Here comes Donald Trump’s worst week yet
Donald Trump is coming off, by far, the worst week of his time in politics – and probably the worst week of his life. Several of his own top people sold him out to federal prosecutors because they didn’t want to go down for his crimes. There were sixteen guilty verdicts and pleas, multiple immunity deals, and even the revelation that one of the people who flipped on him was keeping all of Trump’s dirtiest secrets in a vault. Here’s the thing: this upcoming week is going to be even worse for him.
I can’t tell you who’s going to be the first to cut a plea deal or an immunity deal this week. Nor can anyone else, for that matter. But we know that things are now in rapid motion. The Paul Manafort guilty verdict opened the door for Robert Mueller to push forward with bolder indictments against bigger fish, some of which are already deeply in progress. We know that he’s very close to indicting Roger Stone, for instance. But most of the time, grand jury proceedings don’t leak out publicly like the Stone circus has, so there could be multiple other major indictments on tap without us even knowing about it. Then there’s the already-started avalanche of deals.
Now that National Enquirer boss David Pecker and Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg have cut immunity deals, everyone in Trump’s orbit who can be incriminated by these two men is now seriously thinking about cutting a deal of their own. Weisselberg knows the dirty financial secrets of everyone in the Trump Organization, from top to bottom. meaning they’re all going to prison unless they flip on Trump too. What’s notable here is that the Pecker and Weisselberg deals were cut before Cohen abruptly pleaded guilty on Monday, but weren’t announced until after the fact. How many more deals have Mueller and his associates at SDNY been sitting on?
The thing about avalanches is that once they get going, they tend to flow downhill with increasing speed and ferocity until everything crashes at the bottom. The avalanche of plea deals, indictments, arrests, and immunity deals against Donald Trump has already begun. Last week was Trump’s worst week yet. By definition, this week will be even worse for him. Thus far Trump has shown that he has no idea how to fend off what’s hitting him.
