Month: December 2018

Kushner’s just helping out a bro

by digby

Kushner is a grotesque monster:

Since the uproar over Mr. Khashoggi’s killing, the Trump administration has acknowledged only one conversation between Mr. Kushner and Prince Mohammed: an Oct. 10 telephone call joined by John R. Bolton, the national security adviser. The Americans “asked for more details and for the Saudi government to be transparent in the investigation process,” the White House said in a statement.

But American officials and a Saudi briefed on their conversations said that Mr. Kushner and Prince Mohammed have continued to chat informally. According to the Saudi, Mr. Kushner has offered the crown prince advice about how to weather the storm, urging him to resolve his conflicts around the region and avoid further embarrassments.

Few of the Saudi promises have amounted to much. The effectiveness of the counterterrorism center in Riyadh remains doubtful. After offering $50 billion in new weapons contracts, the Saudis have signed only letters of interest or intent without any firm deals. After proposing to marshal up to $100 billion in investments in American infrastructure, the Saudis have announced an investment of only $20 billion.

Inside the White House, Mr. Kushner has continued to argue that the president needs to stand by Prince Mohammed because he remains essential to the administration’s broader Middle East strategy, according to people familiar with the deliberations.

Whether Prince Mohammed can fulfill that role, however, remains to be seen. His initial approaches to the Palestinians were rejected by their leaders, and their resistance stiffened after the Trump administration recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital without waiting for a negotiated agreement on the city’s status.

Now the prince’s father, King Salman, 82, who is still the official head of state, has appeared to resist Mr. Kushner’s Middle East peace plans as well.

Maybe Kushner ought to be thinking a little bit more about how he’s going to weather his own storm. He’s right in the middle of this Mueller probe and there’s no DOJ guideline that says he can’t be indicted. If Trump pardons him, as he surely will, he will be tainted for the rest of his life as a criminal nonetheless.

Ivanka’s not safe either and whether or not any of them see the inside of a jail cell, they are done as far as polite society is concerned. Nobody will ever want to be seen with them again. They might want to think about moving to another country.

They could have avoided all of this by just staying in New York and staying out of the limelight while Trump behaved like an international wrecking crew. But they are as arrogant and stupid as he is and thought they were qualified to be at the center of power. Whether they pay a price for that remains to be seen but I have to believe that they are, at the very least, socially ruined, at least among any but far-right cranks.

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The political risks “hard to calculate”
by Tom Sullivan

How is Donald J. Trump sleeping this weekend? There is plenty to keep him awake — eventual indictment — even if his Twitter feed does not show it.

The press smells impeachment in the water and is aflutter with speculation. There is “no ambiguity,” Associated Press reports, in the court filings Friday in the case against Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, that federal prosecutors believe Trump was involved in the actions to which Cohen pleaded guilty.

The next question is whether a sitting president can be indicted. Many column inches will fill with speculation over that question. Citations of precedent will follow along with references to past reports from the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel. All very titillating. All premature.

Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, future Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee (in January), tells the New York Times the question of impeachment is far from settled. Potential charges are collusion with the Russians to interfere with the 2016 election, obstruction of justice, and fraud committed against the American public. Among those is the campaign finance felony for which Cohen faces jail time. And the but?:

If the campaign finance case as laid out by prosecutors is true, Mr. Nadler said, Mr. Trump would be likely to meet the criteria for an impeachable offense, and he said he would instruct his committee to investigate when he takes over in January.

But he added that did not necessarily mean that the committee should vote to impeach Mr. Trump. “Is it serious enough to justify impeachment?” he asked. “That is another question.”

As a White House under siege held a holiday dinner Friday night, the Times continues, Trump advisers reassured the sitting president while he is not at risk legally, “the political risks are hard to calculate.”

Even if a sitting president cannot be prosecuted, the only legal impediment to charging an ex-president, at least on the campaign finance violation, is the five-year statute of limitations. Josh Blackman of South Texas College of Law Houston reminds the AP that Trump made secret payments in 2016 to silence adult-film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal. The statute of limitations on that charge
runs out in 2021.

One of the biggest open questions is not about Mueller, but SDNY. They've concluded the president committed a crime, and they have hard evidence to prove it. What do they do with that? They can't just drop it.— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) December 7, 2018

That raises the question of what Trump, left in office, might do to remain there at least through January 2025. Hanging onto the presidency beyond 2021 might allow him to escape prosecution for the campaign finance charges without the political faux pas of attempting to pardon himself.

