Cohen pleads guilty
President’s former fixer admits negotiating for Moscow Trump tower.
Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, admitted in court Thursday that he engaged in negotiations to build a tower in Moscow for Trump well into the 2016 presidential campaign, far later than previously known.
Cohen said he discussed the status of the project with Trump on more than three occasions and briefed Trump’s family members about it. He also admitted he agreed to travel to Russia for meetings on the project.
Shortly after Cohen’s guilty plea in U.S. District Court, Trump said his former fixer was once again lying in order to get a reduced sentence for the crimes he pleaded guilty to earlier this year. Under the earlier plea agreement, Cohen faced four or five years in prison.
“He was convicted of various things unrelated to us,” Trump said, adding, “He’s a weak person and what he’s trying to do is get a reduced sentence.”
Trump made his comments to reporters as he left Washington for the Group of 20 meeting in Buenos Aires.
At a surprise federal court hearing in Manhattan, Cohen admitted that he had minimized Trump’s role in efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow and gave the false impression to Congress that the negotiations had ended in January 2016, just before the Iowa caucuses.
In fact, Cohen admitted, the negotiations continued for at least another five months, until June, which was just after Trump had clinched the Republican nomination. Cohen also admitted he agreed in early May to travel to Russia for meetings on the project and that he spoke to Trump about it despite telling congressional investigators that he had not done so. The trips never happened.
Cohen concluded his statement in court, saying: “I made these misstatements to be consistent with Individual 1’s political messaging and out of loyalty to Individual 1.”
“Individual 1” is Trump, officials said.
Cohen’s new guilty plea in U.S. District Court marks the first time the office of the special counsel, Robert Mueller, has charged Cohen, 52.
He had already pleaded guilty to eight charges, including campaign finance, bank and tax crimes, brought by federal prosecutors in Manhattan. He is to be sentenced for those crimes in two weeks.
It was just three months ago that Cohen, pleading guilty for the first time, stood up in a different Manhattan courtroom and accused Trump of directing hush-money payments during the 2016 campaign to conceal potential sex scandals. Those payments formed the basis of the campaign finance charges against Cohen.
Although Cohen’s first plea agreement did not include a formal cooperation deal, he had sat for repeated interviews with Mueller’s investigators.
He also offered assistance to the office prosecuting him, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, according to a person briefed on the matter.
The Southern District said last month in a court filing that it was continuing to investigate “Michael Cohen and others.” While the filing did not identify other suspects, the prosecutors are expected to examine whether people in Trump’s circle were aware of Cohen’s criminal conduct.
In the Southern District case, Cohen already faced a potential prison sentence of about four to five years under the nonbinding federal sentencing guidelines, according to his plea agreement. It is unclear what additional time he could face with the new plea.
The special counsel identified Cohen’s false statements to Congress in testimony Cohen provided to the House and Senate Intelligence committees, which have been conducting their own investigations into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Thursday the committee had made additional criminal referrals to Mueller, but he did not offer specifics.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Cohen’s plea only added urgency for congressional investigators who plan to begin an inquiry into Trump’s foreign business dealings when Democrats take control of the House in January.
“If the president and his associates were being untruthful in real time as they were pursuing this deal, what does it mean now on how much we can rely on what the president is saying about any continuing Russian financial interest?” Schiff told reporters Thursday.
He said the committee would seek to interview Cohen again, along with other witnesses Democrats on the committee think were also “untruthful” in their testimonies.