The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
» Testimony could raise new legal issues to confront Trump,
Experts say several allegations could be relevant to president.
The public testimony to Congress on Wednesday morning by President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, could intensify the legal issues facing the president, legal experts said.
Legal experts said that several of the specific allegations by Cohen in his opening statement could be relevant to questions about whether Trump participated in a conspiracy to affect the 2016 election, violated campaign finance laws and obstructed justice in an effort to deflect investigations.
The experts cautioned that nothing Cohen said in his prepared remarks dramatically altered what is known about any legal case against the president. The relevant laws are complex, and the president’s lawyers have repeatedly argued that he did not violate them. And there is a Justice Department policy that asserts that a president may not be indicted while in office.
Still, Cohen’s testimony surfaced some new information that could be relevant to special counsel Robert Mueller or other prosecutors investigating cases touching on the president. Here are some examples:
Hush-money payments
Cohen described in detail how Trump personally reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000 hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to ensure her silence about an affair with Trump.
Richard L. Hasen, an election law professor at the University of California at Irvine School of Law, said prosecutors could use Cohen’s description of the payments from Trump to bolster a charge of campaign finance violations.
He noted, however, that campaign finance laws require proof that a person was willfully violating the laws.
What the president knew about WikiLeaks
In his testimony, Cohen described a moment when he said Roger Stone, one of Trump’s top political operatives, called the president to tell him about a conversation with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Legal experts cautioned that just proving that Trump knew about the WikiLeaks plans to leak damaging documents ahead of time would not necessarily prove that the president or his campaign were guilty of conspiracy. Prosecutors would have to prove that Trump and the campaign actively engaged in coordinating with Russians to distribute the documents or took other actions to affect the outcome of the election.
Trump Tower Moscow
Cohen disputed a report earlier this year from BuzzFeed that Trump explicitly directed him to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow — an allegation that could lead to criminal charges if true.
But Cohen added that the president implicitly instructed him to lie about the Moscow deal by repeatedly lying about it himself.
Legal experts said the law does not require prosecutors to prove that Trump explicitly told Cohen to lie to Congress. But they also said that any effort to obscure the timing of the negotiations over the construction project could be used as evidence of motive in efforts to build a conspiracy case against the president.
Knowledge of Trump Tower meeting
Cohen testified that he overheard a conversation that he believes proves that Trump knew about a campaign meeting between his top campaign aides and people connected with Russians.
“I recalled Don Jr. leaning over to his father and speaking in a low voice, which I could clearly hear, and saying: ‘The meeting is all set.’ I remember Mr. Trump saying, ‘OK good ... let me know,’” Cohen said.
The president’s knowledge of the Trump Tower meeting has been at the center of questions about whether his campaign conspired with Russians to affect the outcome of the presidential election. Legal experts said Cohen’s testimony could be relevant to any case that might be built against the president by Mueller.