Manafort, Cohen, and the Prevaricator of the United States

Manafort

Paul Manafort was Trump’s campaign chief. Bad enough that he worked for foreign villains like Yanukovych, whom even Ukraine couldn’t stomach (which is saying something). But Manafort compounded his crime by ducking income tax on his ill-gotten lucre. He’s been convicted on eight counts of tax evasion and bank fraud. One of the many caught by Mueller’s witch hunt. Manafort faces years in prison and a further trial for failure to register as a foreign agent and so forth.

Manafort even literally wears clothing made from snakes. Yet this reptile Trump still insists is a fine human being. And that his prosecution was “unfair,” a favorite Trump word (applicable only to him, or his lackeys). A jury convicted Manafort of eight serious crimes. Where was the “unfairness?” As WAMC radio’s Alan Chartock incessantly warned, a single Trumpy juror could have stonewalled to get Manafort off the hook. But not one did. The verdict was unanimous.

Calling the whole thing unfair is an insult to the public servants who properly did their jobs in bringing a criminal to justice, and to the citizen jurors who conscientiously fulfilled their civic responsibility. Of course, civic responsibility is a concept wholly alien to Trump.

Capone

He tweeted comparing Manafort’s treatment with Al Capone’s (misspelling his name). Capone, after a long crime extravaganza full of murders, was finally imprisoned for tax evasion. Just like Manafort. Interesting comparison, O Great Genius.

Then Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer and “fixer” pled guilty to a bunch of felony campaign finance violations, in arranging hush money for sluts with whom Trump committed adultery.*

Cohen

Cohen’s testimony that Trump directed these payments makes Trump’s previous denials his 2,768th outright lie. (Trump also still laughably denies the affairs.) More important, Cohen’s evidence implicates Trump in serious actual crimes.

Trump, despite (of course) calling Cohen a liar, apparently no longer denies his role in the payments. His new lie is that they weren’t a crime anyway — because the money came from his pocket, not his campaign.

He said this on his favorite TV show, Fox & Fiends. Why did none of the little foxes there challenge his statement? And say, “Excuse me, Lord and Master, but I’m afraid you’re mistaken. That actually makes it a worse crime.”

Because even were it arguable whether campaign funds can be used for hush money, if the money (indisputably benefiting the campaign) circumvented the whole system of campaign finance regulation and reporting, that’s incontestably a clear and bigger no-no.

Lawyer Cohen himself seemed pretty clear on the doings being criminal, and indeed unarguably so. Why else plead guilty to charges that will send him up for years?

Hey, Christians still stuck in Trumpland’s alternate reality — as an atheist I don’t have your morality. I rape and murder whenever I want.

* “Slut” is not a nice word, but fits any female who’d do it with such a creep.

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