President Donald Trump‘s former campaign manager and personal lawyer both were declared guilty today of crimes including tax fraud, bank fraud, campaign finance cheating, and other illegal financial shenanigans.
Paul Manafort (above right), who once was the head man in Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, was convicted by a jury on five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud, and one count of hiding foreign bank accounts. Mistrials were declared on 10 other counts, but Manafort still faces up to 80 years in prison on the eight counts he was convicted of.
Michael Cohen didn’t wait for a trial, instead pleading guilty to eight counts of his own: five for tax evasion, two for campaign finance violations, and one for making a false statement to a bank. He faces 46 to 63 months in prison, according to his plea deal.
The campaign finance violations are particularly notable: Cohen admitted that he had made hush money payments to Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, both of whom said they had sexual affairs with Donald Trump. Those payments, oddly but damningly, qualify as illegal campaign contributions to Trump.
Taking it a step further, Cohen admitted that he had acted “in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office” — Trump himself.
Only in the extraordinary world of the Donald Trump presidency, and the extraordinarily debased Congress led by Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, do convictions and guilty pleas like these not lead to the immediate resignation or impeachment of the chief executive.