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A single paragraph from a New York Times story published on Monday night managed to illustrate just how much legal trouble the president of the United States, his family, and some of his closest associates have found themselves in.
The story, by the Times’s Matt Apuzzo, broke the news that the FBI had raided the home, hotel room, and office of Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal attorney. And as Apuzzo points out, the number of Trump associates facing significant legal trouble is growing:
The searches open a new front for the Justice Department in its scrutiny of Mr. Trump and his associates: His longtime lawyer is being investigated in Manhattan; his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is facing scrutiny by prosecutors in Brooklyn; his campaign chairman is under indictment; his former national security adviser has pleaded guilty to lying; and a pair of former campaign aides are cooperating with Mr. Mueller. Mr. Mueller, meanwhile, wants to interview Mr. Trump about possible obstruction of justice.
- Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, is under investigation by New York prosecutors and federal officials regarding the Kushners’ ownership of a costly skyscraper at 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
- Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager, has been indicted on money laundering and conspiracy charges stemming from his work in Ukraine.
- Michael Flynn, the president’s onetime national security adviser, pleaded guilty in December to lying to the FBI about conversations with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak a year earlier.
- Former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates and former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos have both pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI.
Then there’s Cohen — who, according to the Washington Post’s Carol Leonnig and Tom Hamburger, is “under federal investigation for possible bank fraud, wire fraud and campaign finance violations.” Those charges may have arisen from Mueller’s investigation of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.
Trump, for his part, maintains that the investigation led by Mueller is nothing more than a “witch hunt.” It seems to be turning up an awful lot of witches (and warlocks!)
