There's Always A Tweet - Updated

That tweet was from three and a half years ago; Cohen eventually deleted it but as we always say, screenshots live forever. Today Michael Cohen reported to prison to begin serving his own three-year term. Hillary continues to walk freely among us.

Here are Cohen's parting words as he left his home in Manhattan:

“I hope when I rejoin my family and friends that the country will be in a place without xenophobia, injustice and lies at the helm of our country,” he said. “There still remains much to be told, and I look forward to the day that I can share the truth. And thank you all very much.” (From Talking Points Memo, read it here.)

Update on Wednesday afternoon. Vanity Fair says this is how Cohen spent his final days of freedom:

Just before 10 o’clock on Monday morning, Michael Cohen pushed through the bronze doors of his Park Avenue apartment building, past his besuited doorman, and prepared to read his final statement as a free man. Dozens of cameramen and reporters from television networks and wire services and newspapers shouted questions and snapped photographs as Cohen stepped up to a makeshift podium, looked around warily, and pulled out his cell phone. As of late Sunday evening, he still hadn’t been sure of exactly what he would say.

Cohen, who served for more than a decade as President Donald Trump’s legal muscle and personal fixer, appeared stoic in a plain white button-down and black blazer, jeans, and gray sneakers. He had gone to the salon over the weekend with his son, trailed by photographers and cameramen, and returned with trimmed hair. It looked grayer than when I’d first met him nearly two years ago. He had dropped some weight since then, too. He’d lost a lot of friends and colleagues—the ones who’d cozied up to him when he was Trump’s right hand, and pulled away when he was no longer useful to them—along with his law license, his passport, and much of his income.

The din outside the building died down slightly as Cohen gave a two-sentence farewell. “I hope that when I rejoin my family and friends that the country will be in a place without xenophobia, injustice, and lies at the helm of our country,” he said. “There still remains much to be told, and I look forward to the day that I can share the truth.” Ignoring shouted questions from the press, he pushed through the crowd and into a black Escalade. Cohen drove off alone, in the back seat. His wife and children and the rest of his family, whom he had sought to protect from the press, had waited upstairs at his insistence.

About two hours later, Cohen arrived at the Otisville Federal Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison nestled in the Catskills. There’s a satellite camp there for nonviolent criminals like Cohen, where more than 100 men sleep in open halls with bunks, rather than individual cells. There are laundry machines and tennis courts, lockers and a gym, horseshoes, and other well-known prisoners like Fyre Festival’s Billy McFarland and Jersey Shore’s Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino. It’s the prison where Bernie Madoffhad asked a judge to send him, though he got shipped off to North Carolina instead. The prison caters to its large Jewish population with a rabbi, kosher food, and observance of all the major holidays.

Not long after he got there, as is custom, Cohen would be given matching khaki clothes, a bed roll, two towels, and a washcloth. He’d first be taken to the medium-security prison before he settles into the satellite camp up the hill. Eventually, he will be given a job. He took care before he left New York City to mail himself contact information for friends and family. He gets a limited number of minutes on the phone each day, but he is able to e-mail and use a texting app on the prison computers. He is allowed visitors every other weekend and can have about 10 people come each month, excluding lawyers.

It will be a far cry from the sort of send-off Cohen enjoyed at his Park Avenue residence on Sunday, where well-wishers came and went in the shadow of nearby Trump Tower, just a few floors away from where Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner maintain a New York apartment. It was rainy, and there were paparazzi outside, and a whole mess of friends wanted to come see him for a final time. “He seemed relaxed, in a way,” Donny Deutsch, the former advertising executive and cable-news regular, told me after he stopped by to see Cohen, who is an old friend. “The day he gets there is the most peaceful day he will have in years. The fight is over. There are no lawyers to talk to. No reporters to field. The work is done.” (This is the entire article; see pictures here.)