Good Wednesday morning. I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your political playbook audio briefing,

sponsored by ExxonMobil. And I'm Anna Palmer. The split screen guilty verdict of Paul Manafort and

Michael Cohen's plea is perhaps the best evidence that Robert Mueller is treating this investigation

like an old-school organized crime probe. While President Donald Trump turns on the noise machine every day,

shouting about what he sees as the equity and morality of the investigation,

Mueller is using the criminal justice system to take out the people closest to the president.

Despite the hum of every self-proclaimed expert crowing about what Mueller is up to, none of us have a damn clue what's next.

We don't know when this is going to wrap up, how Republicans will handle it, how Democrats will react, how the president will react, or how it will impact the midterm elections. We don't know if this will stretch past election day or who else Mueller is going to go after. The president's saving grace, politically at least, for the moment, is that he could say the special counsel has not proven collusion with Russia.

And that's true.

But yesterday did reinforce that while Mueller is not interested in a shouting match, he seems

to be interested in results.

Two men who had direct access to the president, one who was his closest aid for upwards of a decade, are

almost certainly going to prison. Cohen said with little ambiguity that the president instructed

him to make illegal campaign payments to bolster his political future. And Manafort was found

guilty on eight charges and still faces another trial in Washington on other serious charges.

The big questions, what do Cohen and Manafort know?

And could they cooperate for a lesser sentence?

Also, do Republicans split from Trump when they get back to Washington?

Probably not, at least for the time being.

The big question is how do Republicans handle this politically? The message that is most salient

in marginal GOP districts is that Republican candidates will act as a check on Trump. But in

Ruby Red Republican districts, watch for the GOP to say they'll act as the bulwark against

...