Cohen implicates Trump in court
President’s former lawyer pleads guilty to eight violations
NEW YORK» President Donald Trump’s former longtime attorney and his onetime campaign chairman were separately declared guilty Tuesday of eight crimes each, a dramatic collision of two investigations that intensified the legal and political pressure on the embattled president.
In a guilty plea entered in a Manhattan federal courthouse, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen implicated Trump directly in some of his acts, saying that he arranged to pay off two women to keep their stories of alleged affairs with Trump from becoming public before Election Day — in coordination with the thencandidate.
At nearly the same moment, a jury in Alexandria, Va., convicted former Trump campaign boss Paul Manafort on eight of the 18 tax and bankfraud charges against him and said it was deadlocked on the 10 others.
Tuesday’s dual courtroom dramas played out on cable TV in an extraordinary split screen. Five
Trump associates have now pleaded guilty or been charged with criminal wrongdoing since Trump took office, including his former national security adviser, his deputy campaign chairman and a former campaign policy adviser.
In a statement, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said: “There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the president in the government’s charges against Cohen. It is clear that, as the prosecutor noted, Cohen’s actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time.”
Cohen — long the selfprofessed “fixer” for Trump — pleaded guilty after prosecutors warned that he risked more than a dozen years in prison, according to a person familiar with the matter. Although Cohen’s plea deal did not include a promise to cooperate with investigators against any other people, his description of his acts implicated not just himself but also Trump and others.
Lanny Davis, an attorney for Cohen, said in television interviews Tuesday night that Cohen has information that would be of interest to Robert Mueller and is happy to share it with the special counsel.
Davis told MSNBC that those topics include the “computer crime of hacking” and “whether or not Mr. Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on.”
Mueller “will have a great deal of interest in what Michael has to say,” he added.
Earlier on Tuesday, Cohen pleaded guilty to five counts of tax evasion, one count of making a false statement to a bank and two campaign finance viola- tions: willfully causing an illegal corporate contribution and making an excessive campaign contribution.
The longtime attorney for Trump faces a recommended prison sentence of 46 to 63 months, according to court filings.
Cohen told the court that “in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office,” he and the chief executive of a media company worked in the summer of 2016 to keep an individual from publicly disclosing information that could harm the candidate. And he said he worked “in coordination” with the same candidate to make a payment to a second individual.
“I participated in this conduct ... for the principal purpose of influencing the election,” he said.
The details he described matched payments made to former Playboy model Karen McDougal and to adultfilm star Stormy Daniels. Both have alleged that they had sexual encounters with Trump, which he has denied.
In August 2016, McDougal was paid $150,000 by AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer, for the rights to her story, which the company then shelved.
In October 2016, Cohen used a home-equity line of credit to finance a $130,000 payment to Daniels.
Trump had previously denied knowledge of the Daniels payoff, and Giuliani said Trump did not know about it at the time. But Cohen said Tuesday that Trump repaid him the money for the purpose of influencing the campaign.
According to court filings, Cohen used a line of credit for the Daniels payment that he obtained through a fraudulent loan application in 2015.
In January 2017 — after Trump’s election — he sought reimbursement for the Daniels payment from Trump.
Unnamed executives at the Trump Organization directed that Cohen be paid $420,000, which would reimburse him for his payment, along with additional money for taxes and expenses and a $60,000 bonus, filings said.
One executive told another to falsely describe the fees as legal expenses and describe the first two monthly payments as a “retainer,” according to court papers.
A Trump Organization spokesman declined to comment.
Court papers also detailed extensive behindthe-scenes efforts by a person matching the description of AMI chairman David Pecker to try to stop negative stories about Trump from surfacing.
AMI officials did not respond to requests to comment.
Asked by Judge William Pauley III whether he knew what he did was wrong and illegal, Cohen said yes.
“Today, he stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election,” Davis added. “If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn’t they be a crime for Donald Trump?”
According to court filings, Cohen failed to report $4 million in income from 2012 to 2016 to avoid paying taxes on money he earned, mostly through interest and taxi rental payments.
Special-counsel investigators have indicated to federal law enforcement officials that the office does not require Cohen’s cooperation for its inquiry, according to two people familiar with their work.