November 16, 2019

All the president’s (convicted) men

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/all-the-presidents-convicted-men
"Following Roger Stone’s conviction earlier today, NPR took note of the many criminals in Donald Trump’s immediate orbit. Stone was the second close political adviser of Trump’s brought to trial on charges by Mueller’s team. The other was Stone’s former business partner, Paul Manafort, who was convicted in 2018 in a tax and bank fraud trial in Virginia. Manafort later pleaded guilty to other charges in a related case brought by Mueller in Washington, D.C. He is now in prison. Six others – including Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, and Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, pleaded guilty to charges that arose from the special counsel’s probe. Taken together, it’s striking to see what the Washington Post described as “the remarkable universe of criminality” surrounding the sitting president of the United States. The number of criminals is important, but so too is the degree to which this dynamic conflicts with the message Trump has been eager to trumpet. As regular readers know, the president presents himself as being aggressively “tough on crime,” which he frequently tries to incorporate into his agenda. Earlier this year, while making the case for a border wall, the Republican declared, “The Democrats, which I’ve been saying all along, they don’t give a damn about crime. They don’t care about crime…. But I care about crime.” Of course, given recent events, it’s hardly unreasonable to wonder whether he cares about crime or about surrounding himself with people who’ve committed crimes? Let’s take stock of the number of presidential aides and associates who’ve faced felony charges"