President’s greatest fear comes true with ex-lawyer’s plea
YOU can say this for President Donald Trump: When the raids on his attorney Michael Cohen’s house, hotel and office occurred, he knew it was trouble, as his slew of tweets at the time showed.
About four months after Cohen saw FBI agents cart out boxes of documents, he surrendered to the FBI and entered a plea deal in federal court to a total of eight counts, five for tax evasion, one for a false statement to a bank and two related to campaign-finance charges.
The plea states that Cohen, in committing the campaign-finance violations, acted at the behest of the “candidate”. There is only one candidate. The president of the US has now been implicated in a federal crime by his long-time lawyer. Take that in.
Cohen is at the intersection of at least three possibly disastrous legal stories.
First, he allegedly was involved in the payment of money to silence multiple women with whom Trump allegedly had extra-marital affairs. The fallout will depend on how many women and the circumstances of the payments.
The criminal liability here concerns violation of campaign-finance rules as part of a deliberate attempt to conceal large amounts of money from voters. Blaming Cohen exclusively will be hard for Trump to pull off, given the tape we already have heard.
Second, Cohen has been Trump’s “fixer” and deal-maker for years. He was at the centre of the failed Trump Tower project in Russia and likely would have been privy to other Russia-related transactions, if any, over years.
Trump has insisted the special counsel not go into his personal finances. The chances that special counsel Robert Mueller and his team are doing just that and will continue digging with Cohen as a guide has gone up dramatically.
Third, Cohen may have other information relating to Trump campaign contacts with Russia and to Trump’s efforts to conceal them and disable the investigation. Goodness knows what recordings, documents and recollections he may have.
Given that the White House counsel Donald McGahn, who is not Trump’s personal lawyer, has spent 30 hours or more with the special counsel, it is not as if Cohen would be the only witness to possible impropriety.
Cohen matters because he may have critical information relating to all three of these evolving stories. His plea is a crushing blow because he is the first cooperating witness that could implicate Trump directly in all three matters – the women and campaign money, Trump’s business dealings, and the Trump campaign’s Russia connections.
Buckle up. Trump now goes from the frying pan into the fire. (© Washington Post)