1. Paul Waldman: The latest filings show that nobody can save Trump now

One of the remarkable things about the discussion we've been having lately is that the president still seems to think that he can be saved from whatever this investigation uncovers. He just announced that William Barr will be his next attorney general, and the New York Times reported that in private, "Mr. Trump has also repeatedly asked whether the next pick would recuse himself from overseeing the special counsel investigation into whether his campaign conspired with Russia in its interference in the 2016 election." It's as though he thinks this investigation is in its early stages and can be quashed by a properly loyal underling.

But at this point it doesn't matter. It's far too late. Trump's former aides have cooperated, they've conducted their interviews with the special counsel, they're being sentenced, the documents have been reviewed, the connections have been traced, and the full picture is soon to be revealed.

This scandal can’t be hidden away. Republicans in Congress can’t save Trump, his attorney general can’t save him, and no amount of desperate tweets can save him. Accountability is on its way, and it’s arriving very soon. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2018/12/07/latest-filings-show-that-nobody-can-save-trump-now/

2. Barry Berke, Noah Bookbinder And Norman Eisen: Is This the Beginning of the End for Trump?

On Friday, federal prosecutors in Manhattan and the special counsel, Robert Mueller, delivered a potentially devastating one-two punch against President Trump. Coming late in the day, they made for bracing end-of-the-week reading.

Calling on the court to impose a sentence of substantial imprisonment against Michael Cohen, the president’s former personal attorney, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York stated that Mr. Trump, the Trump Organization and the campaign were all directly involved in an illegal scheme to silence two women who claimed they had affairs with Mr. Trump. Prosecutors wrote that payments made by Mr. Cohen and other actions were taken “with the intent to influence the 2016 presidential election” and pursued “in coordination with and at the direction of Individual 1” — that is, Mr. Trump.

The Trump Organization’s reimbursements to Mr. Cohen for payments were fraudulently disguised as legal fees — and, according to the memo, were approved by senior executives at the organization. The New York prosecutors also disclosed that they are investigating additional unspecified matters involving Mr. Cohen and, presumably, the Trump Organization. In light of these disclosures, the likelihood that the company and the Trump campaign face charges is now high.

Although President Trump may avoid a similar fate because the Justice Department is unlikely to indict a sitting president, he could be named as an unindicted co-conspirator, as was President Richard Nixon, or charged if he leaves office before the statute of limitations runs out (most likely in 2022). https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/newspresident/is-this-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-trump/ar-BBQEGLp

3. Dana Milbank: The utterly lawless ‘Individual-1’

“Individual-1” has a singular problem: His own Justice Department just said he directed a crime.

Late Friday, U.S. prosecutors — ordinary prosecutors, not the ones working for Robert S. Mueller III’s supposed rogue witch hunt — filed papers in court saying President Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen admitted “he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1.”

This means that it is the considered view of Individual-1’s Justice Department that Individual-1 participated in a felony violation of campaign finance law by directing, in order to influence the presidential election, the payoff of two women who alleged affairs with Individual-1.

Mueller and his team will decide in the coming months whether to accuse Trump of crimes. But in one sense, these are just details. That Trump is fundamentally lawless can no longer be seriously disputed. His own prosecutors now say he took part in a crime — and his former secretary of state says Trump had little concern about what was legal. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-utterly-lawless-individual-1/2018/12/08/7d85b53e-fb19-11e8-8d64-4e79db33382f_story.html

4. Garrett M. Graff: The Mueller Investigation Nears The Worst Case Scenario

WE ARE DEEP into the worst case scenarios. But as new sentencing memos for Trump associates Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen make all too clear, the only remaining question is how bad does the actual worst case scenario get?

The potential innocent explanations for Donald Trump’s behavior over the last two years have been steadily stripped away, piece by piece. Special counsel Robert Mueller and investigative reporters have uncovered and assembled a picture of a presidential campaign and transition seemingly infected by unprecedented deceit and criminality, and in regular—almost obsequious—contact with America’s leading foreign adversary.

The Cohen and Manafort court documents all provide new details, revelations, and hints of more to come. They’re a reminder, also, that Mueller’s investigation continues alongside an investigation by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York that clearly alleges that Donald Trump participated in a felony, directing Cohen to violate campaign finance laws to cover up extramarital affairs.

