USA TODAY International Edition
Legal spotlight turns up heat on Trump
As ex-aides face jail, president is under pressure
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump suffered back-to-back legal blows Tuesday after a whiplash series of court dramas that left his former campaign chairman and his former personal fixer facing jail time.
As the president flew to West Virginia for a rally, a federal jury in Virginia found his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, guilty on eight felony charges. Standing in a New York courtroom minutes later, longtime Trump attorney Michael Cohen acknowledged violating campaign finance laws and said he did so at Trump’s direction.
It was not immediately clear if the outcome of either case had legal ramifications for the president, who has repeatedly dismissed both efforts. But the conclusion of the two high-profile sagas involving men close to Trump nevertheless put the White House on defense.
“It’s obviously not a happy day for the president,” said Renato Mariotti, a defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor. “When you direct someone to commit a crime you are responsible for the underlying crime. Period.”
If Trump was concerned about widening impact from the downfall of his former aides, he showed little sign of it Tuesday. After landing in Charleston, West Virginia, for a scheduled political rally, the president said the Manafort verdict didn’t have anything to do with him.
“Paul Manafort is a good man,” Trump said. “It doesn’t involve me, but it’s a very sad thing.”
While Trump continues to criticize the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller as a “witch hunt,” the president’s fate will be determined by how the inquiry proceeds – and that will depend on decisions by Manafort and Cohen. Cohen’s guilty plea on charges of tax evasion, bank fraud, and campaign finance violations did not include a cooperation agreement with prosecutors.
Aside from the potential legal implications, Republican operatives noted the outcome means the White House will be forced to continue to respond to the investigations rather than discussing an agenda or trying to address the headwinds the GOP faces as the November midterm approaches.
“The walls appear to be closing in,” said Matt Mackowiak, a Texas-based Republican political consultant.
“His legal team will argue that (Cohen) was protecting his family and he would have done it in the middle of a campaign or if there was no campaign.”
Cohen’s admission that he made six-figure payments to silence two women ahead of the 2016 election at Trump’s direction thrusts the president into the center of a legal storm.
“This is a real crime,” said Larry Noble, a former Federal Election Commission lawyer who is now senior director of the non-profit Campaign Legal Center. “Since modern campaign-finance laws were passed, no sitting president has been found to be involved personally in a campaign-finance violation.”
It’s unlikely that Trump would face any immediate criminal charges from his Justice Department. Trump’s lawyers, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, have said Mueller already has told them he would abide by a longstanding Department of Justice view that the Constitution bars prosecuting sitting presidents.
But Cohen’s plea deal implicating Trump could be the basis for impeachment should Democrats seize the House majority in November, Noble said.
In addition, “nothing precludes him from being indicted after he leaves the presidency,” said Ilya Somin, a George Mason University law professor.
Manafort was found guilty on five counts of submitting false tax returns, one count of failing to report foreign bank and financial accounts, and two counts of bank fraud.
He faces a maximum of 80 years in prison.
U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III declared a mistrial on the other 10 counts. The judge gave prosecutors a week to decide whether they would seek a retrial on those counts.
During the reading of the verdicts, Manafort faced the jury expressionless as some of the jurors looked directly at him. Manafort’s wife, Kathleen Manafort, sat directly behind him in the gallery, grim-faced.
Manafort’s defense attorney Kevin Downing said: “Mr. Manafort is disappointed at not getting acquittals all the way through or a complete hung jury on all counts. However, he would like to thank Judge Ellis for granting him a fair trial.”