William Pauley does not understand fun. "A courtroom is a place of dignity," he rumbled once. "Serious things happen here." The US District Judge has already made many feel this, especially the defendants - whether corrupt senators or fraudulent bankers.

The delinquent, who had to compete in Pauley's courtroom in Manhattan on Wednesday, had long since lost his laugh. Michael Cohen, the former lawyer and trimmer of US President Donald Trump, pleaded guilty to several crimes, including illegal election donations, fraud and multiple perjury. Now Pauley announced the sentence: three years imprisonment.

"I take full responsibility," Cohen said in tears.

But this is about much more than the fall of a former Trump confidant. It's about Trump himself, about the future of his presidency - and about the political chaos that threatens America now.

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For Cohen's confession has revealed it completely, the right-free demimonde, rose from the Trump. The lawyer admitted that in 2016 she paid two silent suspects - porn actress Stormy Daniels and ex-playmate Karen McDougal - to two suspected Trump mistresses. In addition, he has made contacts with Moscow in order to make an election victory as profitable as possible for all concerned.

The real scandal is also found between the lines of the indictment: According to the prosecutor Cohen, 52, pursued his plan "to influence the elections out of the shadows", not on their own - but "in coordination with and at the direction of individual-1 ".

This "individual-1" is none other than Trump. "I covered up his dirty actions," Cohen admitted in court.

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AFP

Without naming him by name, the judiciary accuses the US president of having been an instigator, co-conspirator, and accomplice in the manipulation of the election, which promoted him to the White House. This raises unprecedented questions: is a president legally liable as long as he officiates - or only afterwards? Will the 2020 election therefore be a fight for Trump against an indictment and imminent imprisonment?

Such questions seriously put America's democracy to the test. "We are entering a dangerous phase," 44 ex-senators of both US parties now warned in an open letter. And Washington Post columnist Max Boot expressed the fear: "Our long national nightmare has just begun."

After all, that's not all: while the Cohen case revolves around the cover-up of alleged sex affairs, Russia special investigator Robert Mueller is heading for even more dramatic revelations.

AFP

Russia special investigator Robert Mueller

Mueller, who works in tandem with the judiciary, is investigating possible collusion between the Trump team and Moscow and Trump's suspicion of a legal disability. How much he really has against the president is still uncertain. But even many Republicans have little doubt that Mueller's report, which is expected soon, will be devastating.

More and more ex-trustees Trumps unpack. Michael Cohen, who knows which bodies are in the basement, has provided Mueller with "valuable information" about Trump's Russia Connections. Trump's former campaign chief Paul Manafort and his first security advisor, Michael Flynn, have also pleaded guilty and are currently negotiating terms of mitigation in return for their cooperation.

Is Trump threatening to prosecute?

"It's very likely that the president will be charged," wrote ex-prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, previously a staunch supporter of Trump, on the website of conservative broadcaster "Fox News." Democrat Eric Swalwell put it even more drastically in The New York Times: "This President is in jail."

Is it really that far? The White House insists Trump enjoys immunity. But even then he could still be charged if he loses the next election. Mueller has already assigned parts of his investigation to other authorities, so that they can continue without him.

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Trump's ex-campaign boss Paul Manafort

But the acute danger to Trump is political: from January, the Democrats in the House of Representatives have the majority. It could, if the evidence further substantiates, come to Impeachment, an impeachment process. Even Trump himself, CNN reported, now considers this a "real possibility." However, in a Reuters interview, he defiantly stated, "It's difficult to sue someone for offenses that did not do anything wrong," Trump said. He was not worried.

However, he is the growing pressure to note. At times Trump looks even more uncontrolled than usual, in his tweets and in his performances, most recently on Tuesday, when he exploded in front of the cameras in the Oval Office.

The president is closing the car castle. Without a successor, Trump fired his chief of staff John Kelly. Apart from loyalists and Jasagern no one wants to risk his reputation. The legal department of the White House, which Trump now needs, has also bled to death.

What Trump remains are the power levers of his office. Some are already afraid that, with their backs to the wall, they might declare a national emergency or activate the military to distract them from their problems.

By 2020 at the latest, voters must then decide whether Trump deserves a second term - or, if the judiciary finds it, prison.