So many synonyms for “bad” were being thrown around by the mainstream media yesterday, you’d think that the “bad” things that happened had something to do with an explosion at a thesaurus factory. For President Donald Trump, one bad thing was that Paul Manafort, who served as Trump’s campaign manager from June to August of 2016, was convicted on eight of 18 counts relating to tax and bank fraud in U.S. District Court. Later, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen plead guilty of eight counts of his own, two of which directly implicated the president in the crimes.
Oddly enough, none of the 16 crimes mentioned anything about Russia.
Manafort was found guilty of filing false tax returns from 2010 through 2014. He also failed to file a required report in 2012 disclosing that he had a foreign bank account. He was also convicted of two counts of bank fraud connected to a 3.4 million dollar loan from Citizen’s Bank and a one million dollar loan from Banc of California.
Ten other charges, seven counts of bank fraud or conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and three counts of failing to file forms to disclose foreign bank accounts left the jury deadlocked. U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis declared a mistrial on the 10 remaining charges.
Manafort’s lead attorney Kevin Downing admitted to being “disappointed” in the trial’s result but thanked the judge “for giving [Manafort] a fair trial.” Manafort’s attorneys have asked for 30 days to file a motion for a new trial or for the judge to toss the verdict. According to Downing, Manafort “is weighing all his options at this point.”
Sentencing guidelines are unclear at this point but it is believed that Manafort may face seven to 10 years in prison, along with unspecified fines. Leftist media are speculating that the president may preemptively pardon Manafort to avoid legal trouble himself.
When asked by reporters about the verdict, President Trump said, “I must tell you that Paul Manafort is a good man. He was with Ronald Reagan. He was with a lot of different people over the years. I feel very sad about that. It doesn’t involve me but I still feel, you know, it’s a very sad thing that happened. This has nothing to do with Russian collusion. This started as Russian collusion. This has absolutely nothing to do … this is a witch hunt and it’s a disgrace. But this has nothing to do with what they started out, looking for Russians involved in our campaign. There were none. I feel very badly for Paul Manafort.”
As the president left the reporters, he offered one final jab at the Mueller Investigation. “We continue the witch hunt. Thank you very much.” Trump then walked off to a waiting car, not addressing shouted questions about Michael Cohen.
Part two of the president’s “worst day ever” involved Cohen, who pled guilty to five counts of tax evasion and one count of making a false statement to a lending institution. Further, he pled guilty to two counts that may implicate President Trump: causing an unlawful corporate contribution and making an excessive campaign contribution in 2016. The last two counts are related to “hush money” allegedly paid by Trump to porn actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal.
Cohen claimed that he was directed to pay money to Daniels and McDougal by an unnamed federal candidate, assumed to be Trump.
On Wednesday morning, President Trump weighed in, tweeting, “Michael Cohen plead guilty to two counts of campaign finance violations that are not a crime. President Obama had a big campaign finance violation and it was easily settled!”
The president was referring to a 2008 incident in which the Obama campaign was fined $375,000 by the Federal Election Commission for missing notices involving 1,300 contributions totaling more than $1.8 million.
Cohen’s attorney, Bill Clinton crony Lanny Davis, said of the president, “There’s no doubt that he’s committed a federal crime.” Later on, Davis told Fox News that his client, Cohen, testified that, at Trump’s direction, he had made the “donations to keep quiet the two women.” Reportedly, $130,000 was paid to Daniels and $150,000 was paid to McDougal.
“Mr. Trump was willing to sign those checks himself. He directed Mr. Cohen to make those hush money payments, [which is] a federal crime,” David alleged. “If Michael Cohen agreed to that, then certainly Donald Trump is guilty of the same crime.”
Maybe, but one wonders if Cohen, who describes himself as a “fixer,” is in any way a credible source of information. His current relationship with Clinton “accomplice” Davis causes one to wonder what his motives are.
Certainly, it was not a good day for President Trump. On the other hand, it’s probably not the apocalypse that the media are currently peddling. As Professor Alan Dershowitz noted on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight, “Every administration violates the election laws when they run for president. Usually, they pay a fine or something like that happens.”
So, if you’re a Trump fan, don’t jump off the bandwagon just yet. The mainstream media is doing what the mainstream media does — namely, creating a blizzard out of a spilled drink with a couple of ice cubes in it. And referencing blizzards reminds me of Siberia, which makes me ask: Where are the Russians in all of this?
Photo: AP Images
