Free Republic

President Trump reportedly was somber following his former attorney Michael Cohen’s guilty plea on Tuesday and “appeared to realize” the seriousness of the situation, according to a New York Times report. “We started with collusion,” the president said, per the Times, citing several witnesses. “How did we end up here?” Witnesses described to the Times a “grim” mood inside the White House after Cohen pleaded guilty to charges of bank fraud, tax fraud and campaign finance violations and after Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted of eight charges of bank and tax fraud. According to the Times, Trump's...

The actual Cohen plea deal listing the eight counts.

@realDonaldTrump Michael Cohen plead guilty to two counts of campaign finance violations that are not a crime. President Obama had a big campaign finance violation and it was easily settled! 6:37 AM - 22 Aug 2018

The media is in a frenzy louder than feeding time at the zoo over the guilty pleas by Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign manager, and Michael Cohen, Trump's (former) personal lawyer. Manafort's plea was unrelated to Trump. Cohen pleaded to tax evasion (also unrelated to Trump), but also two counts of working with Trump to violate campaign finance laws. ---SNIP--- But more importantly, this was not a campaign expenditure at all. Constitutional scholar Mark Levin has interviewed former Federal Election Commission Chairman Bradley Smith repeatedly on his show over the past year, and Smith has made the point that...