is a columnist for the Daily Beast and a CNN.com Opinion Contributor.

(Photo by Yana Paskova/Getty Images)

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.