Through his previous indictments against Russian military intelligence and the Russian Internet Research Agency, Mueller has laid out a criminal conspiracy and espionage campaign approved, according to US intelligence, by Vladimir Putin himself. More recently, Mueller has begun to hint at the long arm of that intelligence operation, and how it connects to the core of the Trump campaign itself.

In fact, what’s remarkable about the once-unthinkable conclusions emerging from the special counsel’s investigation thus far is how, well, normal Russia’s intelligence operation appears to have been as it targeted Trump’s campaign and the 2016 presidential election. What intelligence professionals would call the assessment and recruitment phases seems to have unfolded with almost textbook precision, with few stumbling blocks and plenty of encouragement from the Trump side.

Put together all the clues, and Occam’s Razor comes to mind: The most obvious scenario is the most likely scenario. And the most likely scenario now is that there was no division between the apparent Trump-Russian collusion on business matters and in the election. The coincidences are piling up. The conversations are piling up.

And Mueller’s evidence is clearly piling up as well.
https://www.wired.com/story/manafort-cohen-sentencing-trump-mueller-investigation-worst-case-scenario/

5. Peter Hamby: “They’re All Too Old”: Democrats Face A Generational Reckoning

Over the last few weeks, a couple of Wall Street Journal reporters did what any smart political journalist should be doing in the run-up to a presidential campaign. They dialed up all 99 Democratic Party county leaders in Iowa, and quizzed them on the emerging field of 2020 candidates. It was a valuable exercise: with our elite political conversation ever more narrowed by the distorted reality of Twitter, outside-the-Beltway voices remain depressingly hard to to find in mainstream political news. Party activists like those in Iowa, the first state to vote come 2020, still matter. Not because they wield the same kind of grassroots influence that they used to, but because they’re just earnest, highly engaged voters in what might be the country’s most important political state. They pay close attention to politics without being jaded. Their opinions tell us more about the Democratic psyche than any current poll of the 2020 race can.

What did the Journal team find? The biggest emerging divide in the early field was not about ideology or race or anything directly related to President Donald Trump. The overwhelming takeaway was that Democrats want generational change. It was bad news for the three Democrats already seen as front-runners for the nomination: Bernie Sanders (age 77), Joe Biden (76), and Elizabeth Warren (69). The same can be said of former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, age 76, who toured Iowa on Tuesday as he ponders a White House bid.

“They’re all too old,” Chris Henning, the 71-year-old Democratic chairwoman in Greene County, told the Journal. “It’s not white-bread America anymore; we’ve got to get with the program.” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/12/democrats-face-a-generational-reckoning

6. Jonathan Chait: The Department of Justice Calls Donald Trump a Felon

Federal prosecutors released sentencing recommendations for two alleged criminals who worked closely with Donald Trump: his lawyer Michael Cohen, and campaign manager Paul Manafort. They are filled with damning details. But the most important passage by far is this, about Trump’s fixer: “Cohen himself has now admitted, with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1.”

The payments in question, as the document explains, concern a payoff to two women who claimed to have affairs with Trump. The payments, according to prosecutors, were intended to influence the campaign, and thereby constituted violations of campaign finance law. They have not formally charged Trump with this crime — it is a sentencing report for Cohen, not Trump — but this is the U.S. Department of Justice calling Trump a criminal.

There is more. Under normal circumstances, the long list of charges federal prosecutors cited against Michael Cohen would be a political catastrophe for President Trump. One of the president’s closest associates turns out to have allegedly committed a long string of crimes, from tax evasion to making false statements to a financial institution, that would besmirch the good name of the man who worked at his side for years.

Of course Trump has no good name. But the fact that he is being called a felon by the United States government is a historic step. And it is likely the first of more to come. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/trump-felony-michael-cohen-paul-manafort-collusion-payment.html

7. Robby Mook: The sad truth about Russian election interference

Election Day was long gone before Russia’s interference in the campaign — and the possibility of the Kremlin’s coordination with agents of the Trump campaign — was widely accepted. Even today, some people still muse about whether the Trump political operation could have been in contact with culprits of the DNC hack. Yet longtime Trump associate Roger Stone said repeatedly in 2016 that he had been communicating with WikiLeaksfounder Julian Assange. Lately, Stone has denied being in touch with Assange, and last week Stone’s lawyer informed the Senate Judiciary Committee that his client would invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to testify in the committee’s Russia investigation.

