Maybe we got him this time--NOT

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Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst, a former New York homicide prosecutor and of counsel to the New York law firm of Edelman & Edelman PC, focusing on wrongful conviction and civil rights cases. Follow him on Twitter @paulcallan. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

(CNN)For those who have been hoping for an end to the Donald Trump presidency, Tuesday appeared to be cause for celebration. On that day, a Virginia jury returned eight felony convictions against the president's one-time campaign manager, Paul Manafort, at nearly the same time that Trump's personal attorney and "fixer" Michael Cohen entered guilty pleasto a variety of financial and election law crimes. In short, Trump's critics could revel in the hope that the conviction and imprisonment of both men might foreshadow Trump's exit.

It is premature for anti-Trumpers to dance in the streets.

 

How Trump World legal drama will affect the midterm election

The charges against Manafort were largely unrelated to the Trump presidency, and the trial judge virtually banned the use of Trump's name through most of the trial. Furthermore, none of Manafort's crimes were ever linked to the president, and the vast majority of his alleged criminal activities predated his appointment as Trump campaign manager.

In pleading guilty, Cohen admitted to participation in a scheme to pay hush money payments to two women -- Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels -- with whom Trump is alleged to have had affairs. Missing, though, were the details of Trump's intentional involvement in criminal activity substantial enough to tip the Constitution's "high crimes and misdemeanors" scale.

Recall that, in 2012, attempts to convict former North Carolina Senator John Edwards on similar but far more serious campaign finance violations resulted in a failed prosecution. Edwards, while running for president in 2008, allegedly used unreported funds provided by campaign supporters and "friends" not only to buy silence but to safely house and feed Rielle Hunter-- with whom he was having an affair, and who was pregnant -- while his wife suffered from a terminal form of cancer.