Covering up behind Donald Trump IS gonna have several of his close in staff people come under scrutiny…
…..an investigation into allegations that Trump pressured his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate Joe Biden is hardly the kind of thing to be embraced by the wider world around Trump, a growing list that includes Vice President Mike Pence; some of his most important Cabinet officials such as secretary of state Mike Pompeo, attorney general Bill Barr and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney; and his own personal attorney at the center of it all, Rudy Giuliani.
They all face a long road ahead with the prospect of hefty legal bills, reputational scars and damaged political prospects hanging over them for years.
It isn’t a new phenomenon. Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and Michael Flynn all can attest to what happens when their own conduct gets scrutinized over the course of a high-level investigation that all started because of Trump.
President Bill Clinton’s top aides suffered as well during six years of special counsel probes and an impeachment battle. Watergate, of course, popularized “All the President’s Men” for the sheer breadth of people swept up in President Richard Nixon’s ultimate downfall.
“While it’s not quite Watergate, which is where Nixon got drawn into it by his senior staff, this is a situation where I think even more offensively the president seems to have embroiled his close confidants in his own mischief,” said Philip Lacovara, a former top prosecutor on the special counsel team that examined Nixon’s conduct.
For starters, all of the people in the president’s world with ties to the Ukraine scandal can expect to get hauled up for congressional hearings — where the questioning in a Democratic-led impeachment investigation is sure to be anything but friendly.
Then there are the personal legal challenges ahead. At least through next November, they probably can breathe easy. But experts note that Trump’s political fate is also their fate….