Trump’s payment explanations shift
US president says he ‘never directed’ former lawyer Cohen to ‘break the law’
The sentencing of Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, brought a perilous investigation into the president’s campaign one step closer to the Oval Office.
Though Cohen broke down during his sentencing hearing Wednesday, Trump remained uncharacteristically quiet, his Twitter feed still while he ignored questions about his former attorney at a White House event. But Trump has been far from silent during the months-long Cohen saga, with the president’s explanations frequently shifting as his legal exposure grew.
Trump has gone from denying knowledge of any payments to women who claim to have been mistresses to apparent acknowledgement of those hush money settlements — though he claims they wouldn’t be illegal in any case.
But both Cohen and federal prosecutors said the payments were made at Trump’s direction to fend off damage to his White House bid, an apparent campaign finance violation. Trump insisted yesterday he “never directed” Cohen “to break the law.”
In a trio of tweets yesterday morning, Trump added that Cohen only admitted guilt to the charges, “of which he probably was not guilty,” in order to “embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence.”
Trump’s tweets came a day after Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for his guilty pleas to charges brought by federal prosecutors in New York and special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating potential coordination between Russia and Trump campaign-related figures.
Cohen’s crimes included a range of financial violations, as well as lying to Congress and playing a key and illegal role in keeping two women quiet about purported affairs with Trump, which constituted violations of campaignfinance law. The White House has denied Trump had sex with either woman.
Prosecutors have said that the payments, which went to adult star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, were made “in coordination with and at the direction of” Trump.