Barry Berke, Noah Bookbinder, and Norman Eisen examine in the New York Times what Trump risks:

The special counsel focuses on Mr. Cohen’s contacts with people connected to the White House in 2017 and 2018, possibly further implicating the president and others in his orbit in conspiracy to obstruct justice or to suborn perjury. Mr. Mueller specifically mentions that Mr. Cohen provided invaluable insight into the “preparing and circulating” of his testimony to Congress — and if others, including the president, knew about the false testimony or encouraged it in any way, they would be at substantial legal risk.

Mr. Trump’s legal woes do not end there. The special counsel also advanced the president’s potential exposure under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for activities relating to a potential Trump Tower Moscow. Mr. Mueller noted that the Moscow project was a lucrative business opportunity that actively sought Russian government approval, and that the unnamed Russian told Mr. Cohen that there was “no bigger warranty in any project than the consent” of Mr. Putin.

“Cohen’s conviction alone should be sufficient for putting the fear of a post-presidential indictment into Trump,” Eric Levitz writes at New York magazine:

There is a significant chance that in 2020, Donald Trump will be running for a second-term — and from the law — simultaneously. And if that proves to be the case, the consequences for American political life could be dire.

Trump sowed doubts about the validity of the 2016 election if he lost — when he expected to lose. With Trump not even on the ballot in 2016, he alleged a migrant invasion organized by the Democratic Party might steal the election. His conspiracy mongering inspired a follower to attempt the assassination of prominent Trump critics, Levtiz adds.

What might Trump (or his followers) do in 2020 when his freedom is on the ballot?

For now, the sitting president (I use the phrase to remind myself this too will pass) seems committed to insisting on living in his preferred alternate reality and has adopted a “shrugged shoulders” strategy. The Washington Post reports there is no war room set up in the White House to combat the negative press. His staff takes messaging cues from his tweets:

“A war room? You serious?” one former White House official said when asked about internal preparations. “They’ve never had one, will never have one. They don’t know how to do one.”

For the rest of us, Trump’s incompetence, while cold comfort, is at least some comfort. The country may yet live through this.

Dennis’s Christmas playlist

1. Alan Parsons in a Winter Wonderland – Grandaddy
The stockings are hung with irony in this CA indie band’s rendition.






2. Christmas in Hollis – Run DMC
To my knowledge, the first Xmas rap; a classic! The elf is disturbing.






3. A Christmas Song– Jethro Tull
Ian Anderson decries the commercialization; gets drunk with Santa.






4. Do They Know It’s Christmas? – Band Aid
Oy, the mullets! Still quite moving 30 years on, and for a good cause.






5. I Am Santa Claus – Bob Rivers
Funniest Christmas parody song ever, by the “Twisted Tunes” gang.






6. I Believe in Father Christmas – Greg Lake


Such a beautiful song. Great live version with Ian Anderson on flute.






7. Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth-David Bowie & Bing Crosby
Yes, this really happened. Years before Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga.






8. Santa Claus is Coming to Town – Alice Cooper
Not a stretch, when you consider Santa is an anagram for, you know.





9. 2000 Miles – The Pretenders


A lovely chamber pop rendition, and Chrissie’s vocals are sublime.






10. We Wish You a Merry Christmas– Jacob Miller (w/ Ray I)


An ire, ire, ire Xmas wish from the late great Inner Circle front man.








I love all of the Beatles’ Christmas records, but the one from the White Album period is my fave. The drugs had fully taken hold…






Merry Crimble, and a Happy Goo Year!


— DH

The Ivanka Collusion

by digby

The Mueller memorandum of yesterday regarding the extent of Michael Cohen’s cooperation discusses a second Russian emissary proposing a big deal to the Trump organization in the fall of 2015. Cohen blew him off because he already had the deal going with Felix Sater who was sure they dould “get their boy” elected president and make a bundle in the process.

This story from Buzzfeed last June told us all about that second approach. And it was all about Ivanka:

Amid intense scrutiny of contacts between Donald Trump’s inner circle and representatives of Vladimir Putin, Ivanka Trump’s name has barely come up. But during the campaign, she connected her father’s personal lawyer with a Russian athlete who offered to introduce Donald Trump to Putin to facilitate a 100-story Trump tower in Moscow, according to emails reviewed by BuzzFeed News and four sources with knowledge of the matter.

