Cohen testifies Trump told him to commit
crime by paying off women
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[August 22, 2018]
By Brendan Pierson
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald
Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen testified on Tuesday that
Trump had directed him to commit a crime by arranging payments ahead of
the 2016 presidential election to silence two women who said they had
affairs with Trump.
Cohen's voice cracked several times as he pleaded guilty to eight
criminal charges in federal court in Manhattan, including tax evasion,
bank fraud and campaign finance violations. Facing up to five years in
prison, the admissions were a dramatic change from Cohen's earlier
boasts that he was Trump's "fixer" and would "take a bullet" for the
president.
Most legal experts say a sitting president cannot be indicted for a
crime, but the Constitution allows Congress to impeach and remove a
president from office for "high crimes and misdemeanors."
Cohen’s accusation increases political pressure for Trump ahead of
November’s congressional elections where Democrats are trying to regain
control of the House of Representatives and Senate.
Cohen told Judge William Pauley III that "in coordination with, and at
the direction of, a candidate for federal office" he arranged payments
to two women for their silence "for the principal purpose of influencing
the election."
Adult-film star Stormy Daniels was given $130,000 and former Playboy
model Karen McDougal was paid $150,000.
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Cohen did not name Trump in court, but his lawyer, Lanny Davis, said
afterward that he was referring to the president.
"Today he (Cohen) 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 said in a
statement.
"If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn't
they be a crime for Donald Trump?" Davis said.
Trump has denied having affairs with the women. His lawyer Rudy Giuliani
has said the payments were made to spare Trump and his family
embarrassment and were unrelated to the campaign.
Trump did not mention Cohen at a rally in West Virginia hours later.
Giuliani lashed out at Cohen on Tuesday, calling him a "devious little
rat" and saying he had a history of lying.
"I think the president is absolutely in the clear," Giuliani told
Reuters. "The Cohen thing is over."
Under U.S. election law, campaign contributions, defined as things of
value given to a campaign to influence an election, must be disclosed. A
payment intended to silence allegations of an affair just before an
election could constitute a campaign contribution, which is limited to
$2,700 per person per election, some experts said.
Ross Garber, a lawyer who has represented four Republican governors in
impeachment proceedings, said Cohen’s statement “dramatically increases
the likelihood that, were Democrats to take control of the House in the
midterms, they would begin an impeachment investigation.”
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![](../images/082218pics/news_s33.jpg)
President Donald Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, leaves the
Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Court House in lower
Manhattan, New York City, U.S. August 21, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan
McDermid
![](../images/ads/current/richardson_lda_PREMIUM_081018.png)
"The odds of an investigation have definitely gone up,” Garber said.
MUELLER PROBE LED TO COHEN
The guilty pleas came in the same hour that a federal jury in
Alexandria, Virginia, convicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul
Manafort of eight charges of tax and bank fraud and failing to
disclose foreign bank accounts.
The Manafort conviction resulted from U.S. Special Counsel Robert
Mueller's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S.
election and possible coordination with the Trump campaign. The
charges against Manafort mostly predate his work on Trump's
campaign.
The probe also led to a referral from Mueller about Cohen to federal
prosecutors in New York who began their own probe of the longtime
Trump lawyer.
Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion and has called the Mueller
investigation a "witch hunt." Russia has denied meddling in the
election, although U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded Moscow
interfered. Mueller has also brought indictments against 12 Russian
intelligence officers in the hacking of Democratic National
Committee emails.
Cohen is scheduled for sentencing on Dec. 12 and his bail was set at
$500,000.
Davis told CNN he believed his client had information that would be
of interest to the special counsel, but did not give further
details.
Mueller's investigation, which began in May 2017, has resulted in
the indictment of more than 30 people and five guilty pleas.
(Reporting by Brendan Pierson and Jonathan Stempel; Additional
reporting by Jan Wolfe in New York and Karen Freifeld in Alexandria,
Virginia; Writing by Jonathan Oatis, Bill Rigby and Lisa Shumaker;
Editing by Noeleen Walder, Anthony Lin, Clive McKeef and Peter
Cooney)
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