Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the implications of the conviction of Paul Manafort in Alexandria Virginia. Notably, if President Donald Trump is inclined to pardon Manafort, he may want to do it before the approaching start of the D.C. trial. The counts in the new trial are a true parade of horribles for Manafort and his image will hardly improve by the end. He will face details over his work for a blood-soaked authoritarian figure who fled into exile to Moscow. It will be much more difficult to portray Manafort as a victim and a “good man” after that evidence is aired in open court.
I previously warned that Manafort’s obvious hung jury strategy was likely to fail. He is now left with only his pardon strategy, though his lawyer ominously warned that he is considering “all of his options.”
The appearance of Michael Cohen in court as a self-confessed felon was as riveting as predictable as scene in this unfolding drama. Indeed, if this is ever made into a movie, it would seem all too formulaic. Cohen is the ultimate red-shirt defendant. In the film industry, “red shirts” are characters in a movie plot that inevitably die (like those red shirted security officers in Star Trek that always seem to face demise by the end of an episode). You can often spot a red shirt in that character who is so over-the-top in reading letters from home or over compensating in the face of a pending battles. They are dead men walking. If you play back the last year, there is one guy who stands out in the red shirt, the guy who has to implode and flip. It is Michael Cohen. 
It is not clear what is worse: having your wife fall off your sailboat or not noticing for four hours that she is gone. That is the situation of a couple in Newport, Rhode Island where a woman fell of her husband’s 39-foot sailboat while sailing from Newport to East Greenwich.
Earlier this year, I was critical of the handling of the prosecution of various protesters in North Carolina who torn down a statue in public and then celebrated their criminal acts in broad daylight. Because the statue of a civil war memorial, the act of property destruction was condoned by many and 
We have been following 
A jury in in Texas has a curious notion of justice after recommending a sentence of just 10 years probation and no jail time for Shafeeq Sheikh, a former physician at Baylor College of Medicine. 
In a interview painfully reminiscent of the “alternative facts” statement of Kelly Anne Conway, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani triggered another firestorm by declaring on NBC’s Meet the Press that 
In Jacksonville, Florida, Tammy Crews, 46, has reportedly confessed to a particularly disturbing crime after she stole the donation jar with $600 set out in a restaurant for the family of 
I have been critical of the decision of President Donald Trump to rescind the clearance of former CIA Director 
There is an interesting case in Washington state where Taylor Smith, 18, is facing a charge of reckless endangerment after she pushed 16-year-old Jordan Holgerson off a bridge. Holgerson was contemplating the 60-foot plunge and hesitated. Smith insists that she was just trying to help her make the decision — both Holgerson would end up in a belly flop that left her with multiple injuries. A conviction for the gross misdemeanor can result in as much as a year in jail and a maximum fine of $5,000.
