Donald Trump isn’t going to survive this one
The irony of Donald Trump’s Russia scandal was that it was such a uniquely egregious crime, so overwhelmingly complicated, and so unprecedented in United States history, it’s been difficult for a lot of people to wrap their heads around it. If you’ve been paying close attention, you know that Trump conspired with the Russian government to rig the election in his favor, but try selling that to the average person with the incomplete evidence that’s thus far been made publicly available. On the other hand, this other Trump scandal is dead simple.
Donald Trump took personal bribes in exchange for favorable policy positions. It’s the oldest politician scandal in the book. Cellphone companies, health care companies, and yes, even a Russian oligarch all bought Trump off after he took office, in order to get what they wanted out of him. They ran the payments through the same cartoon villain fixer who has already admitted he paid off Trump’s mistress Stormy Daniels to cover up their affair. The average person gets this one.
All that’s left to do is to prove that Trump knew these companies were paying these bribes to Cohen, or to prove that Cohen was kicking portions of the money back to Trump. Once that happens, it’s the ballgame. Politicians far more popular than Donald Trump have been ousted from office and sent to prison for taking cash bribes.
In the end, once the infinitely complex Trump-Russia scandal is fully fleshed out, the average person will finally understand that Donald Trump rigged the election and committed treason in the process. But by that time he’ll likely already be in prison. This bribery scandal is simple, straightforward, easy to prove, and easy to understand. We still wouldn’t dare try to put a timeframe on Trump’s demise, because the political and legal process each have their own internal clocks. But Trump isn’t going to survive this bribery scandal. It’s the one that no politician survives.
