[Hoot Gibson]

On what charges?

I have no idea - maybe conspiracy or being less than forthcoming to FBI interrogators. Any charge will do. Democrats and a good number of establishment Republicans just want to see Trump gone.

People like Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, and Roger Stone are not going to risk going to prison to protect Trump and his family.

The tactics being used against Trump reminds me of how Lynn Martin, former Labor Secretary under George H.W. Bush went after small family coal miners for the so-called "abnormal white centers" of dust samples. Despite a lack of any compelling evidence, Martin had MSHA force many small operators to enter into plea bargains with MSHA by threatening to charge their families with trumped up charges.

The choice that many small mine operators and consultants that managed their dust sampling programs faced was to plead guilty of tampering with dust samples or subjecting their families to financial ruin by sticking them with unbearable legal fees to defend against bogus charges. Martin was a pro-abortion Republican who fancied herself as a potential U.S. President.

There is no doubt in my mind that Mueller will squeeze Manafort and other convenient targets to get enough evidence to obtain indictments against one or more Trump family members - and he will not care whether or not the evidence is solid enough to obtain a conviction.

The charges against Manafort have nothing to do with Trump's campaign. Why would anybody doubt the depths to which the sore losers in the federal government will sink to preserve their own political power?

I think what is happening to Trump is exactly what would happen to an independent candidate elected as POTUS. If Democrats manage to retake control of the House, there may be enough Republicans in the Senate willing to throw Trump under the bus to remove him from office to secure their own political future - Susan Collins, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, Orin Hatch, Ron Paul, and Ben Sasse, just to name a few.

What is happening to Donald Trump is a gross miscarriage of justice and it is setting a very bad precedent - but that does not matter to Mueller and the other political hacks behind this witch hunt.