Obviously, much more evidence about Russia’s interference has come out since 2016. But I’m not sure we’ve learned the bigger lesson: Why did it take two years and dozens of indictments for so many to believe that Russia was not only behind the DNC hack but may also have been in cahoots with the Trump campaign, when there was so much evidence at the time?

It’s as if something needs to be secret or hidden to truly matter. If it’s sealed in a courtroom, it must be a bombshell, but if it’s out in the open, it’s just not as serious.

Trump will not be the last of his kind. The next time so much evidence about a candidate is sitting out in plain view, let’s hope it gets a good look before Americans cast their votes. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-sad-truth-about-russian-election-interference-is-that-we-knew-about-it-before-election-day/2018/12/09/0d13d30c-fb06-11e8-8d64-4e79db33382f_story.html

8. Paul Waldman: All the ludicrous defenses Republicans offer on the Russia scandal

Defending Donald Trump has been a challenge and a headache for Republicans ever since he became their party’s nominee for president in 2016. After every appalling tweet, every racist statement and every ludicrous policy idea, Republicans are called upon to explain why this is really no big deal and everything’s fine.

But with Trump’s scandals deepening and the law closing in, justifying the president’s words and actions is getting harder and harder.

Fortunately for them, Republicans have always been good at this sort of thing, unencumbered as they are by logic or principle. So how are they reacting to the latest developments, including the allegation by federal prosecutors that Trump instructed his attorney Michael Cohen to break the law in concealing the hush money payoff to Stormy Daniels, the fact that 16 different Trump associates had contact with Russians during the campaign and the transition, and the growing list of indictments, convictions and guilty pleas?

Now let's step back and look at the broader context. Republicans offering up these ridiculous arguments probably feel that they have no choice, because their fates are inextricably tied to that of the president who leads their party. Of course, every politician is self-interested, so in theory there could come a point where your average Republican member of Congress no longer sees their self-interest in defending Trump, if doing so does more harm than good to their own political interests. But even as these scandals pile up, that point remains extremely far off.

Any worsening of Trump's scandals will always be bad news for the Republican Party in general, and something on the order of impeachment, resignation, or even just defeat in 2020 will be disastrous for every Republican. Don't forget that most of them represent conservative districts and states where they fear only opposition from the right. And even those who come from more closely divided areas still depend for their reelection on Republican voters mobilizing for them.

As a result, Trump could murder a puppy on live TV and about the worst thing they’d bring themselves to say about it would be, “That was unfortunate, but it’s time we all moved on.” No matter how hard it will be to do with a straight face, they’ll have to keep defending him. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2018/12/11/all-ludicrous-defenses-republicans-offer-russia-scandal/

9. Frank Rich: Will Trump Follow Through on His Incredibly Dumb Shutdown Threat?

With funding for some federal agencies set to expire in less than two weeks, President Trump turned his Oval Office meeting with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer into a reality-TV standoff over his border wall. Did their exchange increase or decrease the chance of a shutdown?

My profound hope is that Trump makes good on his threat and shuts down the government right before Christmas. He will set his party back even further than he already has, and do so at a time when congressional Republicans are going to be trapped with angry constituents back home during the holiday break. I still can’t get over that Trump actually declared on camera that he was “proud to shut down the government” and then addressed these immortal words to Chuck Schumer: “I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you for it.” Polls consistently show that few events in American politics are more toxic with a broad public than government shutdowns. Voters logically blame Republicans for them because their party is the anti-government party, yet the GOP always tries to wriggle out of culpability, however unsuccessfully. Now Trump has taken away that argument by owning (as he put it) the “mantle” of a government shutdown in a vivid Oval Office performance that will be a staple of Democratic campaign ads for as long as he is in Washington.

