Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort - 6 Takeaways

6 Takeaways About Paul Manafort And Michael Cohen's Legal Woes https://t.co/Ap4ZsYgTuO

— Vicki McKenna (@VickiMcKenna) August 23, 2018

Mollie Hemingway writes:

Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was found by a jury to be guilty on eight fraud charges yesterday. At roughly the same time, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to five counts of personal income tax evasion, one count of making false statements to a financial institution to get a loan, and two counts related to illegal campaign contributions. Manfort’s case is being handled by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office. Mueller spun off the Cohen case to federal prosecutors with the Southern District of New York.

Hemingway provides six takeaways.

1. Nothing To Do With Russia

2. Fraud Is Bad

3. Infidelity Is Destructive

4. Targeted For Political Connections

5. Campaign Finance Violations Might Implicate Trump, But Might Not

6. A Trap For The Resistance?

She concludes:

Now, maybe the critics are right, and the American people who were promised treasonous collusion with Russia will notice the lack of treasonous collusion with Russia but be moved to impeach by an alleged campaign finance violation or the knowledge that Trump associated with political operatives and lawyers who failed to pay taxes. Maybe they’re right.

But it’s also possible that this is yet another example of overreach from an elite establishment out of touch with the American electorate that put Trump in power and that the previous attempts to unseat President Trump from his rightful election will bear poorly on latter-day attempts. Democrats, Never Trump, and some media voices have been calling for impeachment for months, if not years. The details for impeachment are unimportant since the real crime seems to have been winning the 2016 election.

The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman says political consultants are expecting cries for impeachment will be central before the midterms. At least one Republican consultant says that’s an argument that motivates Republican voters and helps them understand the stakes of the election.

For many in the media, impeachment is — and always has been — a foregone conclusion. Then again, so was the election of Hillary Clinton.

Once again, the phony campaign “violations” explained https://t.co/AYQ3j105os

— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) August 23, 2018