Steve Bannon, who chaired the Trump presidential campaign in its final, tumultuous months, used to refer to the crew of staff, advisers, aides, and hangers-on as the “island of misfit toys.” Karl Rove, no stranger to successful White House campaigns, once better described them to me as “walking disasters.”
Two of those walking disasters, the world learned Tuesday, will soon be heading off to prison. One is Paul Manafort, who preceded Bannon as chairman of Donald Trump’s campaign and helped “professionalize” the operation. A longtime GOP operative, Manafort had mostly left domestic politics for the more lucrative business of advising foreign political campaigns. It was this career shift that led Manafort down the road that ends with a possible maximum prison sentence of 80 years. That’s the news out of the federal court in Virginia, where a jury found Manafort guilty of eight counts of bank or tax fraud. He will also face different charges brought by the office of the special counsel in another upcoming trial in the District of Columbia.
Manafort’s conviction may be the biggest fish Robert Mueller has landed so far, although the charges that Manafort hid or failed to disclose millions of dollars in income from his work overseas does not directly implicate the Trump campaign regarding involvement with the Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Manafort’s business partner and deputy on the campaign, Rick Gates, was initially indicted alongside Manafort but has since been cooperating with Mueller’s office.
The other of Trump’s associates heading to the clink is Michael Cohen, the president’s longtime lawyer, close adviser, and “fixer” who Tuesday pleaded guilty to eight criminal counts in federal court and agreed to some jail time. Those counts, which were not brought by Mueller but instead by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, involved private financial transactions Cohen conducted. One of those transactions involved a $130,000 payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had an affair with Trump, delivered just weeks before the 2016 presidential election.
According to Cohen’s plea deal, he admits to hiding from the public information damaging to a campaign and candidate “in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office”—an obvious reference to Trump and one that indicates the president was involved himself in silencing Daniels. This contradicts statements from the president, who has thus far denied he knew about or was involved with the payment — and has not yet admitted to having the affair with Daniels.
In a brief statement Tuesday evening, Trump said Paul Manafort was a “good man.” He has also always claimed he hires the “best people” to work for him. However the Mueller probe and the other Trump-related legal investigations end, Tuesday’s developments underscore the poor personnel choices the president has made—including elevating George Papadopoulos (who pleaded guilty last year to lying to the FBI) to his national security team on the campaign and appointing Michael Flynn (who also plead guilty to lying to the FBI) as his national security adviser in the White House.
Far from “good men” and “the best people,” Trump seems to have a penchant for surrounding himself with problematic aides and advisers who are willing to lie and cheat on his behalf. What does it say about the president, who keeps calling the investigations a “witch hunt,” that he keeps finding himself in the company of witches?
