Directly to Jail: President Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen arranged during the 2016 presidential campaign to pay off two women who had affairs  with Donald Trump  “in coordination and at the direction of Individual-1,”  according to federal prosecutors. That person presumably was Donald Trump.

It’s the closest that legal documents have come to saying that President Trump broke campaign finance law during his campaign.

Trump inexplicably tweeted last night, “Totally clears the President. Thank you!”

The Cohen revelation appeared in sentencing documents filed yesterday that said Cohen willfully and systematically committed crimes in serving Donald Trump, as well as in his personal business. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said Cohen should serve a “substantial” sentence of at least four years in prison despite his cooperation.

That is in stark contrast to the recommendation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who said in his brief that Cohen has been so helpful in the Russia investigation that he should not go to prison, or serve only a short sentence.

The 52-year-old Cohen is to be sentenced in Manhattan next week. He pled guilty to campaign finance violations and financial crimes in Manhattan as well as charges of lying to Congress in the Russia inquiry, filed by the Office of the Special Counsel in Washington. He also admitted to lying about Trump’s negotiations to build a tower in Moscow that continued into the 2016 campaign.

Prosecutors in Manhattan said Cohen’s crimes established “a pattern of deception that permeated his professional life.”

Cohen had asked for leniency — no time in prison — but the prosecutors said he didn’t deserve it. “He was motivated to do so by personal greed, and repeatedly used his power and influence for deceptive ends,” the New York prosecutors said in a memo to Judge William Pauley III.

All Thumbs: While that was happening, the leader of the free world was publicly crumbling on Twitter, trashing his first secretary of state, warning of a border invasion, whining about leakers and liars, and revealing that his lawyers are preparing a written defense to the Special Counsel report, which to anyone’s knowledge hasn’t been written.

Trump said, “ We will be doing a major Counter Report to the Mueller Report. This should never again be allowed to happen to a future President of the United States!” He went on, “Already 87 pages done, but obviously cannot complete until we see the final Witch Hunt Report.”

No, they can’t. And maybe the Special Counsel will subpoena the draft to find what they think they are defending themselves against.

After former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson gave an interview in which he diplomatically described Trump’s fact-free decision making, the President tweeted that his current Secretary of State “Mike Pompeo is doing a great job.” Trump said, “His predecessor, Rex Tillerson, didn’t have the mental capacity needed. He was dumb as a rock and I couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. He was lazy as hell.” Tillerson is the former head of Exxon Mobil, the worldwide energy conglomerate.

But wait, it appears there’s another invasion coming from the South. The President tweeted, “Arizona, together with our Military and Border Patrol, is bracing for a massive surge at a NON-WALLED area. WE WILL NOT LET THEM THROUGH. Big danger.”

And finally, fired FBI Director James Comey was testifying on Capitol Hill yesterday, but it turns out according to the tweeter-in-chief that, “Robert Mueller and Leakin’ Lyin’ James Comey are Best Friends, just one of many Mueller Conflicts of Interest.”

Lying Liar: That’s not all. The Special Counsel also yesterday revealed the lies former Trump campaign chairman told that resulted in the revocation of his cooperation agreement.

Most notable, according to a court filing, even after agreeing to tell the truth, Manafort lied to federal investigators about contacts with Trump administration officials and communications with a Russian linked to Moscow’s intelligence services.

“Manafort told multiple discernible lies — these were not instances of mere memory lapses,” the prosecutors wrote to the court in the District of Columbia.

Small World: Andy Borowitz writes the following for The New Yorker.

“Pushing back against criticism of her lack of diplomatic experience, Donald J. Trump’s choice to be the next United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Heather Nauert, said on Friday that a memorable visit to the It’s a Small World ride at Disney World made her eminently qualified for the U.N. post.

‘When people look at me, they think Heather Nauert, former Fox News anchor,’ Nauert told reporters at the State Department. ‘What they don’t realize is I’m also Heather Nauert, who went on It’s a Small World three times when she was nine.’”

Econ 101: The Dow Jones took a 550 point dive yesterday, about two and a quarter percent. The Dow was down 4.5 percent for the week. The President’s saber rattling over trade crushed a relatively good jobs report.

The economy added 155,000 jobs last month, shy of the  190,000 that had been predicted. The monthly average for September, October, and November was 170,000.

Unemployment remained steady at 3.7 percent. It’s the 98^thstraight month of job growth and the monthly average is still above 200,000 jobs.

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