'All the president's crooks': How US media covered Trump's day of disaster

Calls for congressional investigation into 'alleged co-conspirator in the White House'

One of the most dramatic days of Donald Trump’s presidency has, inevitably, dominated headlines in the US.

The media consensus is that the dual convictions of his former campaign manager Paul Manafort and personal ex-lawyer Michael Cohen has left a serious dent in the American leader’s credibility.

Cohen's claim that the president had commissioned his crimes has been seen as particularly damaging, prompting calls for Congress to open an investigations into Mr Trump.

"Cohen implicates Trump in payoffs to to women," ran the Boston Globe front page, while the Washington Post's said: "Conviction tighten squeeze on Trump."

The latter's editorial described the president as “an alleged co-conspirator in the White House” who had surrounded himself with “shady characters, fringe ideologues and other opportunistic hangers-on”.

“Mr Trump cannot pretend these crimes did not occur or that they have nothing to do with him,” it said, after his former “fixer” claimed he had been acting on orders when he paid hush money to an adult film actress and former Playboy model in a bid to influence the presidential election.

“Congress must open investigations into Mr Trump’s role in the crime Mr Cohen has admitted to,” the editorial concluded.

The New York Times said Tuesday’s developments had conclusively exposed as false Mr Trump’s attempts to discredit Robert Mueller, the special counsel probing Russian interference in the presidential election.

“Only a complete fantasist — that is, only President Trump and his cult — could continue to claim that this investigation of foreign subversion of an American election, which has already yielded dozens of other indictments and several guilty pleas, is a ‘hoax’ or ‘scam’ or ‘rigged witch hunt,’” said the paper’s editorial, headlined “All the President’s Crooks”.

The convictions were seen as vindication for Mr Mueller, who the Washington Post said "continues to demonstrate with quiet professionalism and steady results that his investigation is anything but the 'witch hunt' of Mr Trump's insult-mongering".

But the Wall Street Journal suggested that Manafort and Cohen’s crimes, while “a damaging commentary on the shady operators Donald Trump associated with”, were unlikely to be enough to pose a threat to his presidency.

“The evidence in both cases is unrelated to the Russian collusion claims that set these prosecutions in motion,” ran its editorial, adding: “Voters may want to see more than evidence about payments to a porn star to overturn the results of a presidential election.”