In exchange for a reduced sentence, last week President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen pled guilty to eight federal criminal counts in New York, including two counts of unlawful campaign contributions that directly implicate the president. Where does this leave us? Is Trump about to be impeached?

The president can still sleep soundly despite this bombshell. For a president to be impeached, he must be charged with “high crimes and misdemeanors,” and some legal experts question whether the counts that Cohen pled guilty to would even rise to that level. But assuming that a Democrat-controlled House determined that Trump had indeed committed impeachable offenses, they would still have to defer the final decision to the Senate — and the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority to impeach a sitting president. In the current configuration, with the American electorate split 50-50 down the middle, Trump’s foes can’t gain the upper hand.

2.A Loss of Faith

The fact that Trump insiders — Cohen, for one, as well as American Media Inc. CEO David Pecker — are selling out, signing plea deals in exchange for spilling the beans, is certainly worrying for a man who values loyalty above all else. These developments could cause Donald Trump to lose his faith in the people closest to him.

3.A New Attorney General

The one most liable to pay the price is Attorney General Jeff Sessions. We’ve warned several times in this column that Sessions is next in line to be fired. Now, his days as AG really seem to be numbered. Senators Lindsey Graham and Chuck Grassley have signaled in recent days that Trump firing Sessions would be met with understanding in the GOP. Graham said it’s the president’s prerogative to appoint an attorney general that he trusts. Given that six months ago the entire party was behind Sessions, this is quite a change of tune.

4.Dems’ Last Gasp on Kavanaugh

Trump’s Supreme Court pick, Brett Kavanaugh, is slated to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee September 4. The Democrats claim that in the wake of all the legal ambiguity surrounding Trump, the appointment process must be frozen, and have asked Grassley to delay it. Meanwhile, Grassley has refused. The Democrats’ maneuver amounts to grasping at straws, but if they somehow manage to succeed, it will be a tremendous PR boost. If they fail, it will showcase the Democrats’ inability to give practical expression to their opposition.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 725)