Is Donald Trump doomed, after the most disastrous day of his presidency?
‘I think we’ve established today that we have a criminal president, and that is historic’
US President Donald Trump suffered through perhaps the worst day of his presidency on Tuesday.
His personal lawyer directly implicated him in a crime. At almost the same moment his former campaign chairman became a convicted felon.
Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to illegal campaign finance charges over hush money paid to a porn actress and a former Playboy model, all but naming Trump as having ordered him to do it – although Cohen’s lawyer did just that outside court, and said that if Cohen was guilty, so was Trump.
Moments after the charges were read aloud in a Manhattan courtroom, the president’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted on eight counts of tax and bank fraud charges, boosting Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
The duelling sagas were the clearest sign yet of the political and legal peril that is increasingly threatening Trump’s presidency. While the legal ramifications will take more time to unfold, the political damage is already being felt, with Democrats seizing on the rulings.
“It’s a big day, it’s a bad day,” said John Dean, former White House counsel for Richard Nixon, on the implications of Cohen’s plea on Trump and his presidency. “I think we’ve established today that we have a criminal president, and that is historic.”