This is not all Trump accomplished in his 17 minutes of sparring with the Democratic leaders. He revealed that he really has no idea what divided government means and is in denial about just how devastating the blue wave was in the House. He gave Nancy Pelosi an opportunity to show off her toughness and smarts, both during the meeting and after, when she mocked the president for linking his “manhood,” such as it is, to a wall that he keeps claiming is already under construction when in fact the huge erection he
describes is wholly imaginary. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/frank-rich-trumps-incredibly-dumb-shutdown-threat.html

10. Jonathan Chaitz: Don’t Blame Trump for Losing the Shutdown Battle to These Legislative Geniuses

For a quarter-century now, it has been a hallowed ritual in Washington for Democrats and Republicans to use negotiations over funding to blame the opposing side for shutting down the government. Democrats appear to have won this latest round. Republicans, or at least those speaking on the record, express mystification at just how they pulled off this tricky feat. “I think [Senator] Schumer was very shrewd in his efforts to make certain that whatever blame is to be had for a shutdown doesn’t rest with the Democrats,” Republican senator Jerry Moran told Politico.

Just how did the Democrats prevail in this complex and mystifying ritual? A close analysis of the steps in this delicate dance reveals that very little shrewdness was required.

• Trump demanded to hold a meeting in front of the media.“Trump likes the visual of him at the center of a room leading a meeting with lawmakers because he looks like he is ‘in charge,’ according to a former White House official.”

• Trump loudly and repeatedly claimed responsibility for shutting down the government. At this point, it would have been hard for Democrats to take the blame for the shutdown even if they wanted to.

• Trump said he was shutting down the entire country.“If we have to close down the country over border security, I actually like that in terms of an issue,” he announced, equating a shutdown of the federal government with a shutdown of the entire nation.

• Trump flung a folder. “One administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Trump appeared upset after leaving the meeting, flicking a folder and sending its papers flying out,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

During this negotiation, Schumer’s main strategic contribution was trying not to laugh. He was largely unsuccessful. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/blame-trump-shut-down-government-wall.html

11. Matthew Walther: Trump discovers the real wall

On Tuesday, President Trump acknowledged, seemingly for the first time, the existence of some 580 miles of extant fencing along our southern border. These makeshift defenses, he added, have proven more than capable of holding back the non-existent foreign hordes intent upon carrying bubonic plague to various Houston-area Bed, Bath and Beyond locations.

The image of a vast monument whose ruins will stretch from Brownsville to San Diego, worshipped by primitive shamans and providing shelter from the elements to birds and beasts thousands of years after the United States is a dim memory is, to me, an appealing one. But this is also the best argument against the wall. Who would wish to bequeath the spirit and the trappings of our age to anyone? The private imagination that has conceived the border wall has already given us the disemboweled Rubik's Cube on Fifth Avenue. In place of earth, brick, stone, and wood he would offer transparent, electrified glass 30 feet in height as far as the eye could see.

It would not last half a millennium. It would stand for a few hundred years, perhaps less, as a reminder of the ugliness of the American imagination, her narrowness, her cruelty, her greed and philistinism, and her denial of her imperial destiny as the humane capital of the Western hemisphere before the glass is swallowed into the desert. These are not themes which any of us should desire to prolong. Conceived in purely aesthetic terms, it is chiefly on moral grounds that the wall should be dismissed. https://theweek.com/articles/812021/trump-discovers-real-wall

12. Jonathan Capehart: Trump’s ‘real housewives of the Oval Office’: ‘Chuck and Nancy’ edition

The Oval Office was the perfect trap for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) — or so President Trump thought.

Trump tried everything to get one over on Chuck and Nancy. There was racist and debunked bluster about criminal, disease-carrying migrants. There was that unsubstantiated claim of stopping 10 terrorists from entering the United States. The entire spectacle was indeed what Schumer later called a “temper tantrum,” as Vice President Pence sat with the mien of a child who suddenly found himself in the middle of a nasty divorce proceeding.

When Trump started beating his chest over gaining seats in the Senate, Schumer delivered a rhetorical paper cut, the kind you don’t realize until the sting comes moments later. “When the president brags that he won North Dakota and Indiana,” the New York Democrat snarked, “he’s in real trouble.”

And when Trump tried to play Pelosi by saying she might be unable to speak fully because she is still in the process of securing the votes she needs to officially take the speaker’s gavel next year, the former speaker checked him. “Mr. President,” Pelosi said, “please don’t characterize the strength that I bring to this meeting as the leader of the House Democrats who just won a big victory.”

With that, Pelosi showed she meant business and wasn’t going to put up with any of Trump’s foolishness. This is what he has to look forward to for the next two years. Democrats should be happy. The nation should feel relieved. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2018/12/11/trumps-real-housewives-oval-office-chuck-nancy-edition/