Two steps closer to an indictment
Federal prosecutors today came two giant steps closer to an indictment of President Trump for criminal violations of the federal finance law, as well as for conspiracy against the United States for entering into a corrupt arrangement with the Russians to improperly influence the 2016 presidential election.
Maybe they will be temporarily prevented from filing an actual indictment of Trump for at least the next two years, because present Department of Justice frowns on the indictment of a sitting President.
But sooner or later the indictment of Trump will be filed, based in large measure on Michael Cohen’s testimony and supporting documents.
At his sentencing today to three years in prison and over $ 1 million in fines, Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney and fixer made it absolutely clear that, while he accepted personal responsibility for violating the federal campaign laws and lying to Congress, he was acting on the directions of the man who is now President of the United States.
The violations were tied to the undisclosed payments Cohen made to two women — adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal — just before the November 2016 presidential election.
Cohen’s allocution at his sentencing left no room for doubt it was Trump who ordered the payments, and the then-candidate’s motivation was to violate the law by preventing knowledge of extramarital affairs from becoming public, at least before Election Day.
At the sentencing, Judge William Pauley summed up the importance of Cohen’s — and by implication, Trump’s — violations: “Our democratic institutions depend on the honesty of our citizenry in dealing with the government.”
The second shoe to drop was disclosure of the non-prosecution agreement between federal prosecutors and AMI, owner of the National Enquirer, which admitted it made its $150,000 payment “in concert with” the Trump presidential campaign, to ensure McDougal did not make public her allegations about Trump before the 2016 presidential election.
This means prosecutors have corroboration of Cohen’s testimony against Trump from a second reliable source along with the trail of documents following the money through a web of companies designed to hide the payments. It also gives Congress a neatly wrapped Christmas present labeled “Article I of the Impeachment of Donald J. Trump.”
In other words, the federal prosecutors now have the goods on Trump. If he’s as smart as he says he is, he knows it.
McCallion is a former Department of Justice special assistant attorney general and a practicing attorney in New York. He represented Yulia Tymoshenko, ex-Ukraine prime minister, in her civil RICO case against Paul Manafort and others .