This Week: Everybody Gets A Sentence!

It’s sentencing season. Michael Cohen, former fixer and lawyer for President Trump, was sentenced to three years in prison for what a federal judge called a “veritable smorgasbord” of crimes, ranging from tax evasion to lying to Congress about his contacts with Russia. Cohen’s attorneys tried to present him as a family man who was led astray by Trump, but who was now enthusiastically cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller. But U.S. District Judge William Pauley agreed with Southern District of New York prosecutors, saying Cohen needed to be held up as an example of what happens to those who break campaign finance laws, cheat taxes, and generally undermine democracy. At the dramatic sentencing hearing, a tearful Cohen promised to continue to cooperate with government investigators in the coming months. He’s due to report to prison in March. In court and in interviews, Cohen and his defense lawyers have reiterated that Trump directed him to make hush money payments to…