Catherine Rampell: “As for the Cohen crimes that did directly implicate Trump — the campaign finance violations — the president and his people have argued that these are not actually crimes. After all, they’re so rarely prosecuted!”

“What about tax crimes, though? There’s plenty of precedent for prosecuting those. And the Cohen filings this week raise serious new questions about whether Trump has criminal tax-fraud exposure.”

“There’s an easy way for Trump to clear up these concerns: He could release his tax returns. Or maybe Congress could help a brother out and release his returns for him — which it could do by majority vote in any of three committees. That would, of course, require a Republican or two to ‘flip’ — which I know could pose a problem. As Trump and Capone could both tell you, the family doesn’t care for rats.”

Andrew Sullivan: “There was a sense among some this week that we had at last reached that golden ‘inflection point’ when all of Trump’s lies, scams, cons, and crimes finally sink in with Republicans, and the cult begins to crack.”

“I tend to think something else is happening: that we are entering the most dangerous phase of Donald Trump’s presidency. We always knew this would happen — that the rule of law and Trump would at some point be unable to coexist — but we had no idea how it would specifically play out. Now we see the lay of the land a little more clearly.”

“What we’re about to find out is if Trump can pull off all his usual tricks, and face no serious political or legal consequences for this. I’d say that question remains nerve-rackingly open.”

“It is impossible to ignore the stench that is emanating from the White House and from Washington, and this week was a really alarming week.”

— Democratic strategist David Axelrod, quoted by The Hill.

Allen Weisselberg, longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, was granted immunity by federal prosecutors for providing information about Michael Cohen in the criminal investigation into hush-money payments for two women during the 2016 presidential campaign, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Washington Post: “Weisselberg is the person identified in court filings as ‘Executive-1,’ who prosecutors said helped authorize $420,000 in payments to Cohen.”

From yesterday, for members: The Much Bigger Fish than Michael Cohen.

“Martin London, a lawyer who represented former Vice President Spiro Agnew, said that President Trump should resign from office to keep federal prosecutors from prosecuting his family,” The Hill reports.

Said London: “It’s only going to get worse. We already have everybody, you know — the rats are leaving the ship. He’s lost Gates, Papadopoulos, Cohen, Flynn, now Pecker. He’ll probably lose others from the Trump Organization.”

He added: “If he has any interest at all in not only saving his skin, but the skin of his child, his children, his son-in-law, his grandchildren, his daughter — this is a time when he’s got to seriously think about that. Now, is he capable of that, of serious thinking? Frankly, I doubt it.”

First Read: “Think about it: He praises and pardons friends/allies who have committed crimes (Manafort, Joe Arpaio, Dinesh D’Souza), but calls for the prosecution of enemies who haven’t been charged at all (Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Peter Strzok, Christopher Steele).”

“And as others have pointed out, Trump continues to use mob-boss language: Manafort ‘refused to break’ … White House counsel Don McGahn must be a John Dean type ‘RAT’ … ‘Flipping’ ought to be outlawed.”

“This is the president of the United States of America.”