After President Trump’s meltdown Thursday on Fox & Friends, Friday’s news seemed anticlimactic. But some important things happened on Friday, and they spell bad news for the president.
The bad news actually started on Thursday when Trump’s phone call into Fox revealed two big things:
- Trump backed away from Cohen, almost acting like he didn’t know the guy. The message this sent Cohen was: “you’re on your own, coffee boy — I’m not going to protect you.” Which should be no surprise to Cohen who has seen the countless times Trump has thrown his friends under the bus.
- Trump said Cohen wasn’t really his attorney, but was a businessman. Federal prosecutors immediately went to court to get their hands on the communications that the FBI seized from Cohen, quoting Trump to support their position that the communications are not protected by the attorney-client privilege.
Bottom line: Cohen is screwed. And this means the chances of him flipping to provide evidence against Trump just increased exponentially. Which means Trump is screwed also.
But that’s not all! On Friday a couple of things happened that made things even worse for the president.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
The Senate Judiciary Committee by a 14-7 vote approved a bill to protect Mueller. This action, supported by powerful Republican senators, sent a message to Trump that the senate GOP has no intention of allowing him to fire Mueller, and if he tries, they’ll find a way to stop him.
Which is important because this means it is extremely unlikely that Trump will even try to fire Mueller now. In other words, “the show must go on.”
Which is really bad news for a former Putin employee by the name of Paul Manafort, who has been grasping at straws to try to avoid serious jail time. (The indictments against him could lead to 300 years in prison if convicted on all counts.)
The attorneys for Trump’s former campaign chairman went to court claiming that Mueller had no authority to even investigate Manafort. In other words, they asked the judge to throw out the case against him. Which must have given the judge a good laugh, because Manafort was the one whose case was thrown out of court.
Most people don’t realize that this completely screws Trump.  Manafort had been hoping that Trump would get rid of Mueller, and if that didn’t work, he was hoping that his high-priced legal team would get his case dismissed so he wouldn’t ever have to face the criminal charges against him.
Many have wondered why Manafort hasn’t cut a deal with Mueller to cooperate in exchange for reduced charges. Everybody else is doing it: Flynn, Gates and Papadopoulos. Why not Paul? Obviously he had another “strategy” which was more like a pipe dream.
But after yesterday’s double whammy of bad news, Manafort has no hope remaining that he can avoid going to prison, probably for the rest of his life. For an international playboy used to living a lavish lifestyle based on his ill-gotten gains, prison has to be a horrible prospect.
Once Manafort opens his eyes and sees the grim reality before him it is likely that he will also flip as everyone else has done. He has no chance of winning in court. He is probably also going broke after paying millions in attorney fees.
When Manafort flips and starts cooperating with the Mueller probe, and if Michael Cohen does the same thing, Trump’s chances of avoiding indictment will have gone to zero. And the Senate Judiciary Committee won’t be protecting the president — they’ll be protecting Mueller and his investigation.
Donald Trump is going down, and there’s nothing he can do about it.
I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.
