Tuesday Afternoon is Never Ending

Wednesday Papers:  Well, right about now Trump is probably wishing that those Wednesday morning papers are never coming, but we are in a continuous news cycle world and they’ve come.  Unless you were under a rock, on an internet-free August vacation or attending Trump’s West Virginia rally you know by now that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was convicted on eight counts including five related to tax fraud, two related to bank fraud and one for failing to report a foreign account.  Manafort’s jury came in at just about the same time that former lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen agreed to plead guilty to eight counts of his own including five related to tax evasion, one to bank fraud and two to campaign violations.  Though Manafort’s Virginia jury remained hung on his other ten charges, partially because the charges were complicated and partially because of some of presiding Judge Ellis’s questionable comments, they found him guilty of all three of the types of charges they were asked to consider.  As a result Judge Ellis will be permitted to consider all eighteen charges when he decides on Manafort’s sentence. Suffice it to say, unless Manafort decides to start cooperating with Special Counsel Mueller or Trump goes into pardon mode, something that is an all too distinct possibility, he’ll be spending much, if not all, of the rest of his life in jail except for the time he spends in court during his upcoming Washington DC trial where he’ll face additional charges for money laundering and failing to register as a lobbyist.    As to Cohen, apparently his deal came together unusually quickly over the past week, leading some to surmise that in an effort to deal a one two punch to Trump and all of his Congressional cronies Deputy Assistant Rod Rosenstein had orchestrated its timing to coincide with the results of Manafort’s trial.  Coincidence or not, the simultaneous announcement did deliver a heavy blow, especially when you consider that Cohen admitted committing those two campaign violations, the ones involving the payments to Trump’s one time playmate/girlfriend Karen McDougal and now not so favorite porn star Stormy Daniels after being directed by Trump to arrange those payments to keep the women from speaking publicly about their affairs in the run up to the 2016 election.  To be clear, Cohen implicated Trump, who was referred to in the plea agreement only as a “candidate for political office,” in a federal crime. And that’s not the end of it, Cohen’s spokes lawyer Lanny Davis insists that Cohen has more to tell Mueller, to the extent that the special counsel wants to listen and though the terms of a cooperation agreement have not yet been worked out, it’s likely that one will be since Cohen, who doesn’t expect one of those Trump pardons, would rather not spend the next five years in jail.  Trump, who Vanity Fair reports was positively “rip-sh-t” over the weekend at just the anticipation of the Manafort verdict and the possibility of Cohen reaching a plea agreement, must be totally unhinged, to borrow an expression from his other problem child Omarosa Manigault, right about now.  That said his initial reaction was somewhat muted, as he left for his West Virginia rally he expressed sadness about Manafort, telling reporters “Paul Manafort is a good man. ... It doesn't involve me but it's a very sad thing. ... It had nothing to do with Russian collusion," but ignored any mention of Cohen.  Later his spokes pit bull, Rudy Giuliani said "no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President in the government's charges against Mr. Cohen" adding "It is clear that, as the prosecutor noted, Mr. Cohen's actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time." Republican Senator Lindsay Graham echoed that sentiment.  The only problem with that thought is that it's totally wrong, Trump is implicated bigly in that campaign payoff thing.  Upon arriving in West Virginia, Trump largely ignored Manafort and Cohen and instead riled the crowds by saying that he preferred fake news to censored social media, a reference to the recent banning of hate conspiracist Alex Jones, the InfoWars guy who pushed the Pizza Gate pedophile nonsense and who claims that no children were murdered at Sandy Hook elementary school,  from several social media sites.  His clueless audience, who either missed the afternoon news or didn’t care, responded with chants of lock her up, and of course by her they meant Hillary Clinton.  As to Hillary, last night Fox pundit, Trump acolyte Sean Hannity began his show by going off on a tirade attacking the justice system for going after Trump and his team while leaving Clinton free to roam the Westchester forests, whining that “equal justice under the law is dead.”  To sum up, two new Trump felons on one just one endless Tuesday afternoon, not bad for an investigation that Trump still calls a witch hunt.  As the NY Times said in this morning’s editorial, the one titled All the President’s Crooks, “for a witch hunt, Mr. Mueller’s investigation has already bagged a remarkable number of witches. Only the best witches, you might say.”  

House Update:  Tuesday really was never ending, late in the day, while most were focused on Manafort and Cohen, Federal prosecutors in San Diego indicted Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter and his wife for routinely and illegally using $250,000 in campaign funds to pay for trips to Italy and Hawaii, dental work, international travel for a dozen of their relatives, fast food, movie tickets, golf video games, coffee and household appliances.   Basically, they used their campaign funds for daily living, albeit relatively luxurious daily living. To cover up their illegal spending they labeled their expenses as “campaign travel,” or “dinner with volunteers/contributors.” Sometimes their “alleged grift” was more specific, they “mislabeled their personal dental expenses as donations to Smiles for Life.” They classified their family outing to see Riverdance at the San Diego Civic Theater as “San Diego Civic Theater for Republican Women Federated/Fundraising.” Hunter, an early Trump fan, was the second Congressman to endorse him.  His first congressional endorser, New York Republican Chris Collins, is under indictment for insider trading.  Though not a member of Congress, Trump’s economic advisor Larry Kudlow received some unwanted attention last night too and this time the criticism wasn’t about his flip-flopping on tariffs, rather it was about one of the guests at his recent birthday party.  One day after a White House speech writer was fired for speaking alongside a white supremacist publisher at a conference, that white supremacist, a charmer named  Peter Brimelow, attended Kudlow’s party.  Apparently he’s a long time Connecticut buddy of Kudlow.  Kudlow’s explanation is that though he’s known Brimelow forever, he didn’t know that his good friend was a racist, because if he had “we would never have invited him.”  Only the best, Trump’s team is made up of only the best!

It’s time to see how they run!!