Carl Bernstein: We’ve now seen ‘the instinctive lawlessness of this president’

Famed Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein says that Michael Cohen’s claim that he was directed by President Trump to pay off two women who say they had affairs with Trump is proof of Trump’s “instinctive lawlessness.”

“We have now seen, in its naked ugliness, the instinctive lawlessness of this president,” The Washington Post columnist told CNN on Thursday night. “The stench of the sewage seeping from the White House swamp is starting to waft across the country.”

“It’s becoming tangible. There has been a change,” Bernstein added. “And I think that people are getting a look now at the real Donald Trump in a way that is taking the blinders off some eyes.”

Bernstein added in the interview that Republicans in Congress, whom he described as Trump’s “enablers,” as becoming fed up with dysfunction in the administration.

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“The rails are starting to come off,” he said. “Visibly. You hear it in the halls of Congress, in private from Republican but a few of them suggesting it in public in ways they have not [before].”

Republicans urged the special counsel investigation to continue this week after Cohen, Trump’s former longtime personal attorney, told a judge that Trump had directed him to engage in a hush-money scheme with adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.

Several lawmakers, including Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), called the allegations serious and troubling.

“Many of the allegations against @POTUS are serious and should be taken seriously, especially by members of Congress,” Amash tweeted Thursday afternoon.

“We should allow Robert Mueller to complete his investigation and issue his report before taking any action potentially affecting the president’s tenure,” he continued.