There is no evidence that Ivanka Trump’s contact with the athlete — the former Olympic weightlifter Dmitry Klokov — was illegal or that it had anything to do with the election. Nor is it clear that Klokov could even have introduced Trump to the Russian president. But congressional investigators have reviewed emails and questioned witnesses about the interaction, according to two of the sources, and so has special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, according to the other two.

The contacts reveal that even as her father was campaigning to become president of the United States, Ivanka Trump connected Michael Cohen with a Russian who offered to arrange a meeting with one of the US’s adversaries — in order to help close a business deal that could have made the Trump family millions.

These interactions also shed new light on Cohen, the president’s former personal lawyer and fixer, who is under criminal investigation and who played a key role in many of Donald Trump’s biggest deals — including the audacious effort to build Europe’s tallest tower in the Russian capital.

In the fall of 2015, that effort was well underway. Cohen negotiated with Felix Sater, one of the president’s longtime business associates, and agreed upon a Russian developer to build the tower. Donald Trump personally signed a nonbinding letter of intent on Oct. 28, 2015, the day of the third Republican debate, to allow a Russian developer to brand the tower with Trump’s name. The agreement stated that the Trump Organization would have the option to brand the hotel’s spa and fitness facilities as “The Spa by Ivanka Trump” and that Ivanka Trump would be granted “sole and absolute discretion” to have the final say on “all interior design elements of the spa or fitness facilities.”

Ivanka Trump was then an executive vice president of development and acquisitions at the Trump Organization. Publicly, she was a sophisticated ambassador for the company, attending ribbon cuttings, posting pictures of deals on her Instagram page, and gracing advertisements for the company’s new properties. But inside the Trump Organization, she had a reputation as a shrewd and tough executive known to get her way.

Got a tip? You can email tips@buzzfeed.com. To learn how to reach us securely, go to tips.buzzfeed.com.
Ivanka Trump, who now works in her father’s administration, did not respond to questions sent to her personal email, chief of staff, and the White House. A spokesperson for her attorney wrote that Ivanka Trump did not know about the Trump Moscow project “until after a nonbinding letter of intent had been signed, never talked to anyone outside the Organization about the proposal, and, even internally, was only minimally involved. Her only role was limited to reminding Mr. Cohen that, should an actual deal come to fruition (which it did not) the project, like any other with the Trump name, conform with the highest design and architectural standards.”

More than five hours after BuzzFeed News published this story, the spokesperson, Peter Mirijanian, wrote that he “inadvertently” left off part of the statement: “Ms. Trump did not know and never spoke to Dmitry Klokov. She received an unsolicited email from his wife (who she also did not know) and passed it on to Michael Cohen who she understood was working on any possible projects in Russia. She did no more than that.”

But interviews suggest that her involvement ran deeper.

In November 2015, Ivanka Trump told Cohen to speak with Klokov, according to the four sources. Cohen had at least one phone conversation with the weightlifter, they said. It is not known what the men discussed over the phone, but they exchanged a string of emails that are now being examined by congressional investigators and federal agents probing Russia’s election meddling.

In one of those emails, Klokov told Cohen that he could arrange a meeting between Donald Trump and Putin to help pave the way for the tower. Later, Cohen sent an email refusing that offer and saying that the Trump Organization already had an agreement in place. He said he was cutting off future communication with Klokov. Copying Ivanka Trump, the Russian responded in a final brusque message, in which he questioned Cohen’s authority to make decisions for the Trump Organization. Frustrated by the exchange, Ivanka Trump questioned Cohen’s refusal to continue communicating with Klokov, according to one of the sources.

BuzzFeed News was shown the emails on the condition we do not quote them.

It’s unclear how Ivanka Trump came into contact with Klokov. The chiseled giant, who is 35 and lives in Moscow, has 340,000 followers on Instagram, where he frequently posts pictures and videos of weightlifting and associated products bearing his name.

He won the silver medal in the 2008 Olympic Games and took gold at the 2005 World Championships, but he has no apparent background in real estate development. Nor is he known to be a close associate of Putin or anyone in the Russian president’s inner circle, and he does not appear to publicly participate in his country’s politics. It’s not even clear he could have made good on his offer to arrange a meeting between Putin and Donald Trump.

Klokov initially told BuzzFeed News that he did not “send any emails” to Cohen. “I don’t understand why you ask me about this,” Klokov said in text messages. “I’m weightlifter, not a political.” When told that he had sent at least two emails to Cohen and had had a phone conversation with him at Ivanka Trump’s request, Klokov stopped responding.

