Yesterday, Paul Manafort was convicted of eight counts of bank fraud and tax evasion in an 18-count indictment in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. The same day, former Trump lawyer, Michael Cohen entered a negotiated guilty plea in New York. These are being heralded by the media as great victories for special prosecutor Robert Mueller and a serious blow to the President. Cohen is reportedly prepared to testify that Trump directed him to pay hush money to a woman or women during the election. Manafort, whose conviction is unrelated to any association with Trump, is now in a position where he must consider cooperating with Mueller.
The left-wing media is in ecstasy even bashing Fox News for supposedly ignoring the two developments in favor of reporting the alleged murder of a young woman by an illegal alien (kind of like they did in ignoring all of candidate Hillary Clinton's legal problems during the election).
One of my blog kibitzers, who went by the name, "The president is a crook", took me to task for saying recently that Mueller's investigation had no legitimacy. Fair enough. Below is what I responded to TPIAC:
"I would remind you that Mueller's mission was to determine if Trump and/or his team colluded with the Russians to influence the election. If Cohen or Manafort have information that was the case then yesterday was a bad day for Trump.
The first time I saw Cohen on TV, I was very put off by his in your face style. If he in fact tape recorded Trump, his own client, he is indeed a scumbag. The legitimate question is then why did Trump associate himself with such a scumbag? That's not evidence, however.
If Trump had Cohen pay off women not to reveal his affairs and the reason was not to damage his election chances, there's probably an election law there somewhere that was broken. However, I will still judge Mueller on whether he proves that Trump colluded with the Russians. The conviction against Manafort only pertains to Trump if Manafort flips and testifies about Trump-Russian collusion. Trump had nothing to do with whatever they convicted Manafort of yesterday."
I think that's a pretty fair and responsible position. More responsible than the talking heads at CNN and MSNBC.
That's fair.
ReplyDeleteBut I think that at this time, we can't honestly dismiss Mueller and the accusations against Trump.
The very best thing that we can say is that he has surrounded himself with lawbreakers, which should be troubling enough.
I would say that Trump has put some very good people in the administration like Pence, Kelly, Mattis-and also has some bad associations like Cohen, Lewandowski, Scaramucci and others. Whatever Manafort did was before he even knew Trump.
ReplyDeleteLook, Trump has a lot of flaws. I support his agenda. If Mueller ever proves that Trump and/or his campaign actually colluded with the Russians, I will stop supporting him. If that were the case, he should be impeached and prosecuted. But that has yet to be proven after a year and a half of the Mueller investigation. I am not interested in Manafort's crimes or Stormy Daniels and all that. Show me that Trump colluded with the Russians. That is the central question.