Brilliant comedian Chris Rock had this bit during his comedy special Bigger and Blacker in which he “joked” that there isn’t a white person in the room who would be willing to trade places with him and he’s rich. I know I’m paraphrasing here but, he explained that for even a downtrodden white person, it still pays to ride their whiteness out.
And in Chris Rock’s humor—I say humor because while it’s funny, it’s totally on point—we have the news that President Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen is going to be released early from prison due to the coronavirus and the preciousness of his white lungs.
According to CNN, the federal Bureau of Prisons has been notified that Michael Cohen will be released early because he’s been through enough. Cohen was serving a three-year-sentence in Otisville, N.Y., which is basically like a day-camp for prisoners, but some 14 inmates and seven staffers have tested positive for the virus and well, it’s time to get Cohen out.
From CNN:
Cohen was scheduled for release in November 2021, but he will be allowed to serve the remainder of his sentence from home confinement, the people said. He will have to undergo a 14-day quarantine at the prison camp before he is released.
Cohen was notified on Thursday of his pending release, and his lawyer, Roger Adler, confirmed it to CNN.
His pending release comes as the Bureau of Prisons, which has been under pressure for its early handling of the virus at its facilities, has been thinning out its prison populations by releasing some nonviolent and medically vulnerable inmates to home confinement or furloughing their sentences in response to the pandemic.
Spokespersons for the bureau and the US attorney’s office in Manhattan, which prosecuted Cohen, declined to comment.
A federal judge rejected his request for release last month. Cohen accused the Justice Department of treating him unfairly and then he added later, that he was concerned about the coronavirus. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to tax fraud, “campaign finance violations and lying to Congress. He admitted to helping facilitate hush money payments to two women who alleged past affairs with Trump. Trump has denied having affairs with the women” CNN reports. “Trump is also a goddamn liar,” Stephen A. Crockett Jr. reports.
So for those keeping score, Cohen was Trump’s body man, handling issues that Trump created. When he was caught, he snitched on Trump thus destroying his relationship with the president and was sentenced to three years at a violent dairy farm disguised as a prison. Then he tried everything to get out and it didn’t work, and then, when it seemed like Cohen was going to be treated like a regular person, Whiteness said, “Oh no you won’t!” so Cohen is going to be released from prison early.