Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Trump reviles Cohen, alleges lies to get deal
He says funds to two women ‘came from me’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump lashed out at his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen a day after the onetime “fixer” implicated Trump in a campaign cover-up to buy the silence of two women who said they had sexual relationships with him.
Trump on Wednesday accused Cohen of making up “stories in order to get a ‘deal’” from federal prosecutors. Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations that the lawyer said he carried out in coordination with Trump.
The two payments were $ 130,000 to porn actress Stormy Daniels and, according to Cohen, an illegal contribution of $150,000, which was how much former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal received from the National Enquirer’s publisher to quash her story about an alleged affair.
“If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!” Trump tweeted Wednesday.
Trump also defended the payments in an interview with Fox & Friends host Ainsley Earhardt set to air today.
“In fact my first question when I heard about it was did they come out of the campaign, because that could be a little dicey,” Trump said in the interview. “And they didn’t come out of the campaign, and that’s big.”
The president said the two payments “came from me” and noted a May tweet in which he acknowledged paying Cohen a monthly retainer to stop “false and extortionist accusations.”
Regardless of how Cohen was reimbursed, the payments to the women could be regarded as an illegal campaign expenditure if the money was clearly meant to influence the 2016 election.
Trump, on Twitter, maintained otherwise, saying, “Michael Cohen plead (sic) guilty to two counts of campaign finance violations that are not a crime.”
He also said that “President [Barack] Obama had a big campaign finance violation and it was easily settled!”
Obama’s 2008 campaign was fined $ 375,000 by the Federal Election Commission for failing to file a series of 48-hour notices for around $ 1.8 million in campaign contributions in the closing weeks of the campaign, according to a document obtained by Politico.
Cohen’s admission to the crimes Tuesday in federal court in New York came on the same day that Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was convicted by a jury in Virginia of financial misdeeds. Manafort faces separate charges in September in the District of Columbia that include acting as a foreign agent.
The charges in the Cohen and Manafort cases resulted from the work of special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russia’s attempts to sway voters in the 2016 election, including hacking Democrats’ emails, whether the Trump campaign cooperated with the Russians, and if the president obstructed justice.
Trump denounced the probe again Wednesday on Twitter as a “witch hunt.”
Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, said Wednesday that “it’s my observation that Mr. Cohen has knowledge that would be of interest to the special counsel about the issue of whether Donald Trump, ahead of time, knew about the hacking of emails, which is a computer crime.”
Davis told MSNBC on Tuesday night that Cohen’s knowledge involves the “possibility of a conspiracy to collude and corrupt the American democracy system in the 2016 election.”
Cohen would not accept a pardon from Trump, if offered, Davis said. “Not only is he not hoping for it, he would not accept a pardon. He considers a pardon from somebody who has acted so corruptly as president to be something he would never accept,” Davis told NBC on Wednesday.
Trump weighed in on Twitter, taking his shot at Cohen and praising Manafort.
“I feel very badly for Paul Manafort and his wonderful family. ‘Justice’ took a 12 year old tax case, among other things, applied tremendous pressure on him and, unlike Michael Cohen, he refused to ‘break’ — make up stories in order to get a ‘deal.’ Such respect for a brave man!” Trump said in a tweet.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, meanwhile, labeled accusations that Trump had lied about the Cohen payments “a ridiculous accusation,” but did not provide a counternarrative of when the president had learned about the payments. She referred questions to outside counsel.
Trump has insisted that he found out about the payments only after they were made, despite Davis’ release of a taped conversation from September 2016 in which Trump and Cohen can be heard discussing a deal to pay McDougal for her story about a 2006 affair that she says she had with Trump.
“The president has done nothing wrong. There are no charges against him,” Sanders repeated.
Cohen initially denied making the payments to McDougal and Daniels — or that Trump had any knowledge of them. But he changed his account as prosecutors closed in.
In a deal with federal prosecutors, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight charges, including tax evasion. He could get four to five years in prison at his sentencing Dec. 12.
Manafort was convicted of eight felony counts Tuesday, including charges of filing false tax returns and failing to report foreign bank accounts. Prosecutors will decide whether to retry him on 10 other charges for which the jurors could not reach a consensus.
Manafort was a well-connected Republican consultant and lobbyist who prosecutors say made $ 60 million in foreign money working for Russia- backed politicians in Ukraine. He was Trump’s campaign chairman for months during the GOP nomination battle in 2016.
Trump said Tuesday that the legal developments had nothing to do with Russian election interference and that he felt “badly for both” men. At a rally in West Virginia on Tuesday night, he focused on developments on trade, taxes, North Korea and his plans for a space force.
“Where is the collusion?” he asked.
IMPEACHMENT TALK
The accusation from Cohen has inflamed public debate about Trump’s impeachment. Democratic leaders have sought to downplay the possibility of impeachment ahead of the midterm elections, fearing overreach that could cause Republicans to rally around the president.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell brushed past reporters Wednesday without answering questions about Cohen or the possibility that the lawyer’s accusations about an illegal campaign cover-up are grounds for impeachment proceedings. GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan, who is away from Washington, had no direct response either.
Trump’s strongest supporters have taken the view that, absent evidence of collusion with Russia to influence the 2016 election, there is just no case for impeachment.
Jerry Falwell, president of Liberty University and a Trump confidant, shrugged off the legal developments.
“Anything short of the campaign actually conspiring with Russia to try to impact the election, anything short of that will just be background noise,” Falwell said.
Doug Deason, a Texas donor and Trump supporter, said: “In no way, shape or form did we think we were hiring St. Trump to repair the morals of the country.”
Even those few Republicans who have been willing to speak out about Trump are treading carefully in the wake of Cohen’s guilty plea.
“I don’t think I’ve witnessed anything like I’ve witnessed over the last year and a half. Probably, the American people haven’t in modern times,” said retiring Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee. But he stopped short of passing further judgment on the Cohen case.
“I’m sure there’s going to be other revelations that come up,” he said, “and I think we ought to just let the process work.”
Democratic donor Tom Steyer’s Twitter feed Wednesday called for others to join his campaign to impeach the president. “How much more corruption do we need to see?” he tweeted.
Ben Wikler, Washington director for the liberal advocacy group MoveOn, said he wants Democrats in Congress to join organizations like his that have been demanding impeachment for several weeks.
“Now that Trump’s personal lawyer has implicated him in a crime, not supporting impeachment feels like a dodge,” Wikler said. “Impeachment doesn’t have to be the core of your message to the electorate, but it’s not something you can bury your head in the sand and ignore.”
But Democratic leader U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi said that unless other information emerges, impeaching Trump is “not a priority” for Democrats if they regain control of the House this fall. Pelosi said she prefers to see Democrats work to ensure Mueller can finish his investigation.
“If and when the information emerges about that, we’ll see,” Pelosi said Tuesday as the news about Cohen was unfolding.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer used the developments to press the Democrats’ case against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, saying Republicans should hit “pause” on their push toward confirmation.
He expressed concern about Kavanaugh’s unwillingness to indict a sitting president, as is Justice Department policy, or subpoena a president to testify. Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing is set for Sept. 4.
“This Republican Congress has done almost nothing to check this president,” Schumer said. “We cannot allow the Supreme Court to be captured as well.”