The Guardian reports (looming paywall) the Liar-in-Chief™ was compelled to admit in a mandatory disclosure statement filed with the Office of Government Ethics earlier this week reimbursing his attorney/fixer for hush money paid to an adult film actress back in 2016.

Ethics experts had been watching closely for the document to see if Trump would confirm that he paid Cohen back for the lawyer’s outlay – concerned that if the president did not he would be in breach of ethics laws.

Trump confirmed – bigly. With respect to ethics, the man has none…

The New York times (paywall) ponders whether or not ole’ Lyin’ Donny™ might’ve run afoul of ethics laws:

President Trump’s financial disclosure, released on Wednesday, included for the first time repayment of more than $100,000 to his personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, in 2017, raising questions about whether Mr. Trump’s sworn filing from a year ago improperly omitted the debt.

In a highly unusual letter, the Office of Government Ethics alerted the Justice Department on Wednesday to the omission, telling Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, that the ethics office had determined “the payment made by Mr. Cohen is required to be reported as a liability.”

Unusual. Highly unusual. Of course it’s unusual – we’re dealing with the most morally bankrupt person to ever occupy the White House!

…and then we have the New Yorker’s (paywall) take on the odd disappearance of suspicious activity reports, prompting a law enforcement official to surreptitiously disclose the existence of these reports before they vanished into thin air – OMG!

The official who released the suspicious-activity reports was aware of the risks, but said fears that the missing reports might be suppressed compelled the disclosure. “We’ve accepted this as normal, and this is not normal,” the official said. “Things that stand out as abnormal, like documents being removed from a system, are of grave concern to me.”

Of the potential for legal consequences, the official said, “To say that I am terrified right now would be an understatement.” But, referring to the released report, as well as the potential contents of the missing reports, the official also added, “This is a terrifying time to be an American, to be in this situation, and to watch all of this unfold.”

There you have it folks. A law enforcement official explicitly stating they are terrified – yes, terrified – of their counterparts’ motivations in other agencies.

Lastly, the Washington Post (paywall) opinion piece by Paul Waldman sums up the dire situation we find ourselves facing:

It starts with the fact that a hostile foreign government mounted a comprehensive effort to swing the results of an American election. Then there are Trump’s efforts to obstruct justice, for which there is ample evidence. Given what we know and what we’re learning literally on a daily basis, nobody sincerely thinks that Manafort and Cohen aren’t going to wind up behind bars.

Let’s hope. In fact, let’s hope every single person indicted as a result of Robert S. Mueller’s investigation ends up rotting in jail for a very, very long time…

…the president may be the single most corrupt prominent business figure in the United States

The fact I can extract the above from an article in the Washington Post as a direct quote from a respected journalist is chilling, to say the least.