Cohen pleads guilty, implicates president
ended with Mr. Cohen released on $500,000 bail, the lawyer wiped away tears as he gazed out a courthouse window. He left the building and headed straight for a black SUV with tinted windows. A couple of people outside chanted, “Lock him up!” as they recorded the scene with their phones.
Under federal law, expenditures to protect a candidate’s political fortunes can be construed as campaign contributions, subject to federal laws that bar donations from corporations and set limits on how much can be given.
“If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn’t they be a crime for Donald Trump?” Mr. Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, tweeted.
Mr. Cohen’s plea follows months of scrutiny from federal investigations and a falling-out with the president, for whom Mr. Cohen once said he would “take a bullet.”
The FBI raided Mr. Cohen’s hotel room, home and office in April and seized more than 4 million items. The search sought bank records, communications with Mr. Trump’s campaign and information on the payments to the two women.
According to prosecutors, the payment to Ms. McDougal was made through the parent company of the National Enquirer. Mr. Cohen made the payment to Ms. Daniels through his own company and then was reimbursed by Mr. Trump, he said.
Mr. Trump denied to reporters in April that he knew anything about Mr. Cohen’s payments to Ms. Daniels, but the explanations from him and Mr. Giuliani have shifted multiple times since.
The president has fumed publicly about the raid, branding it “a witch hunt,” an assault on attorney-client privilege and a politically motivated attack by enemies in the FBI. But privately he has worried about what information Mr. Cohen may have after working for the Trump Organization for a decade.
“Obviously it’s not good for Trump,” Sol Wisenberg, who conducted grand jury questioning of President Bill Clinton during the Whitewater investigation, said of the plea bargain.
“I’m assuming he’s not going to be indicted because he’s a sitting president,” Mr. Wisenberg added. “But it leads him closer to ultimate impeachment proceedings, particularly if the Democrats take back the House.”
The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has held that a president cannot be indicted while in office. Mr. Trump’s lawyers have said that Special Counsel Robert Mueller plans to adhere to that guidance, though Mr. Mueller’s office has never confirmed that. There would presumably be no bar against charging a president after he leaves the White House.
Mr. Mueller’s team, which is looking into Russian interference in the presidential election, came across some of the evidence against Mr. Cohen in the course of its investigation and referred the matter to federal prosecutors in New York.
Ms. Daniels said Tuesday that she and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, feel vindicated and look forward to apologies “from the people who claimed we were wrong.”
Nothing made public so far indicates Mr. Cohen has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, but Mr. Avenatti said he is certain that is happening.
Deputy U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami said that in addition to the campaign finance violations, Mr. Cohen failed to report more than $4 million in income between 2012 and 2016, including $1.3 million from his taxi medallion holdings.
Mr. Cohen also lied to a financial institution by failing to disclose more than $14 million in debt and obtaining a $500,000 home equity line of credit he wasn’t entitled to, Mr. Khuzami said. Mr. Cohen used that credit line to fund the Daniels payment, prosecutors said.
After making the hush money payments, Mr. Cohen submitted phony invoices to Mr. Trump’s company, ostensibly for services rendered in 2017, the prosecutor said.
Before the election, Mr. Cohen had been a trusted member of the Trump organization, working out of an office in Trump Tower next to one used by his boss. He raised millions for Mr. Trump’s campaign.
The president’s initial support for Mr. Cohen after the raid soon degenerated into a public feud, with Mr. Cohen hinting he might cut a deal with prosecutors.
When Mr. Cohen’s team produced a recording he had made of Mr. Trump discussing one of the hushmoney payments, Mr. Trump tweeted: “What kind of lawyer would tape a client? So sad!”