Cohen referred BuzzFeed News to his attorney, Stephen Ryan, who declined to comment.

FBI and congressional investigators, two of the sources said, are still trying to determine the relationship between Ivanka Trump and the Olympian.

Daddy’s girl is in the middle of the conspiracy case against her father.

As far as I know she has not been questioned by Mueller.

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I think this tells the story

by digby

Tom Tomorrow hits the nail on the head as usual:

This is all just so … amazing.

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No, Trump wasn’t trying to protect Melania

by digby

I keep hearing people say that even if he weren’t president Trump might not be able to be indicted because he’s too stupid to understand that he was breaking campaign finance rules. He’s very stupid so perhaps he didn’t realize that the money would be considered an illegal campaign donation.

However, he cannot claim, as John Edwards did in a similar case, that he was just doing it to keep it a secret from his wife because he didn’t want to hurt her. First of all, he undoubtedly doesn’t care about hurting his wife. She knows what she signed on for. And in any case, there’s this tape recording we’ve all heard, which shows that it was all about the campaign:

TRUMP: [In background] Good. Let me know what’s happening, okay? Oh, oh. Maybe because of this it would be better if you didn’t go, you know? Maybe because of this. For that one, you know — I think what you should do is get rid of this. Because it’s so false what they’re saying, it’s such bulls—. Um. [PAUSE] I think, I think this goes away quickly. I think what — I think it’s probably better to do the Charleston thing, just this time. Uh, yeah. In two weeks, it’s fine. I think right now it’s, it’s better. You know? Okay, hun. You take care of yourself. Thanks, [Unintelligible]. Yup, I’m proud of you. So long. Bye.

[Into phone] What’s happening?

COHEN: Great poll, by the way.

TRUMP: Yeah?

COHEN: Seen it. Great poll.

TRUMP: Making progress.

COHEN: Big time.

TRUMP: And, your guy is a good guy. He’s a good —

COHEN: Who, Pastor Scott?

TRUMP: Can’t believe this. No, Pastor Scott. What’s, what’s happening —

COHEN: No —

TRUMP: Can we use him anymore?

COHEN: Oh, yeah, a hundred — no, you’re talking about Mark Burns. He’s, we’ve told him to [UNINTELLIGIBLE].

TRUMP: I don’t need that — Mark Burns, are we using him?

COHEN: No, no.

FEMALE: Richard [UNINTELLIGIBLE]. I’m sorry, Richard [UNINTELLIGIBLE] just called. He — just when you have a chance, he had an idea for you.

TRUMP: Okay, great.

COHEN: Um, so, we got served from the New York Times. I told you this — we were …

TRUMP: To what?

COHEN: … To unseal the divorce papers with Ivana. Um, we’re fighting it. Um, [Trump attorney Marc] Kasowitz is going to —

TRUMP: They should never be able to get that done.

COHEN: Never. Never. Kasowitz doesn’t think they’ll ever be able to. They don’t have a —

TRUMP: Get me a Coke, please!

COHEN: They don’t have a legitimate purpose, so —

TRUMP: And you have a woman that doesn’t want ’em unsealed.

COHEN: Correct.

TRUMP: Who you’ve been handling.

COHEN: Yes. And —

TRUMP: And it’s been going on for a while.

COHEN: About two, three weeks now.

TRUMP: All you’ve got to do is delay for —

COHEN: Even after that, it’s not going to ever be opened. There’s no, there’s no purpose for it. Um, told you about Charleston. Um, I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend, David, you know, so that — I’m going to do that right away. I’ve actually come up and I’ve spoken —

TRUMP: Give it to me and [UNINTELLIGIBLE].

COHEN: And, I’ve spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up with …

TRUMP: So, what do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?

COHEN: … funding. Yes. Um, and it’s all the stuff.

TRUMP: Yeah, I was thinking about that.

COHEN: All the stuff. Because — here, you never know where that company — you never know what he’s —

TRUMP: Maybe he gets hit by a truck.

COHEN: Correct. So, I’m all over that. And, I spoke to Allen about it, when it comes time for the financing, which will be —

TRUMP: Wait a sec, what financing?

COHEN: Well, I’ll have to pay him something.

TRUMP: [UNINTELLIGIBLE] pay with cash …

COHEN: No, no, no, no, no. I got it.

