So is the "Pam" who is audible on the tape Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, whose closing of the investigation into the president*'s fake university coincided miraculously with a donation to her campaign from the president*'s "foundation"?

Is “our friend David” on the tape the marvelously Dickensian character David Pecker, head of the media company that owns the National Enquirer, famed in song and story for its “catch-and-kill” policy toward the president*’s many extracurricular activities, or is it “David Dennison,” one of the noms de sleaze used by the president* in order to conduct said extracurricular activities?

And, one final question:

What in the hairy, unholy, slobbering fck is wrong with you people?

Drew Angerer Getty Images

When Lanny Davis, who now represents Michael Cohen, Attorney-at-Large, For Now, released a tape of his client and the president* discussing how to set up a phony company in order to pay off a woman whose boots the president* once allegedly knocked, it was a transparent attempt to curry sympathy for his client, who is as unsympathetic a character as there is in the apparently limitless galaxy of unsympathetic characters with whom the entirely unsympathetic president* has chosen to surround himself for his entire adult life.

So, that strategy didn’t work. That Cohen is cooperating with prosecutors, another Davis brainwave, is approximately as revelatory as learning that the survivor of a flood has climbed into a boat. And the pushback from El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago and his jefes is also as predictable as the dawn.

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

What kind of a lawyer would tape a client? So sad! Is this a first, never heard of it before? Why was the tape so abruptly terminated (cut) while I was presumably saying positive things? I hear there are other clients and many reporters that are taped - can this be so? Too bad! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2018

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the President* of the United States. But there’s more from, unfortunately, Fox News:

A transcript provided by the Trump legal team, though, asserts that Trump said: “Don’t pay with cash . . . check.” Giuliani told Fox News on Tuesday they listened numerous times to the tape and determined the then-candidate told Cohen, “Don’t pay with cash.” Giuliani, speaking with Laura Ingraham, admitted that the audio was muffled, but said the rest of the recording -- had it not stopped -- would have been “exculpatory.” Dershowitz and Giuliani both said Trump wanted to make sure any such transaction had a record.

Have you been the victim of your own wandering penis? Have you been the victim of an audiotape showing that you conduct business like a third-rate mob boss? Don’t be caught without a completely implausible alibi. We can help. Call the firm of Dershowitz and Giuliani. Operators are standing by. This is a free call.

Michael Brennan Getty Images

There may or may not be a federal crime here. Much of that depends on some arcane points of what remained of our campaign-finance laws once Anthony Kennedy got a hold of them. But that’s far from the most fundamental question here.

The President* of the United States behaved like a third-rate hoodlum long before he ever heard of Vladimir Putin. This was the way he did business. This always has been the way he’s done business. At least Richard Nixon came to crimes in office by degrees. This president* has lovingly swathed his entire life in deceit and corruption. It is the stagnant water in which he swims. He feeds and grows fat on the slime and rot that exists at the bottom of America’s corporate classes. He is a successful parasite on the American dream.

God knows what else is on the tapes Michael Cohen made. But they likely represent a further look down into the abyss that lies beneath all of our important institutions. There’s malodorous water creeping in under all their foundations, and its creatures are in charge of them now.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io