NATION/WORLD
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
East Oregonian
Page 7A
Two in Trump circle guilty on same day
Cohen pleads
to felonies for
pay to porn
star; Manafort
convicted for
financial crimes
By ZEKE MILLER,
JONATHAN LEMIRE
and DARLENE
SUPERVILLE
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Pres-
ident Donald Trump con-
fronted one of the most
perilous moments of his
presidency Tuesday after
two one-time members
of his inner circle simul-
taneously were labeled
“guilty” of criminal charges.
Although Trump largely
ignored the jarring back-to-
back blows at a campaign
rally in West Virginia, ques-
tions mounted about his
possible legal exposure and
political future.
In a split screen for the
history books, Trump’s for-
mer campaign chairman
Paul Manafort was con-
victed of financial crimes
at nearly the same moment
Trump’s former personal
attorney Michael Cohen
pleaded guilty to a series
of felonies, including cam-
paign finance violations
that the lawyer said he car-
ried out in coordination with
Trump.
With two men who played
prominent roles on the pres-
ident’s campaign convicted
of multiple criminal charges,
the investigations circled
ever closer to Trump. But
for all that, Trump spent an
hour-plus rally in Charleston
on Tuesday night painting
a rosy view of his accom-
plishments in office, ticking
off developments on trade,
taxes, North Korea and even
his plans for a Space Force.
“What we’re doing is
winning,” Trump told cheer-
ing supporters.
“Where is the collu-
sion?” he demanded, under-
scoring that Manafort’s
crimes had occurred before
he became involved with
the Trump campaign. “You
know they’re still looking
for collusion.”
The president did say
he felt “badly for both”
men, but he largely ignored
Cohen’s guilty pleas to eight
felonies.
Manafort
was
con-
victed Tuesday in Virginia
on charges brought by spe-
cial counsel Robert Muel-
ler, who is investigating
Russian interference in the
2016 election and potential
obstruction of justice. Cohen
pleaded guilty in New York,
saying he and Trump had
arranged the payment of
hush money to porn star
Stormy Daniels and a for-
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he steps off Air Force One, Tuesday in Charleston, W.Va.
AP Photos
LEFT: Michael Cohen, former personal lawyer to President Donald Trump, leaves federal court after reaching a
plea agreement in New York on Tuesday. Right: Paul Manafort was booked into the William G. Truesdale Adult
Detention Center on July 12.
mer Playboy model to influ-
ence the election.
It is the Cohen case that
places Trump in the most
jeopardy, legal experts said,
as the longtime personal
“fixer” acknowledged his
role in a scheme to pay off
women who accused the
future president of sexual
misconduct.
“It’s going to be hard for
the president to try to dis-
credit all this. It’s circling
him,” said David Weinstein,
a former federal prosecutor
who is not involved in the
case.
Trump has shown an
uncanny ability to shake off
a relentless stream of accusa-
tions and jolting statements
that provoked outrage. His
loyal base of supporters has
stayed with him despite his
effort to blame “both sides”
for the deadly violence
between white nationalists
and anti-racist protesters in
Charlottesville,
Virginia,
for one, and his refusal to
side with the U.S. intelli-
gence services over Russia’s
Vladimir Putin in Helsinki
last month, among other
controversies.
Case in point, the crowd
in West Virginia loudly
chanted Trump’s campaign
staples “Drain the swamp!”
and “Lock her up!” despite
the fresh corruption convic-
tions and looming prison
sentences for his former
advisers.
Manafort’s
conviction
served as a vindication of
Mueller’s work as inves-
tigators continue to probe
potential misdeeds by the
president and those in his
orbit. Mueller’s team also
had referred evidence in the
Cohen case to federal prose-
cutors in New York.
Trump attorney Rudy
Giuliani sought to cast the
blame solely on Cohen in
a Tuesday statement, say-
ing: “There is no allegation
of any wrongdoing against
the President in the govern-
ment’s charges against Mr.
Cohen.”
Trump’s legal team
has also been engaged in
a monthslong negotiation
with Mueller’s team about a
potential sit-down with the
president, but has objected
to the scope of the questions.
In a separate courtroom
Tuesday, prosecutors and
defense attorneys for for-
mer Trump national secu-
rity adviser Michael Flynn
agreed to postpone his sen-
tencing after he pleaded
guilty to lying to the FBI
about his contacts with a
Russian official, in a sign his
cooperation was still needed
in the Mueller probe.
