Trump’s Lawyer’s Confession Causes Headaches for President

The past week has seen two of Trump’s former aides finding themselves convicted of crimes. In his former campaign chair Paul Manafort’s case, he was found guilty on a number of counts related to financial fraud. However, his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s plea deal confession may prove more damaging to Trump going forward.

In his confession, Cohen acknowledged wrongdoing in arranging hush money payments to two women who claimed to have had consensual affairs with Trump shortly after he married Melania Trump. While such payments are usually not illegal, because they occurred just prior to the election, they could be considered illegal campaign contributions meant to influence the election. Cohen claims he was reimbursed by the Trump Organization and worked at the direction of Trump himself. If true, it is the first concrete case that Trump knowingly broke the law during the 2016 election.

While legal experts say Trump is unlikely to face indictment by prosecutors given his status as president, it could add fuel to Democratic efforts to impeach him, especially if Democrats take back Congress in November.

John McCain: 1936-2018

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) died August 25 after a year-long battle with brain cancer. McCain, who represented the state of Arizona in the Senate since 1987 and in Congress since 1983, left a unmistakable mark on American politics and the US’s role in international affairs.

McCain, born in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone, was both the son and grandson of Navy admirals. He graduated from the US Naval Academy and served as a pilot in the Vietnam War. He was shot down during the conflict and kept as a prisoner by the North Vietnamese in their capital Hanoi. As a result of the torture he received, he never was able to raise his arms over his head again.

McCain ran for and won an Arizona House seat in 1983 and became a US senator four years later. In the Senate he was known for his “maverick” approach in which he generally adhered to the conservative principles of the Republican Party but was willing to buck his party on certain issues, such as campaign finance and immigration. He was also a forceful proponent of using American military power abroad, seen in his advocacy for the Iraq War, intervention in the 2011 Libyan Civil War, and intervention in the Syrian Civil War.

McCain ran for president in 2000 and 2008, and he became the GOP nominee in the latter. After his defeat by Senator Barack Obama, he took a more conservative stance, becoming a major opponent of Obama’s health care law. McCain’s maverick reputation did seem to return in his last years, however, sparring with President Donald Trump, especially after Trump’s critical comments of his military service, and opposed the president’s efforts to repeal the individual mandate in Obamacare, known as the “skinny repeal.”