TRUMP: … check.

[Tape cuts off abruptly. Separate recording begins.]

MALE: Hey Don, how are you?

It was clearly related to the campaign. And the fact that he felt the need to use a shell corporation shows that they were trying to keep it a secret. There would be no reason to hide the money trail if it was all about Melania.

No, when the SDNY concluded that Trump directed Cohen to commit a felony they knew they could prove he knew what he was doing. They basically have him as an unindicted co-conspirator in a crime for which the man he told to carry it out is going to do time.

He is only safe from being charged because he is the president and the DOJ has determined that a sitting president can’t be indicted for a crime. (Obviously, he can be impeached for this — they impeached Clinton for far less.)

The statute of limitations on this expires in 2022, by the way.

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The Mueller filings are full of holiday goodies for you to enjoy

by digby

Delusional Dotard

There is so much being written about the Manafort-Cohen documents from yesterday that I’m not sure I can add anything of value. So I thought I’d gather what I’ve found to be the best articles and link to them if you are interested in going down that rabbit hole. Suffice to say that Trump’s idiotic tweet that he’s been totally cleared is incorrect. The fact is that we are seeing more and more that the prosecutors have evidence that Trump violated campaign finance laws (although many commentators are saying he can’t be held responsible for that due to the fact he’s a fucking moron) and that he and his campaign and business were colluding with Russia all over the place from 2015 on —  and that there was both money and political favors involved. In other words, they saw nothing wrong with selling out American policy for their personal gain. Some might even call that treason but I doubt that will ever happen because it’s just so rude.

Anyway, there are a ton of good articles out there worth reading about all this. If you want to spend a little time doing so I’d start with the following links:

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QOTD: Tucker Carlson

by digby

He gave an interview with a Swiss publication and it’s just creepy. He comes down on Trump but it’s because he isn’t efficient enough at enacting fascist policies. This is who he is:

“I mean let me just be clear. I’m not against an aristocratic system. I’m not against a ruling class. I think that hierarchies are natural, people create them in every society. I just think the system that we have now, the meritocracy, which is based really on our education system, on a small number of colleges has produced a ruling class that doesn’t have the self-awareness that you need to be wise. I’m not arguing for populism, actually. I’m arguing against populism. Populism is what you get when your leaders fail. In a democracy, the population says this is terrible and they elect someone like Trump.”

“The EU has been doomed since the first day because it’s inconsistent with human nature. The reason we have nation states is because people wanted them, it’s organic. A nation-state is just a larger tribe and it’s organized along lines that make sense. They evolved over thousands of years. To ignore it and destroy it because you think that you’ve got a better idea, is insane!”

I guess he hasn’t heard about how the “United States of America” came together. Someone should send him a book about it.

Also, Democrats are the party of elites who hate the middle class and he’s now an isolationist since he got his lovely little wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I had always thought he was just a careerist who went with the flow and maybe that’s what it is. But that means “the flow” is sheer, unadulterated, authoritarian, white nationalism (or to put it in simpler terms — fascism) and it’s not attached to Trump, at least in his mind. The whole interview sent a chill down my spine.

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The NRA and Trump in criminal conspiracy too?

by digby

I know this will come as a shock, but it appears that the NRA and the Republicans are crooks:

The National Rifle Association spent $30 million to help elect Donald Trump—more than any other independent conservative group. Most of that sum went toward television advertising, but a political message loses its power if it fails to reach the right audience at the right time. For the complex and consequential task of placing ads in key markets across the nation in 2016, the NRA turned to a media strategy firm called Red Eagle Media.

One element of Red Eagle’s work for the NRA involved purchasing a slate of 52 ad slots on WVEC, the ABC affiliate in Norfolk, Virginia, in late October 2016. The ads targeted adults aged 35 to 64 and aired on local news programs and syndicated shows like Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. In paperwork filed with the Federal Communications Commission, Red Eagle described them as “anti-Hillary” and “pro-Trump.”

The Trump campaign pursued a strikingly similar advertising strategy. Shortly after the Red Eagle purchase, as Election Day loomed, it bought 33 ads on the same station, set to air during the same week. The ads, which the campaign purchased through a firm called American Media & Advocacy Group (AMAG), were aimed at precisely the same demographic as the NRA spots, and often ran during the same shows, bombarding Norfolk viewers with complementary messages.“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a situation where illegal coordination seems more obvious,” says a former chair of the Federal Election Commission.

