Omarosa releases video recording and blows up Donald Trump’s defense
Paul Manafort has been found guilty today. Michael Cohen has pleaded guilty today. Donald Trump has been named as an unindicted co-conspirator today. Trump is having his worst day ever, by far. So could it get any worse? Sure, because it turns out Omarosa was booked for MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews tonight, and she brought a video recording with her which just happened to conveniently blow up Trump’s defense.
It turns out Omarosa’s video wasn’t of Donald Trump, it didn’t incriminate anyone, and it wasn’t even secretly recorded. All it did was show Michael Cohen getting onto Trump’s plane during the campaign and walking around like he owned the place. But this video demonstrated that Cohen was indeed involved with the campaign, and as Omarosa went on to explain, the trip depicted in the video had been put together entirely by Cohen. So why is so important?
Even though Donald Trump instructed Michael Cohen to pay off two women in violation of federal campaign law, Cohen was never officially a campaign official. Trump has already argued to an extent earlier this year, and will certainly try to argue more loudly now, that he can’t have been in violation of campaign law because Cohen wasn’t with the campaign. This video helps demonstrate otherwise, thus weakening Trump’s argument in the court of public opinion.
In any case, Donald Trump now has far more to worry about than the court of public opinion. The conviction of Paul Manafort gives Special Counsel Robert Mueller much stronger footing moving forward. And now Trump has to figure out how to deal with the fact that he’s an unindicted co-conspirator in a felony criminal investigation. There’s no talking his way out of that. And now, even though Omarosa and Michael Cohen seem to hate each other, Omarosa has just given a boost to Cohen’s credibility in his argument against Trump.
