That President Trump is an almost compulsive liar, a man who is incurious about the world except to the extent that it can satisfy his crude immediate desires, has been obvious since he first appeared in public life as a real estate huckster in New York City. To some extent these were the qualities, or the defects, that won him the presidency. They made him relatable to millions of angry and bewildered Americans in his role as a reality TV star. They also made him a useful tool for more intelligent and strategically minded players, from Vladimir Putin to the Koch brothers, who have consistently used him to advance their own agendas and to weaken the American state at home and abroad.
One of the great questions arising from his success has always been whether he will pay for his lies, or whether it is only the US – and the rest of the world – which must do so. The outlines of an answer became rather clearer last week with the progress of special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and the simultaneous inquiry by New York state prosecutors into the conduct of Mr Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, the man who once said he would “take a bullet” for Mr Trump, who paid him $500,000 a year for this devotion.
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