The afternoon of explo-
sive legal developments
comes as the White House is
refocusing itself around the
upcoming midterms and as
Trump allies like Steve Ban-
non seek to frame the elec-
tion as a referendum on the
potential impeachment of
the president. Trump confi-
dants have long argued that
the president’s fate in such
a scenario would ultimately
be more a matter of politics
than law.
Of Cohen’s plea, Ban-
non argued Tuesday that it
“takes away the argument
from those who are telling
the president it’s not that bad
if he loses the House. This
now becomes more than
ever a national election on
the issue of impeachment.”
The president seemed to
convey the stakes in Charles-
ton, warning the crowd that
“You aren’t just voting for
a candidate. You’re voting
for which party controls the
House and which party con-
trols the Senate.”
Trump confidants reas-
serted late Tuesday that it
is the White House posi-
tion that a president can-
not be indicted, referring to
a 2000 opinion of the Jus-
tice Department’s Office of
Legal Counsel, which pro-
vides legal advice and guid-
ance to executive branch
agencies. Trump’s lawyers
have said Mueller plans to
adhere to that guidance,
though Mueller’s office has
never independently con-
firmed that. There would
presumably be no bar
against charging a president
after he or she departs the
White House.
Michael Avenatti, a law-
yer pressing a civil case
against Trump for Daniels,
who has said she had sex
with the president, tweeted
Tuesday that the resolution
of the criminal case against
Cohen “should also permit
us to proceed with an expe-
dited deposition of Trump
under oath about what he
knew, when he knew it, and
what he did about it.”
The Supreme Court in
1997, ruling in a sexual
harassment lawsuit brought
by Paula Jones, held that a
sitting president could be
made to answer questions as
part of a lawsuit. That rul-
ing did not directly address
whether a president could
be subpoenaed to testify in a
criminal investigation.
Despite blustery public
denials, the fate of Manafort
and Cohen has worried the
president’s inner circle.
For many around Trump,
Cohen has represented a
greater threat than even the
Russia investigation, draw-
ing from his decade of work-
ing as the then-celebrity real
estate developer’s fixer. An
FBI raid on Cohen’s New
York office and hotel room
in April rattled the president,
who has complained pub-
licly about what he felt was
government overreach while
privately worrying about
what material Cohen may
have had after working for
the Trump Organization for
a decade.
Those in Trump’s orbit,
including Giuliani, have
steadily ratcheted up attacks
on Cohen, suggesting he
was untrustworthy and lying
about what he knew about
Trump’s business dealings.
When Cohen’s team pro-
duced a recording that the
former fixer had made of
Trump discussing a payment
to silence a woman about an
alleged affair, Giuliani sought
to impugn Cohen’s credibil-
ity and question his loyalty.
Trump stewed for weeks
over the media coverage of
the Manafort trial. Though
the proceedings were not
connected to Russian elec-
tion interference, Trump has
seethed to confidants that he
views the Manafort charges
as “a warning shot” from
Mueller.
As he watched the court-
room proceedings, he told
confidents that he feared his
eldest son, Donald Trump
Jr., could at some point be
the one on trial, according
to two people familiar with
his thinking but not autho-
rized to discuss private
conversations.
“What matters is that a
jury found that the facts pre-
sented to them by the special
prosecutor warranted a con-
viction of someone who sur-
rounds the president,” Wein-
stein said.
How the case of former Trump fixer Michael Cohen went down
WASHINGTON (AP) — Pres-
ident Donald Trump’s longtime
fixer, Michael Cohen, once said
he’d take a bullet for his boss, but
on Tuesday he pleaded guilty to
eight felonies and described pay-
offs to women at Trump’s direc-
tion before the 2016 election.
The development marked the
pivot point in which Cohen went
from ally for years to a potential
threat to Trump. Under the agree-
ment, Cohen, 51, could get four
to five years in prison at sentenc-
ing Dec. 12. His account appears
to implicate Trump in a crime,
though whether — or when — a
president can be prosecuted is in
dispute.
Key moments in how it all went
down:
2016: Trump is a Republican
presidential candidate and even-
tually the party’s nominee. At
Trump’s direction, Cohen says,
he and Trump arrange to pay
adult film actress Stormy Dan-
iels $130,000 and former Playboy
model Karen McDougal $150,000
to influence the election — pre-
sumably to keep their allegations
of sexual encounters private. In
entering the plea Tuesday, Cohen
did not specifically name the two
women or even Trump, recount-
ing instead that he worked with
an “unnamed candidate.” But the
amounts and the dates all line up
with the payments made to Dan-
iels and McDougal.
Nov. 4, 2016: The Wall Street
Journal reports that the com-
pany that owns the National
Enquirer agreed to pay $150,000
to McDougal for her story of an
affair with Trump in 2006, the
year after Trump married Melania
Trump. In a statement, American
Media Inc., which is supportive of
Trump’s campaign, says it didn’t
buy McDougal’s story but two
years’ worth of columns. White
House spokeswoman Hope Hicks
denies there had been an affair.
Nov. 8, 2016: Trump defeats
Democrat Hillary Clinton in an
upset.
Jan. 12, 2018: The Wall
Street Journal reports that Cohen
arranged a $130,000 payment to
Daniels a month before the elec-
tion as part of an agreement that
barred her from publicly discuss-
ing their alleged 2006 affair. Trump
married Melania Trump in 2005.
Cohen says Trump “vehemently
denies any such occurrence.”
Feb. 13, 2018: Cohen says
he personally paid Daniels and
that he received no reimburse-
ment from the Trump Organi-
zation or the campaign. Neither
was “party to the transaction,”
he says. Cohen says later the
money came from a home equity
line to an account for a personal
corporation.
March 2018: McDougal files
a lawsuit against American Media
Inc., seeking to end a contract with
the company. She tells CNN that
the company bought her rights to
tell her story under false circum-
stances and then killed the story to
protect Trump. She also claims she
had a lengthy affair with him in
2006. American Media says she’s
been free to tell her story since
2016. Through representatives,
Trump denies the affair.
April 5, 2018: Speaking to
reporters aboard Air Force One,
Trump denies knowing about the
payment to Daniels. Asked why
Cohen made the payment, Trump
says, “You’ll have to ask Michael
Cohen.”
April 9, 2018: The FBI raids
Cohen’s office, seizing records on
topics including a $130,000 pay-
ment to Daniels. Furious, Trump
calls the raid a “disgrace” and that
the FBI “broke into” his lawyer’s
office. He also tweets that “Attor-
ney-client privilege is dead!” The
raid is overseen by the U.S. attor-
ney’s office in Manhattan and is
based in part on a referral from
special counsel Robert Muel-
ler, says Cohen’s lawyer, Stephen
Ryan. Cohen had said he took out
a personal line of credit on his
home to pay Daniels days before
the 2016 election without Trump’s
knowledge.
April 26, 2018: Trump
acknowledges that Cohen repre-
sented him in the “crazy Stormy
Daniels deal.” He tells “Fox &
Friends” that “there were no cam-
paign funds going into this which
would have been a problem.”
May 2, 2018: Trump attorney
Rudy Giuliani tells “Hannity” that
the payment to Daniels had been
“funneled through a law firm, and
the president repaid it.” He later
says that proves the payments
didn’t violate campaign finance
laws. White House press secre-
tary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says
Trump “eventually learned” about
the payments.
May 4, 2018: Reporters remind
Trump of his previous denial of
the payments to Daniels. The pres-
ident blasts the media for focusing
on “crap” stories like the Daniels
matter and claims that “virtually
everything” reported about the
payments had been wrong. Dan-
iels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti,
tweets, “How stupid do they think
all of us are?”
July 20, 2018: People familiar
with the investigation say Cohen
secretly recorded Trump dis-
cussing a potential payment for
McDougal two months before the
election. Giuliani says the pay-
ment was never made and that
the brief recording shows Trump
did nothing wrong. In it, Cohen
is heard saying that he needed to
start a company “for the transfer
of all of that info regarding our
friend David,” a possible refer-
ence to David Pecker, Trump’s
friend and president of American
Media Inc.
When Cohen begins to discuss
financing, Trump interrupts him
and asks, “What financing?”
“We’ll have to pay,” Cohen
responds.
The audio is muffled, but
Trump can be heard saying “pay
with cash,” though it isn’t clear if
he is suggesting to pay with cash
or not to pay with cash. Cohen
immediately says, “No, no, no”
and Trump can then be heard say-
ing, “check.”
Aug. 21, 2018: Cohen pleads
guilty to campaign-finance vio-
lations and other charges, saying
he and Trump arranged the pay-
ment of hush money to Daniels
and McDougal to influence the
election.