Teflon Don? Hard to say whether Monday's indictments put Trump in the clear, or in the crosshairs

It remains to be seen whether the indictments handed down Monday of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and two others will in turn become an indictment on the presidency -- or of the president himself.

What is certain is it will now be much harder to justify a decision to fire special prosecutor Bob Mueller, should it come to that.

The president has tossed about the idea of canning Mueller should the scope -- as it appears it now has -- of his investigation into possible collusion between the campaign and Russia expand to his financial dealings.

But that all remains speculative, at least for now.

In the interim, the Trump administration -- still denying any collusion and blaming former aides for having tarnished the president -- has and must keep its focus on tax reform. The at-times strained relationship between the president and the rest of the Republican Party depends on its successful rollout by the end of the year.

In one more revelation wrapped up in Monday's events was the identifying of a past campaign adviser and Trump's once foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, as a "proactive operator" in the investigation.

Many expect Mueller's investigative team will no doubt try to pressure Manafort and his longtime protégé, Rick Gates, both now under a 12-count federal indictment on conspiracy and money laundering charges, to also provide information helpful to the investigation. In return they might be offered some sort of favorable treatment or potential sentencing relief should either or both men be convicted.

It is doubtful that they would turn, given their lack of cooperation leading up the charges being filed Monday, but the perspective of a person with the potential to face charges and that of a person standing before a federal judge are almost certain to be vastly different.

Published in Editorials on October 30, 2017 10:39 PM