Last Chance
Yesterday Michael Cohen, former personal attorney to Donald Trump, pled guilty to eight charges in federal court. He is facing several years in prison. Six of the counts involved his personal actions: failing to pay income taxes and giving false information to attain loans from banks. But the last two counts are the ones that involve more than just him.
Cohen admitted to making two counts of illegal campaign contributions, one for making an illegal corporate contribution, and one for exceeding the personal contribution limits. In the elocution phase of the plea, when Cohen admitted to the crimes and outlined his actions, he stated that he was told to make payments to silence two women, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, by then candidate Donald J. Trump.
In open court, the President was accused of committing a felony. He was accused of influencing the 2016 election by paying hush money. He was accused of overseeing elaborate financial arrangements to hide the transactions. And we know that much of this is true, as Cohen taped his conversations with him.
Had these two “affairs” come to light, they may well have altered the outcome of an election that hinged on 77,744 votes (out of over 120 million.)
No, this isn’t the “Russia” investigation. This isn’t even the Mueller team, it’s just the regular US attorneys from the Southern District of New York. This isn’t some fancy, spy-laden story of “collusion” or conspiracy. That’s all still to come. This is just straight-up corruption: paying people to keep quiet about unacceptable behavior, and using campaign funds to do it.
The Republican Party is faced with another inflection point, another choice to be made. The first chance was when it became clear that Trump’s candidacy was real, and effective. Republicans could have coalesced around another candidate, making a true one-on-one competition where Trump’s 40% of the vote wasn’t dominant. They didn’t do it, allowing the vote to remain split until far too late in the process.
The second chance was between the end of the primaries and the Republican convention. The party leaders could have chosen to back a traditional candidate, perhaps Ohio Governor John Kasich, and risk a split convention and Trump as an independent. It probably would have cost the general election, a three-way race, and the outcome would have been a Clinton win. But it would have kept the core values of the party intact.
The third chance was October 6th 2016, the day the “Access Hollywood Tape” broke. Trump used vulgar and profane terms, and more importantly, made it clear he treated women as objects for his own sexual gratification. The party clearly thought about it; about removing Trump from the ticket and replacing him with Pence or someone else. Again, it probably would have thrown the election to Clinton. But at that point the leadership of the GOP chose to accept Trump’s behavior. They did not turn away from him; they actually watched the polls, and decided to stay “on board.” And soon the carefully worded statements about “having wives and daughters” didn’t matter, the party rallied behind Trump, and, through “hook or Russian crook,” he became President of the United States.
We can argue about the Affordable Care Act, or the Tax Cut Cut, or the Supreme Court nominees. We can talk about the deregulation of environmental protections, and national conservation. We can discuss immigration policy.
But what cannot be argued anymore is that the President of the United States is an immoral man, who will do anything to get what he wants. He degrades women, and minorities, and has shown his admiration for authoritarians. Expect him to continue to use the powers of his office to try to silence critics and investigators.
What comes next? We can anticipate that the Mueller investigation will have more indictments for those close to the President. We can expect that, while Mueller won’t indict the President himself, he will make it clear that he was involved, just a Cohen made it clear yesterday. We can expect the President to fight back, with more firings, pardons, removal of security clearances, and suppression of the investigations.
The Republican Party has not just stood silent; they have actively defended and supported the President. The Republican House of Representatives has served as the strongest bastion of Presidential support. The Senate Republicans, with a few retiring exceptions, have at best remained silent.
The last chance to save their party is approaching. They have made the choice to stand with Trump and “Make America Great Again,” time and time again. They have placed an immoral man in the Presidency, one who has no concept of American history or tradition, one who may well be using the Presidency for his own financial gain, and one who illegally conspired to achieve office. History will judge what they did, and what they do now: Last Chance.