The two purchases may have looked coincidental; Red Eagle and AMAG appear at first glance to be separate firms. But each is closely connected to a major conservative media-consulting firm called National Media Research, Planning and Placement. In fact, the three outfits are so intertwined that both the NRA’s and the Trump campaign’s ad buys were authorized by the same person: National Media’s chief financial officer, Jon Ferrell.

“This is very strong evidence, if not proof, of illegal coordination,” said Larry Noble, a former general counsel for the Federal Election Commission. “This is the heat of the general election, and the same person is acting as an agent for the NRA and the Trump campaign.”

Reporting by The Trace, which has teamed up with Mother Jones to investigate the NRA’s political activity, shows that the NRA and the Trump campaign employed the same operation—at times, the exact same people—to craft and execute their advertising strategies for the 2016 presidential election. The investigation, which involved a review of more than 1,000 pages of Federal Communications Commission and Federal Election Commission documents, found multiple instances in which National Media, through its affiliates Red Eagle and AMAG, executed ad buys for Trump and the NRA that seemed coordinated to enhance each other.

Individuals working for National Media or its affiliated companies either signed or were named in FCC documents, demonstrating that they had knowledge of both the NRA and the Trump campaign’s advertising plans.

Experts say the arrangement appears to violate campaign finance laws.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a situation where illegal coordination seems more obvious,” said Ann Ravel, a former chair of the Federal Election Commission, who reviewed the records. “It is so blatant that it doesn’t even seem sloppy. Everyone involved probably just thinks there aren’t going to be any consequences.”

They’re probably right, unfortunately.

But this does confirm something I wrote in December of 2016 for Salon which concluded with this:

The NRA went all in for Trump and spent millions on ads bashing Hillary Clinton in places like Columbus, Ohio; Greensboro, North Carolina; and Scranton, Pennsylvania. (I wrote for Salon about the NRA’s first ad this past summer.) According to the Center for Public Integrity, nearly 1 out of 20 TV ads in Pennsylvania was paid for by the NRA, and the group ran nearly 15,000 spots in the crucial swing states that Trump narrowly won, deciding the election.LaPierre has released a new video, taking a victory lap in which he fatuously declares, “Our time is now. This is our historic moment to go on offense.” First on the agenda is demanding that the federal government enforce “concealed-carry reciprocity,” whereby states would have to recognize permits to carry concealed weapons issued by other states, as if they were as benign as driver’s licenses. So much for federalism.

Most election postmortems have concluded that Democrats failed with non-college educated and rural white voters this time because of their economic message rather than guns or other culture-war issues. But perhaps that’s just the other side of the same coin. LaPierre and the NRA have a powerful understanding of what moves this constituency and they’ve been moving it in their direction for many years. The NRA has been selling anti-establishment Trumpism long before Trump came on the scene. It’s Wayne LaPierre’s win as much as Donald Trump’s.

The NRA is broke now, apparently. It’s unclear exactly what’s happened. But then everything that Donald Trump touches eventually turns to ashes eventually,

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The whites of his eyes
by Tom Sullivan

Sentencing memos filed Friday night implicate the sitting president in election law crimes and conspiracy to obstruct justice. They hint at much more to come. Perhaps the most looming overarching question is, were all the president’s men lying to cover up something bigger or is it just second nature?

With Michael Cohen, at least, the latter is the case. The Southern District of New York filing against Cohen calls for “a substantial term of imprisonment.” SDNY knocks down arguments Cohen attempted at making himself appear sympathetic. Cohen’s cooperation, such as it was, “warrants little to no consideration as a mitigating factor.”

The portrait of Cohen that appears in SDNY’s 40-page document is that of a career petty criminal motivated by greed and a desire “increase his power and influence.” When the expected White House position he expected did not materialize, Cohen sought to monetize his relationship with “Individual 1” (Trump) by marketing himself for having special insight in and access to the president. Those proved negligible.

The president’s former personal attorney overstated his assistance to federal prosecutors and only cooperated to save himself, not out of contrition. “Cohen managed to commit a panoply of serious crimes, all while holding himself out as a licensed attorney and upstanding member of the bar,” the memo explains.

“Willful” tax evasion and bank fraud are Cohen’s everyday crimes. Making false statements to Congress, making illegal campaign contributions in the hush money to Trump’s former mistresses and conspiring with the now-president to conceal them carry broader implications than the amount of time Cohen will spend behind bars. SDNY states plainly, “In particular, and as Cohen himself has now admitted, with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual 1.”

