Forget Cohen & Manafort, we're still no closer to indicting or impeaching President Trump With Manafort's conviction and Cohen's guilty plea, last week wasn't good for President Trump politically. But legally, the needle remains unmoved.

John Marston | Opinion contributor

President Donald Trump’s situation is getting worse, but it is also unchanged. How can both of these things be true? We need to keep in mind one critical distinction as we all live through these salacious, unprecedented events: political issues are not the same as legal issues.

Last week was certainly not good for the president politically, but legally, the needle remains essentially unmoved.

The Paul Manafort trial had nothing to do with the president in a legal sense. Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager, was convicted of fraud committed quite separately from his involvement with Trump. Politically, any president would catch flak from a prior campaign chair getting convicted of felony offenses. But legally, Trump remains at a distance from the case. In other words, while it does not look good to have hired a fraudster for your campaign team, no prosecutor has ever based a case solely on the fact that someone was near something that, in hindsight, “does not look good.”

Could Michael Cohen's plea be fake?

Then we have the Michael Cohen plea. This one warrants greater discussion because, on its face, it might look like a legal problem for Trump. But if you stop to analyze the plea and what Cohen’s team is saying on the airwaves, it smacks of a PR move designed purely to save Cohen’s own skin (not that anyone could blame him for taking that route). The charge of conviction that got attention in that case was the one related to hush money payments. The plea documents called those payments illegal campaign contributions, and effectively named the president as a co-conspirator. But says who? So far, only Michael Cohen, and apparently without good documentary evidence other than a vague tape of a phone discussion that is open to multiple interpretations.

I once got a speeding ticket that I wanted to fight. When I went to court, I was offered a plea to “inoperable taillight.” It came with a higher fine (of course), but it was a non-moving violation and carried no “points.” I took the deal, and even though my taillights were just fine, and everyone knew it was a ruse, the judge convicted me of the crime and the prosecutor signed off. The lesson? Practical, non-legal realities sometimes drive pleas.

More: Pardon Trump to get him out of the White House? America should make that deal

After Manafort conviction & Cohen plea, Donald Trump is so desperate he could do anything

Team Trump trots out three last-ditch defenses against Cohen's charges: They're all a joke

While a person cannot plead guilty in a federal case without factual support, and Cohen certainly agreed to facts that make out criminal acts, it remains entirely possible for a defendant who is pleading guilty to agree to a factual predicate that is purely based on his own thoughts or words. A defendant can say, “I did it,” and enter a plea even though the primary evidence of the crime is the defendant’s own admission.

Thus, assuming Cohen is capable of overstating or falsifying facts when pleading guilty (did you catch the part where he is now a convicted liar and fraud?), here is one possible interpretation of what Cohen and his team are doing. Cohen, like Manafort, was about to take a fall for fraudulent conduct. He has been a liar and a fraud, and it became increasingly clear that he had no way of escaping serious felony charges. So his team decided to try to flip the narrative by insisting on the inclusion of a campaign finance charge so that he could, while admitting he’s a liar and fraud, take advantage of the Trump hatred out there and appear as an American hero who did all he could to take down Trump as he fell.

After years of faithful service and friendship, Cohen suddenly decided he would admit conspiring with candidate Trump, because he now (now!?) believes Trump is a dangerous person and must be stopped. We cannot know this as a fact, but some might call Cohen’s plea a fake (or at least convenient) high road that leaves a great deal open to interpretation.

President Trump remains safe from indictment

In the Manafort trial, we got a glimpse of the problems with cooperators. The Manafort jury apparently discounted cooperator Rick Gates’ testimony entirely, because Gates seemed too motivated to save himself. If that is what happens to a fairly strong government cooperator when confronted by skilled defense attorneys, imagine what would happen at a trial where testimony from Michael Cohen is the primary evidence of Trump authorizing illegal campaign contributions.

But no such case where Cohen would testify is coming. Cohen did not plead guilty as a cooperator, indicating the prosecution itself knows it has no real use for him. President Trump will not be indicted while he is president, and the will to charge him if he is removed or defeated will dissipate. Even more critically, the U.S. House of Representatives has never impeached someone solely on the basis of conduct prior to taking office. Manafort’s and Cohen’s cases (and perhaps the larger investigation) relate purely to conduct prior to Trump’s election. Richard Nixon himself was skating by for years after the Watergate burglary until we discovered he was obstructing justice from within the Oval Office.

So take a moment and realize what is going on. Based on what we have seen so far, we are not moving significantly towards impeachment. Potential election defeats and political pain, sure, but legal actions such as indictments or impeachment trials, not so fast.

John Marston is a former assistant U.S. Attorney and partner at Foley Hoag.