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Supporters of President Donald Trump attending his political rally in West Virginia on Tuesday chanted “lock her up” at the first mention of Hillary Clinton.
That, to put it mildly, is incredibly rich with irony today.
About three hours before the evening rally, Trump’s longtime fixer and personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to eight felony counts. That’s not all: A Virginia court convicted Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort of eight felony counts, including tax fraud, bank fraud, and hiding a foreign bank account.
Cohen and Manafort are likely soon headed to prison — in other words, they will actually be locked up. Cohen also implicated Trump in breaking campaign finance laws, saying he coordinated with a candidate for office (Trump) when he made a $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, who had claimed she had an affair with Trump, during the 2016 presidential campaign.
But that didn’t matter to the Trump-friendly crowd in Charleston. When Republican Senate candidate Patrick Morrisey spoke after the president welcomed him on stage, he quickly mentioned Clinton and how she once said, “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”
The crowd then erupted in chants of “lock her up.” There were also some who joined in with a “drain the swamp” chant of their own.
It’s quite the irony: rally-goers hoping someone they don’t like goes to jail, while seemingly missing that someone they admire surrounded himself with criminals — many of whom are very swampy themselves.
That, perhaps, is one of the greatest symbols of our current political moment.
You can watch the video of the moment below:
On same day Trump's campaign chairman was convicted of crimes and his former lawyer pleaded guilty of crimes while implicating the president in them, Trump supporters break out in "lock her up!" chants. pic.twitter.com/2a3HgleQal
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 21, 2018
