Slate "Donald Trump Is Losing His War on Truth"

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/08/donald-trump-is-losing-his-war-on-truth.html

Voters who don’t care what he’s done with Russia or with Stormy Daniels will care about what he’s doing to America.
By WILLIAM SALETAN

Donald Trump and the people around him made a wager: They thought they could beat the truth. They lied their way to wealth and power. For a long time, the bet paid off. But on Tuesday, reality roared back in the form of Paul Manafort’s conviction, Michael Cohen’s guilty plea, and Rep. Duncan Hunter’s indictment.

Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, lied to banks and the government. He stashed millions of dollars in fake corporate accounts overseas. He deceived lenders by fabricating income, and he evaded taxes by hiding wealth. But he couldn’t erase all the records of what he’d done. Nor could he silence his former accountant who knew the truth. On Tuesday, a jury found Manafort guilty of bank fraud and tax fraud.

Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, also lied about his debts and income. He deceived lenders and the IRS. Shortly before the 2016 election, he helped pay off two women to silence their stories about affairs with Trump. But the government got hold of Cohen’s records as well. On Tuesday, he pleaded guilty to tax evasion, bank fraud, and making illegal campaign contributions.

Trump’s allies in Congress are on the run, too. Two weeks ago, Chris Collins, the first congressman to endorse Trump, was indicted for insider trading for allegedly passing a stock tip to his son, who used it to dump massive equity losses on unsuspecting buyers. Then, on Tuesday, Duncan Hunter, the second congressman to endorse Trump, was indicted for allegedly diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to pay for personal expenses. Collins is accused of lying to federal agents; Hunter is accused of falsifying finance reports.


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Some people worry that Trump’s presidency, with its propaganda about “fake news,” “alternative facts,” and “truth isn’t truth,” has plunged us into a post-truth era. But it’s much more likely that truth will cruelly reassert itself. That’s not because the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice. It’s because the amoral arc of the universe doesn’t bend toward hope. There’s a fabric of reality out there—evidence, witnesses, meteorology, economics—and you can’t hide it forever. It brought down Cohen and Manafort. It will bring down Trump, too.