Pressure mounting on Trump
● President on the defensive as his former associates face prison time
Donald Trump is facing a growing threat to his presidency after his former personal lawyer implicated the US leader in a cover-up to buy the silence of women who had sexual relations with him. Mr Trump accused Michael Cohen of making up “stories” about campaign finance violations to which he pleaded guilty.
Donald Trump has criticised his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, a day after his former “fixer” implicated the US president in a campaign cover-up to buy the silence of women who said they had sexual relationships with him.
As he faced a growing threat to his presidency, Mr Trump accused Cohen of making up “stories in order to get a ‘deal’” from US federal prosecutors.
Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations which he said he carried out in co-ordination with Mr Trump.
Mr Trump tweeted: “If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!”
Cohen’s admission to the crimes in a federal court in New York came at nearly the same moment Mr Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was convicted by a jury in Virginia of financial offences. Manafort faces separate charges in September in the District of Columbia which include acting as a foreign agent.
The double whammy followed inquiries by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russia’s attempts to sway voters in the 2016 election.
He is examining the hacking of Democrats’ emails, whether the Trump campaign may have co-operated, and if the president himself obstructed justice.
Mr Trump denounced the investigation again on Twitter as a “witch hunt”.
Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, said his client has information “that would be of interest” to the special counsel.
Mr Davis said Cohen is not looking for a presidential pardon.
He said: “My observation is that the topics relating to hacking and the crime of hacking… that there are subjects that Michael Cohen could address that would be of interest to the special counsel.”
Mr Trump soon weighed in on Twitter, taking his shot at Cohen and praising Manafort, saying with regard to the latter he has “such respect for a brave man!”
Manafort, Mr Trump wrote, had “tremendous pressure on him and, unlike Michael Cohen, he refused to ‘break.’”
However, there is no doubt that Cohen’s acknowledgement of a co-ordinated payoff scheme puts Mr Trump’s presidency on the defensive. David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor who is not involved in the case, said: “It’s going to be hard for the president to try to discredit all this. It’s circling him.” Manafort and Cohen played prominent roles in Mr Trump’s political rise in 2016.
Cohen said once he would take a bullet for Mr Trump, and was intimately familiar with Trump’s personal, business and political dealing for more than a decade. He released a secretly recorded audio tape of Mr Trump dis- cussing a payout made via a third party to model Karen Mcdougal who claims she had a sexual relationship with Mr Trump in 2006.
The “fixer” initially denied making the payments to the women – Ms Mcdougal, and adult film actress Stormy Daniels – or that Mr Trump had any knowledge of them.
However, he changed his story as prosecutors closed in.
The payments to the women could be regarded as an illegal campaign expenditure if the money was clearly meant to influence the 2016 election.
Mr Trump, on Twitter, maintained otherwise, saying: “Michael Cohen plead (sic) guilty to two counts of campaign finance violations that are not a crime.”
Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts, including tax evasion. He could get about four to five years in prison when he is sentenced on 12 December.
Manafort was convicted of eight felony counts, including charges of filing false tax returns and failing to report foreign bank accounts. Prosecutors will decide whether to retry him on ten other charges.