Trump having a really bad day
Legal maelstrom swirling around US president due to Michael Cohen fallout.
Washington: Donald Trump insisted he did nothing wrong after his longtime attorney implicated him in illicit hush payments made before the 2016 election, as experts warned that the legal maelstrom swirling around the Republican leader could further threaten his presidency.
On perhaps the worst day of Trump’s tumultuous time in office, his former fixer Michael Cohen told a federal judge on Tuesday that he had made illegal campaign contributions – in the form of payments to silence women alleging affairs with Trump – at his boss’ request.
Cohen’s statements came on a day of head-spinning political drama for Trump, whose former campaign chief Paul Manafort was found guilty within the same hour of federal tax and bank fraud, in the first case sent to trial by the special prosecutor probing Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
While the full implications for the real estate mogul-turned-president remain unclear, Cohen’s statements – and the prospect of more revelations to come – puts Trump in legal peril.
But the mercurial US leader
appeared determined to ride out the latest storm.
After first accusing Cohen, 51, of making up “stories” to cut a plea deal, he then tweeted that the lawyer’s actions were “not a crime” and went further in an interview with Fox and Friends, saying they were “not even a campaign violation”.
In that interview, Trump said the hush payments were financed with his own money – to which Cohen had access – and that while he had no knowledge of them at the time, he had since been fully transparent.
“My first question when I heard about it was, ‘Did they come out of the campaign?’ because that could be a little dicey,” he said of the payments – believed to have been made to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal.
“But they didn’t come out of the campaign. They came from me and I tweeted about it.”
Despite Trump’s defiant tone, campaign finance expert Kate Belinski said to expect legal consequences for both Trump and his campaign – most likely in the form of a civil complaint before the Federal Election Commission.
Cohen has meanwhile pleaded guilty to two counts of violating campaign finance laws, along with six counts of fraud – identifying Trump as his co-conspirator when it came to the hush payments.
In interviews on Wednesday, Cohen’s own lawyer Lanny Davis took aim squarely at the president.
“He committed a crime,” Davis told CBS News. “If he were not president, he clearly would be indicted and jailed for that crime.”