More intriguing is the Mueller counterpart to the SDNY memo. Mueller goes easier on Cohen owing to his cooperation with SCO, but adds this regarding Russian attempts to infiltrate the Trump campaign:

For example, in or around November 2015, Cohen received the contact information for, and spoke with, a Russian national who claimed to be a “trusted person” in the Russian Federation who could offer the campaign “political synergy” and “synergy on a government level.” The defendant recalled that this person repeatedly proposed a meeting between Individual 1 and the President of Russia. The person told Cohen that such a meeting could have a “phenomenal” impact “not only in political but in a business dimension as well,” referring to the Moscow Project, because there is “no bigger warranty in any project than consent of [the President of Russia].” Cohen, however, did not follow up on this invitation.

Cohen thought another person in Trump’s orbit with better Russian connections was handling that.

The Russians’ interest in Trump is another matter. Trump’s interest in Russia was erecting a Trump tower in Moscow. He had conferred with Cohen about setting up a meeting with the Russians in September 2015 or earlier. Trump has repeatedly denied having Russian business connections.

Mueller adds, “Cohen described the circumstances of preparing and circulating his response to the congressional inquiries, while continuing to accept responsibility for the false statements contained within it.” Mueller by now knows with whom Cohen coordinated making false statements to Congress. Cohen had help. The helpers likely engaged in a conspiracy to lie to Congress and obstruct justice.

Mueller also filed a sentencing memo in the case against Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chair. Another document was filed under seal. Manafort engaged in decade-long series of financial crimes, but details there are murkier. Aaron Blake adds at the Washington Post:

Friday’s filing in that case doesn’t shed much light on what Mueller knows, but it is noteworthy how much of Manafort’s allegedly lying pertain to his business colleague in Ukraine, Konstantin Kilimnik, whom the U.S. government has said has ties to Russian intelligence.

Mueller’s team says Manafort lied about a meeting with Kilimnik and also about Kilimnik’s role in “a criminal conspiracy” to get two witnesses against Manafort to alter their testimony.

Much of the document is redacted, but the sheer volume of Kilimnik in it leads to an obvious question: Why was Manafort trying to protect him? And could this link somehow play in the broader collusion probe? Was Manafort really worried about a foreign national being in trouble, or was he worried about Mueller connecting some dots that he didn’t want connected?

The documents added no new details on the June 9, 2016 meeting in Trump Tower between Trump campaign officials, family members, and Russian emissaries.

Former New York Times investigative reporter Kurt Eichenwald focuses on the financial crimes elements revealed in the memos: Cohen’s payments to Trump’s women (P1) and, in particular, Trump’s repayments to Cohen (P2) and how they were configured. Those payments invoiced to the Trump Organization as fees for services, Eichenwald suggests, implicate Trump (if he knew about them) and his company in “conspiracy, money laundering, fraud AND campaign finance violations.”

15…the IT payment is the drop dead element. Given the supposed IT work was done for trump CAMPAIGN, paid for by the Trump ORGANIZATION, it shows that his company was issuing checks to cover campaign expenditures. This establishes the intent to commit the crime – that is, to….— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 8, 2018

16…use the Trump Organization as a slush fund for cash to the campaign. Think of it as being like the slush fund of Nixon in Watergate. Nixon WH shook down corporations for $ which was then under the control of campaign and white house officials. It was used to finance….— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 8, 2018

Trump, who long feared close examination of his business dealings and has refused to release his taxes, now finds the Trump Organization (the name now seems loaded) under a microscope. His office will not shield it from prosecution, should that come.

For a whole lot of nothing, the president and his cronies have expended a lot of effort and risked substantial legal exposure to hide it, not to mention innumerable “NO COLLUSION” tweets. The full extent of this iceberg has yet to be publicly measured.

Trump’s own Department of Justice believes he participated in conspiracy and obstruction of justice. The news will badger incoming House Democrats to take a stand on whether to impeach Trump based on these DOJ findings. There are, however, more shoes to drop in the Mueller probe.

Whatever darker secrets lie behind the pedestrian crimes remain hidden for now. Pulling the trigger on impeachment before they see the whites of his eyes may risk missing their mark. Republicans in the Senate need irresistible public pressure and/or pangs of vestigial conscience to do the duty they seem for now able to ignore.

Let’s hope the country lasts that long.