Josh Marshall points out a crucial distinction about Says Who Cohen - he’s not Trump’s lawyer as much as he’s Trump’s fixer. As in Mob type of fixer.

Cohen came to Trump’s attention in the first years of the century because he was buying up large numbers of units in Trump properties, for himself, his family, his Ukrainian immigrant in-laws. He made himself handy by helping to quell a shareholder revolt in one building. Trump saw that Cohen was a conduit for money from Russia and Ukraine. And Cohen wanted to be helpful. That’s how and why Trump brought Cohen into the Trump Organization.

I don’t doubt that Cohen, who has a law license, made ample use lawyer-client privilege. But in the sense people think of, he was never Trump’s lawyer. Not even in the Tom Hagen sense in which he sometimes presents himself. He worked on business deals. But mostly he took care of problems for Trump and served as a conduit for money. While that was happening, Cohen continued to build his own real estate mini-empire from his perch at the Trump Organization, working with his original sources of money and pull and adding the resources of the Trump Organization to enable him to operate on a larger scale.

That was the essence of the relationship. Cohen brought in money and connections. He also made big money under the Trump Organization umbrella - not only by whatever he made from Trump directly but far more from the deals he was doing on his own operating in Trump’s orbit. One key part of the arrangement though was total loyalty and maximal expressions of loyalty, making messes go away. You can see this in how Cohen talks about his relationship with Trump and the mix of aggressive bullying and lavish toadying he shows when he discusses Trump on TV.

Explaining his relationship to Trump to ABC News Cohen said: “It means that if somebody does something Mr. Trump doesn’t like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr. Trump’s benefit. If you do something wrong, I’m going to come at you, grab you by the neck and I’m not going to let you go until I’m finished.” As he said in his statement on the Stormy Daniels payment, “I will always protect Mr. Trump.”

Think Harvey Keitel’s Winston Wolf in ‘Pulp Fiction’ and you’re there. Cohen’s the guy who comes in and cleans up the blood.