It’s been a full 17 hours or so since Omarosa Manigault Newman was in the news, so naturally, she popped up on Hardball on Tuesday night to unveil one of her many TRUMP-SMASHING pieces of evidence. “Omarosa says she has video tapes,” Chris Matthews tweeted. “Omarosa says she brought the receipts,” Hardball’s official account tweeted. DEMOCRACY. SAVED. BOY HOWDY!
Oh, hm, it’s a clip of Michael Cohen getting on a plane.
I am not an expert on criminal activity or collusion, but I’m not entirely sure how this particular clip constitutes hard evidence against the President of the United States and his ragtag gang of cronies. Perhaps on a different day, perhaps in a different dimension, perhaps back in the halcyon era of 2014 (which might as well be the latter) this video of Trump’s personal attorney boarding a plane in the middle of the presidential campaign could be newsworthy.
Manigault Newman claimed on Hardball that the video proves Cohen was heavily involved in the campaign, which the Trump administration denies. “He was very involved,” she said. “He was directing some of the things that were happening and he was impacting some of the decisions that the president made, as well as the president telling him to fix things.” And yet, the only definitive proof of wrongdoing I see in this 40-second clip is that Manigault Newman can’t hold the damn camera horizontally.
Apparently, Manigault Newman has boatloads of these videos—perhaps we’ll see one of Ivanka going into a restroom, or Don Jr. combing his hair, or, if we’re lucky, Trump opening a door. The publicity tour could go on for decades! Or, we could sit back and let Cohen and the rest of Trump’s buddies brag endlessly in court about how they’re so good at crimes that their boss lets them do them for him all the time. That seems a tad more effective.