...On Tuesday afternoon, Manafort was found guilty on eight felony counts of tax evasion and bank fraud in the Eastern District of Virginia. The judge declared a mistrial on the remaining 10 counts after the jury deadlocked. Shortly thereafter, in the Southern District of New York, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight felonies of his own: five counts of tax evasion, one count of bank fraud, and two counts of campaign finance violations involving hush-money payments to the actress Stormy Daniels (whose real name is Stephanie Clifford) and to Karen McDougal.
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We didn’t need a raft of criminal convictions to answer this question. The consistent incompetence of Trump’s inner circle is all the answer one needs. That said, the starting place in this conversation must be the degree to which close associates of the president of the United States keep turning out to be felons. Yes, only one portion of Cohen’s criminal conduct and none of the charges on which Manafort was convicted connect directly to President Trump. But the parade of greed and the continuous criminal conduct on the part of two people closely associated with Trump and his campaign sheds disturbing light on who the president regards as appropriate top aides and associates. That Trump himself continues to express sympathy with Manafort, not outrage at his conduct, further undermines confidence in his judgment of character.Here are seven questions and some related observations pointed up by Tuesday’s events.
Does Donald Trump choose the “best people”?
Presidential judgment matters. In a week dominated by headlines about the president’s real and threatened revocation of security clearances of current and former officials who have criticized him, take a moment to consider the individuals the president has favored with trust and confidence, as well as those to whom he has denied it...
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How big a deal is the Cohen plea agreement?
Very big.
The president’s former lawyer has not only confessed to criminal campaign finance violations, but he has also said under oath that he was doing so at the direction of the president himself. It’s hard to say yet what precisely this means. But it is not a small thing...