We begin today’s roundup with Michelle Goldberg’s analysis at The New York Times on the latest revelation that Donald Trump, contrary to his public claims, was actively pursuing a massive deal in Russia during the 2016 campaign:
We still don’t know for certain if Russia has used leverage over Trump. But there should no longer be any doubt that Russia has leverage over him. [...] So we now know that Trump lied to the American people about at least one part of his business relationship with Russia, a geopolitical foe that interfered in our election process on his behalf.
[...] we can see that Putin has been in possession of crucial information about Trump’s business interests that the president deliberately hid from the American people. In a normal political world, Republicans would have enough patriotism to find this alarming and humiliating. Every day of the Trump presidency is a national security emergency. The question now is whether Senate Republicans, who could actually do something about it, will ever be moved to care.
“I was campaigning. There was a good chance that I wouldn’t have won, in which case I would have gotten back into the business, and why should I lose lots of opportunities?” was how Mr. Trump explained away Mr. Cohen’s conviction on Thursday. It’s a deflection that the president will rely on again, if history is any indication: Hours before Mr. Cohen appeared in court, the president was, for the umpteenth time, ranting and raving about Mr. Mueller, accusing him of searching for crimes that don’t exist.
But, as Mr. Cohen’s guilty plea demonstrates, the crimes are real. What’s more, there are already numerous cases filed in various federal districts that will likely bare others. It’s only a matter of time before even Mr. Trump won’t be able to tweet them away.