I confess. I decided to skip a lot of the yakking about the three major memos filed by prosecutors today and wait for Rachel Maddow to distill everything into something understandable.
It took her well over 30 minutes to do it, but she definitely did. Here are about 9 minutes of her A-block Friday night, where she deals specifically with the filings in Michael Cohen's case, and even more specifically, with the ire of the Second District of New York with his request for no jail time in the face of his crimes committed by, with and for Donald J. Trump.
I'm not going to put the full transcript here, recommending instead that you just watch the clip. It's worth it to watch her build to the crescendo where she not only nails Donald Trump but also points out that Michael Cohen is not receiving harsh treatment as much as he's getting what he deserves, given that he chose not to cooperate fully with the SDNY while clearly being in the clutches of the Russian mob.
That is the takeaway from all of this. Not just Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, both horrible crimes against democracy. The real takeaway is that a greedy, ambitious Michael Cohen was a tool for the Russian mob to manipulate not just with regard to taxi medaliions, but also the 2016 election.
The walls are closing in on Donald John Trump, aka Individual-1, and this is the first official filing that he's linked to the Russian mob, but it won't be the last.
