Really Bad Day For Trump: Both Former Campaign Boss Manafort & Former Lawyer Cohen Are Now Both Felons
By Christina Wilkie
CNBC (8/21/18)
It’s difficult to imagine a worse day in the presidency of Donald Trump than Tuesday, when two gripping legal dramas, one involving his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and the other embroiling his longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, collided in a surreal split screen crescendo.
In New York, Cohen pleaded guilty in federal court to eight felony counts of tax fraud, bank fraud and campaign finance violations.
Two hundred miles south, in Alexandria, Virginia, a jury found Manafort guilty of eight unrelated felonies: Five counts of felony tax fraud, one count of failing to report a foreign bank account, and two counts of bank fraud. … Read the Rest and 3+-Minute Video
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Unindicted Co-Conspirator Again In Our White House: A Turning Point In American History
By Juan Cole
Informed Consent (8/22/18)
Historians will mark August 21, 2018, as a turning point in American history.
President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer pleaded guilty to 8 counts of criminal wrongdoing that could carry a sentence of up to 65 years.
Most significantly, he pleaded guilty to having attempted illegally to interfere in an election “in coordination with and at the direction of a federal candidate for office.” … Read the Rest
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Republican Rep. Chris Collins Charged With Insider Trading, Federal Prosecutors Announce
By Kyle Cheney, Jimmy Vielkind & Laura Nahmias
Politico (8/8/18)
Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), the first member of Congress to back President Donald Trump before the 2016 election, was indicted Wednesday by federal prosecutors and charged with fraud in connection to an alleged insider-trading scheme linked to his investments in an Australian biotech firm.
The third-term congressman, who represents a district in western New York, had been under scrutiny from the Office of Congressional Ethics for his connection to the company, Innate Immunotherapeutics. He was the company’s largest shareholder and served on its board.
Prosecutors say that in 2017, Collins passed inside information to his son, Cameron, who passed it to another alleged conspirator, Stephen Zarsky, father of Cameron Collins’ fiancee. … Read the Rest
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Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter And His Wife Indicted For Use Of Campaign Funds For Personal Uses
By Laura Jarrett & Maeve Reston
CNN (8/22/18)
CNN)Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter and his wife, Margaret, routinely — and illegally — used campaign funds to pay personal bills big and small, from luxury vacations to kids’ school lunches and delinquent family dentistry bills, according to a stinging 47-page indictment unsealed Tuesday.
Brutal CNN Rundown Of Trump Administration’s ‘best’ People: ‘They’re the best — at pleading guilty’
By Brad Reed
The Raw Story (8/22/18)
During the 2016 election, President Donald Trump regularly boasted that he only hired “the best people.”
Given that his former campaign chairman and his former longtime attorney are both headed to prison, CNN’s John Avlon decided to do a rundown of all of the most corrupt and inept people whom Trump has hired — and the results looked very bad for the president.
“Remember, this is not a complete list,” Avlon said before digging in. … Read the Rest and 3+-Minute Video
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GOP Operative Sounds Apocalyptic Warning On Midterms: ‘The Republican Party looks like a criminal enterprise’
By Brad Reed
The Raw Story 98/22/18)
The Republican Party is feeling under siege now that two of President Donald Trump’s associates are headed to jail — and his first two congressional supporters have been indicted on corruption charges.
In an interview with Axios, one anonymous GOP operative didn’t sugarcoat how bad this is for his party, and simply said, “the Republican Party looks like a criminal enterprise.” … Read the Rest
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NY Times ‘The Daily’ Podcast: Implicating the President
The Daily / The New York Times (8/22/18)
Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal lawyer, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to campaign finance violations — and said Mr. Trump himself had ordered the crimes. Minutes later, Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, was convicted of financial fraud in the first trial resulting from the special counsel’s investigation. Guest: Joseph Kahn, the managing editor of The New York Times.
(Commoner Call cartoon by Mark L. Taylor, 2018. Open source and free for non-derivative use with link to www.thecommonercall.org )