‘Trump is now an illegitimate president’: Conservative Washington Post columnist

The United States of America is facing a constitutional crisis following Michael Cohen's guilty pleas in federal court yesterday, Washington Post columnist Max Boot argued on Wednesday.

"For the first time since Watergate, the president is now an alleged co-conspirator in the commission of a federal crime," Boot said.

Boot noted that Cohen's attorney, Lanny Davis, has argued that Cohen's guilty plea shows Trump committed crimes.

"And Cohen may only have begun implicating the president," Boot noted. "Davis said on MSNBC that Cohen would be happy to share other incriminating information with the special counsel, including 'knowledge about the computer crime of hacking and whether or not Mr. Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on.' This would seem to vindicate an earlier leak that Cohen may be able provide the 'smoking gun' evidence showing that Trump himself gave the go-ahead to collusion with the Kremlin."

"In short, there is growing evidence that the president is, to use the word favored by Richard Nixon, 'a crook.' Even buying the silence of his reputed playmates could by itself have been enough to swing an exceedingly close election decided by fewer than 80,000 votes in three states," he continued.

"Even more than Nixon, Trump is now an illegitimate president whose election is tainted by fraud," Boot concluded.

"If Trump had an iota of decency, he would resign — but he doesn’t, and prevailing Justice Department guidelines hold that a president can’t be indicted while in office," he noted. "So the onus is on Congress to act."

"A responsible Congress would have by now already convened an impeachment inquiry. But that is not the Congress we have," he noted. "We have a Congress dominated by political hacks and moral invertebrates who are determined to act as the president’s enablers and legitimizers at all costs."