All The President’s Felons

I can’t predict if Donald Trump will be impeached or not. I can’t predict if he’ll go to jail. But I do feel pretty confident in predicting he’s going to do one of two things, if not both. He’s either going to start issuing pardons as if they’re Pez candy and he’s a dispenser, or he’s going to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Yesterday has been described as the worst day of the Donald Trump presidency. And remember, one day he defended Nazis.

Yesterday, a jury in Virginia found former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort guilty on eight counts, five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account. Manafort hid millions of dollars in foreign accounts to evade taxes and lied to banks repeatedly to obtain millions of dollars in loans.

About the same time the Manafort news was breaking, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen pleaded guilty on eight counts, five counts of tax evasion, one count of falsifying submissions to a bank and two counts involving unlawful campaign contributions. But, what really put the White House into panic mode was what he voluntarily confessed.

Cohen claimed in court that Donald Trump directed him to arrange payments to two women during the 2016 campaign to keep them from speaking publicly about affairs they had with Trump.

Cohen told the judge that the payments were made “in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office.” He also said, “I participated in this conduct, which on my part took place in Manhattan, for the principal purpose of influencing the election for president in 2016.” He didn’t mention the candidate by name, but he wasn’t working for Hillary Clinton.

Yesterday, the president of the United States of America became an unindicted co-conspirator.

Trump defended Paul Manafort on his way to a sycophant rally in West Virginia. He said it’s terrible what happened to Paul Manafort and that he’s a good guy who once worked for Reagan. I’m not sure that’s a great argument as there were 26 criminal indictments in the Reagan administration, 16 convictions, and eight prison sentences. Those numbers are for eight years. Trump hasn’t completed his second year yet, and we already have five who have pleaded or have been found guilty.

Trump’s view of Cohen is a bit harsher as he tweeted this morning, “If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!” It is true he’s a horrible lawyer and the proof of that is, he worked for Donald Trump for over a decade. He also called Omarosa a lowlife and a dog, yet he hired her four times, and tried to hire her a fifth to shut her up.

It’s often pointed out and will continue to be, that everyone close to Trump who has turned on him are liars and all-around horrible people. But, it’s not like Trump hires anyone with ethics and principles. Remember, these are not the prosecutors’ people. They’re Trump’s.

Some people believe this is the beginning of the end of the Mueller probe. I disagree and think it’s the end of the beginning. We still have a long road in front of us to remove a fraudulently elected president.

That also means I’m going to have a lot of cartoons to draw.

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