Donald Trump just can’t shut up while he’s behind
Friday saw three sentencing memos in the various investigations taking place into “President” Donald Trump. Two of the memos dealt with Michael Cohen, and the third dealt with the lies of Paul Manafort. The Mad King, never one to be silenced, tweeted in light of the proverbial hitting the fan on Friday night: “Totally clears the President. Thank you!”
In the Southern District of New York, he literally is named as an unindicted co-conspirator. What will be done about that finding is up for debate, with the revisit of whether a sitting president can be indicted now in full discussion. On Saturday morning, the Mad King tweeted again: “AFTER TWO YEARS AND MILLIONS OF PAGES OF DOCUMENTS (and a cost of over $30,000,000), NO COLLUSION!”
Over the last few years, Trump and his supporters have repeatedly made statements that there was no collusion, and his gaggle of legal “experts” have stated (correctly) that “collusion” is not a legal term. But like a good originalist judge, all one need do is open up a dictionary and find the definition of collusion. Some define collusion as a conspiracy, while others refer to collusion as a synonym of conspiracy.
It is not a difficult exercise to connect the dots, then. First, the memos last night, especially the Southern District of New York, did not clear Trump, unless in his world, he is not “Individual-1,” the person who became president. As Palmer Report has reported, page 11 of the sentencing memo discusses the purchase of rights to two stories involving Individual-1: “In particular, and as Cohen himself has now admitted, with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1. (PSR ¶¶ 41, 45). As a result of Cohen’s actions, neither woman spoke to the press prior to the election. (PSR ¶ 51).”
Make no mistake about it, this language is very clear – our president is an unindicted co-conspirator. Wise counsel might tell the unindicted co-conspirator to button his lips, as loose lips will lead Trump to even more deep shit.
Daniel is a lawyer writing and teaching about SCOTUS, and is the author of the book “The Chief Justices” about the SCOTUS as seen through the center seat.