Trump Inner Circle Follows a ‘Godfather’ Script

Todd Purdum looks at the history of Corleone-family language in the administration in light of Robert Mueller’s indictment of Roger Stone, charging that Stone allegedly urged an associate to “do a ‘Frank Pentangeli.'”

“It is perhaps remarkable, and pitiable, enough that the president of the United States for years employed Cohen, a lawyer who is unself-consciously also described as a ‘fixer,’ as his own personal Michael Clayton (to cite another movie), the in-house ‘janitor’ on call to clean up his every mess. It is yet another thing to learn that Stone…is on the record as threatening canine kidnapping and even death to a colleague whose mere telling of the truth could subject him to perjury charges. If a horse’s head turns up in somebody’s satin sheets, should anybody still be surprised?”