Last week, there was much speculation among politics-watchers over whether Michael Cohen was possibly on the brink of flipping on Donald Trump. This would be big news, of course, since Cohen himself regularly described himself as "Trump's fixer," meaning he probably knows where a whole lot of metaphorical bodies were buried from the Trump organization's various antics and shenanigans over the past decade or so. One week later, I can't help but wonder if that point has already passed. Perhaps the question now isn't whether Cohen will flip sometime soon -- but whether he already has.

I admit this is nothing short of sheer speculation on my point. I have no inside sources. I have not talked to Cohen or his legal team. I know nothing more than anyone else watching this drama play out on television. But after watching Rudy Giuliani on this week's Sunday political chatfests, it seems rather obvious to wonder whether Cohen has already flipped and is now singing like a little birdie to the prosecutors.

Let's start with the timeline. Cohen began by professing solidarity with Trump and personal loyalty to the president, to the point where he would gladly "take a bullet" for Trump rather than flip. These days, however, he is feeling much less inclined towards being Trump's personal cannon fodder. In the interview last week which set off all the speculation, Cohen pointedly said, when asked about his loyalty to Trump: "My wife, my daughter and my son have my first loyalty, and always will. I put my family first." He also spoke of putting "country" before Trump as well, which can't be a good sign for Trump's legal team.

At the same time last week, it was revealed that Cohen had switched legal teams, to one with much more experience dealing with the New York federal attorney who is investigating -- and will be prosecuting -- the case against Cohen (Special Counsel Bob Mueller handed this entire case off, and is not technically part of it anymore). Cohen also pointedly closed down a "joint defense" agreement with Trump's legal team, which allowed the sharing of information and legal defense strategy between the two men's legal teams. This is exactly what you would expect, if Cohen were about to flip, as many pointed out at the time.

Which brings us to Rudy Giuliani's rather bizarre interview this week on ABC's Sunday morning show. George Stephanopoulos sat across from Giuliani, and began by talking about Cohen. When asked what Trump's reaction to Cohen's recent interview was, Giuliani showed no concern whatsoever. This led to Giuliani giving Cohen some rather astonishing legal advice:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's start right there. What was the president's reaction to that interview from Michael Cohen?

RUDY GIULIANI: Same as mine, which is fine. I mean, Michael Cohen should -- should cooperate with the government. We have -- we have no reason to believe he did anything wrong. The president did nothing wrong with him, so we've gone through every document we can. We see no evidence of it. The fact that Mueller gave....

STEPHANOPOULOS: All 1.3 million documents?

GIULIANI: 1.4 that we produced. Also, Mueller himself has indicated that there's nothing here because he would have given it away. And he hasn't taken it back. And every indication we have is the president is not involved in that. Now, I'm hoping that Michael is able to clear himself because I think what was done to him was really unfair and I know he's being sensible and calm and trying to say the prosecutors did nothing wrong. But invading a lawyer's office? I don't know, George. That doesn't seem right to me.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well he -- he said it wasn't invasion. He had no problem, as you saw, with how that....

GIULIANI: Well, I think -- if you were in his position, I think I'd advise you to say that too.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you have no concerns at all about anything that Michael Cohen might tell the prosecutors?

GIULIANI: Zero. None. As long as he tells the truth, we're -- we're -- we're home free.

Rudy reiterated this point a little later in the interview, again stating: "We want Michael to handle this in a way that's most helpful to him. Michael's not going to lie, he's going to tell the truth. Long as he does that, we have nothing to fear."

This is either an unbelievable amount of legal confidence, or sheer legal malpractice. After all, Trump knows exactly what Cohen knows about what he was asked to do for Trump over the years. After all, Trump himself asked him to do all that stuff. So either Trump is supremely confident that there isn't even a hint of anything illegal in those 1.4 million documents, or something else is going on here.

If Trump does know about dirty secrets that might be uncovered, why would he send his new legal eagle out to the Sunday talk shows to almost urge Cohen to flip? Any lawyer who knew his client would be in jeopardy from such a move would flat-out refuse to publicly suggest such a thing, after all. This is where the possibility of malpractice comes into play, however this does seem pretty far-fetched. This wasn't some momentary lapse of reason or a slip of the tongue -- Rudy appeared on multiple shows this weekend and gave the same advice, almost word-for-word, as he did in the Stephanopoulos interview: Trump doesn't care if Cohen flips, because Trump did nothing wrong, therefore if Cohen "tells the truth" then there is simply nothing to be worried about. [This led, today, to Cohen's new lawyer tweeting some snark in Rudy's direction, calling any sentence with "Giuliani" and "the truth" in it an oxymoron.]

There's one other possibility to consider before I re-pose my headline's question. Is Trump just downright delusional about what is and is not illegal? Does he not remember what is actually contained within those 1.4 million documents? Is he so certain of this delusion that he's now convinced Rudy Giuliani that there is nothing whatsoever to fear from Cohen flipping on him? That's really the only other possible explanation.

Except, of course, for the most obvious one. Has Cohen already flipped on Trump? He's certainly done all the groundwork and sent signals that he was on the brink of flipping. He fired his legal team and hired a new one, he backed out of that joint defense agreement with Trump's legal team, and he publicly complained that Trump wasn't footing his entire legal bill (as, assumably, Trump had promised he'd do at some point). Then he baldly stated that his days of taking a bullet for Trump were over, and his family and his country would now come first.

What leads me directly to this speculation is how these things normally happen. The public learns about a target of an investigation flipping not when it happens, but rather weeks or sometimes months later. An indictment will be filed against the target (which puts everything in the public record), but it will be accompanied by a plea deal for the judge's consideration. This plea deal usually begins with: "The subject has been cooperating with prosecutors for the past two months...." You don't get an actual plea deal until after you've spilled your guts, in other words. You've got to prove you've got the goods on someone else before you get the sweet legal deal.

This really makes the most sense, when considered with Giuliani's recent round of interviews. Either Giuliani knows that Cohen has already flipped, or he and Trump are convinced that if it hasn't actually happened, it could any day now. If this is a done deal, then Trump can only project confidence by appearing not to care one whit about what Cohen might say. Which was Rudy's message yesterday, in a nutshell.

If Cohen has already flipped, then it is useless to protest or warn against it any more. Better to go with the flow and profess complete indifference, since a lot of this is being fought not in a courtroom (at least, not until Paul Manafort's trials begin) but in the court of public opinion. By expressing confidence that -- if Cohen sticks to "the truth" -- there is nothing whatsoever to fear, Trump's team leaves open the possibility to later claim that anything bad Cohen comes up with is a lie, plain and simple. That is a legal strategy that makes sense, rather than being a reason for a malpractice complaint.

We won't have the answer to the question of whether Michael Cohen has already flipped on Donald Trump until an indictment is filed against Cohen (probably for the money laundering charge, which would be the easiest to prove with a paper trail). If this indictment is filed together with a plea deal, then we'll find out exactly when Cohen did flip. And, should this come to pass, it wouldn't surprise me one bit to later learn that Cohen didn't just think about flipping last week, but that that was when he began his imitation of a singing canary. This really makes the most sense, after seeing Giuliani all but dare Cohen to flip on this week's Sunday shows.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant