President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty on Tuesday to violating federal campaign finance laws by arranging hush money payments to two women claiming to have had affairs with Trump.
Namely, Cohen admitted he had paid adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal off “at the direction” of then-candidate Trump in order to keep them quiet about the alleged affairs. Even though Cohen didn’t name President Trump or the two women directly, saying rather that he worked with “an unnamed candidate,” the timeline of events lines up with the aforementioned payments, Fox News writes.
All in all, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts, all related to campaign finances and should have faced up to 65 years in prison if not for his plea deal. He is set to be sentenced on December 12.
The President’s current lawyer Rudy Giuliani said “Cohen’s actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time,” and pointed out that the government’s charges made no mention of any wrongdoing against President Trump.
Lanny Davis, the attorney for Cohen, said his client pleading guilty fulfilled “the promise made on July 2 to put his family and country first and tell the truth about Donald Trump.”
“Today he 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. If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn’t they be a crime for Donald Trump?” Davis further noted.
The lawyer also told Fox News that Cohen was willing to cooperate with the Russia investigation so that the truth about the President came out.
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