Trump says that co-operating with prosecutors is “unfair” and “almost should be illegal”
That argument seems like some kind of fantasy, but … y’know … if you don’t commit any crimes, that process never affects you.
Additional fantasy: “What Michael Cohen pled to weren’t crimes,” Trump told Fox News. (Say what?)
Reality: each of the campaign finance-related charges to which Cohen pleaded guilty are felonies punishable by as many as five years in prison.
I look for the President to become increasingly erratic and desperate. (Yeah, even more so.) Given that Cohen pleaded guilty to a felony that he testified to have committed at Trump’s direction, meaning that Trump committed a felony based on sworn testimony, Trump now has to maintain the Presidency to avoid a criminal trial.
He could be impeached, but there are not 67 senators who would vote to remove him from office, so an impeachment process would not work at this point, and he will most likely remain President until defeated in an election or until his term limit is up.
As long as he is President, he can’t be indicted by current Justice Department guidelines, which Mueller intends to respect.
But if the President loses the election in 2020, they would soon be slippin’ the cuffs on him. (Oh, the sweet irony of “lock her up.”) He is well aware of that, which means, in my opinion, that he will go to any extremes to hold on to that office.
SIDEBAR: Trump could theoretically be indicted on criminal charges in a state court, and New York is currently on the trail of several Trump businesses, but that’s totally hypothetical, and such an indictment would produce a massive constitutional crisis. I’m not sure how any state official could even physically execute an arrest warrant on a sitting President.
