Tag: Kohen

New York (CNN)Federal prosecutors said for the first time Friday that Michael Cohen acted at the direction of Donald Trump when the former fixer committed two election-related crimes during the 2016 presidential campaign, as special counsel Robert Mueller outlined a previously undisclosed set of overtures and contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian nationals. Those revelations came in a set of court filings in which federal prosecutors in New York said Cohen should receive a "substantial" prison sentence of roughly four years for tax fraud and campaign-finance crimes, and as Mueller's office accused the President's former attorney of lying about his contacts with Russia. Mueller's disclosures also exposed deeper entanglements than previously known between Trump, his campaign apparatus and the Russian government, including that a Russian national who claimed to be well-connected in Moscow spoke with Cohen in 2015 and offered "political synergy" with the Trump campaign. In August, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight federal crimes after being charged by Manhattan federal prosecutors. In one instance, Cohen spoke in November 2015 to a Russian national who offered "synergy on a government level" to the Trump presidential campaign and "repeatedly proposed" a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to court papers. Mueller's sentencing memo also provided the first explanation of the Trump Tower Moscow project's relevance to Russia's interference during the 2016 campaign. According to the special counsel, Cohen's false statements to investigators about the Trump Tower Moscow project "obscured the fact that the Moscow Project was a lucrative business opportunity that sought, and likely required, the assistance of the Russian government." That Cohen continued to work on the Trump Tower Moscow project -- and discuss it with Trump -- was material to both the ongoing congressional and special counsel investigations, prosecutors said, noting in particular that "it occurred at a time of sustained efforts by the Russian government to interfere with the U.S. presidential election." "The defendant amplified his false statements by releasing and repeating his lies to the public, including to other potential witnesses," prosecutors wrote. In the New York federal prosecutors' case, the sentencing guidelines call for a term of 51 to 63 months in prison, and prosecutors on Friday asked the court to "impose a substantial term of imprisonment, one that reflects a modest downward variance from the applicable guidelines range."

The Trump campaign was offered “political synergy” from Russia as early as 2015, according to evidence provided by the president’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. In one of two sentencing documents filed by prosecutors in relation to Cohen, who has pleaded guilty to two separate charges, prosecutors revealed the 52-year-old said he was contacted by someone claiming to represent the Russian authorities. “In or around November 2015, Cohen received the contact information for, and spoke with, a Russian national who claimed to be a ‘trusted person’ in the Russian Federation who could offer the campaign ‘political synergy’ and ‘synergy on a government level’,” said a filing by special counsel Robert Mueller. The document filed by Mr Mueller suggests that Cohen has provided substantial information to the special counsel’s office. Mr Mueller said Cohen went to “significant lengths” to assist their investigation. Mr Mueller said Mr Cohen had assisted in four specific areas – providing information about his own contacts with Russian interests during the campaign, providing information concerning certain “discrete Russia-related matters” core to the investigation, giving information concerning his contacts with persons connected to the White House during the 2017–2018 time period and describing the circumstances of preparing and circulating his response to the congressional enquiries. In a separate document filed by investigators looking into Cohen’s payment of hush money to Stormy Daniels and other women on the eve of the 2016 election, prosecutors said the lawyer had not been cooperative and deserved to serve a “substantial amount of jail time”. “Cohen did provide information to law enforcement, including information that assisted the special counsel’s office (SCO) in ongoing matters, as described in the SCO’s memorandum to the court, and the office agrees that this is a factor to be considered by the court,” wrote prosecutors in New York. “But Cohen’s description of those efforts is overstated in some respects and incomplete in others. For these reasons, the office respectfully requests that this court impose a substantial term of imprisonment.” Trump, who has called Mueller’s investigation a “witch hunt“ and repeatedly denied wrongdoing, said earlier this week that Cohen had lied about Trump’s business dealings in Russia to get reduced jail time.

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—Michael D. Cohen decided on Tuesday to plead guilty to a host of financial crimes shortly after Rudolph Giuliani offered to be his lawyer on a pro-bono basis, Giuliani confirmed. In an interview with Jake Tapper, on CNN, the former New York City mayor said that he had offered to give Cohen “the kind of defense that only I am capable of giving.” “The minute I said that, the blood drained from his face and he was out of there like a shot,” Giuliani said. “It was the strangest thing I’d ever seen.” Giuliani gave CNN viewers a snapshot of what his defense of Cohen would have been like. “I would have said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client is guilty,’ ” he said. “ ‘Guilty as sin! But “guilty” rhymes with “not guilty,” and that’s what I’m asking you to find him today.’ I’m telling you, Jake, it would have been a killer.”

We begin the hour by sorting through the week with NPR's Ron Elving, our senior editor and correspondent at NPR. ELVING: Well, you know, it seemed like there was Mueller news pretty much every day this week, Scott. So they're planning to exchange visits to each other's capital city next year. SIMON: We have no idea if the Mueller probe will be over or not though, right? And if sustained over the entire year, this will be a banner year, indeed, for the American economy. ELVING: It could be, indirectly, because Facebook was a principal platform for a lot of the Russian disinformation campaign during 2016. So Facebook had the biggest one-day loss in market history. SIMON: Did we, maybe without noting it, pass a corner this week in which the Russia investigation - Mueller, Michael Cohen, all of that - has gone from examining if there was obstruction of justice to actual collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign? SIMON: NPR's Ron Elving, thanks so much. ELVING: Thank you, Scott.

(CNN)If I had a dollar for every time I exclaimed "What a week!" with an exasperated sigh, I might be able to afford one share of Facebook stock (especially after yesterday). Let's relive it together, on loop. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker was not thrilled with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's appearance before the committee. Or things need to be read. Secret audio recordings are having their biggest moment since the 1990s. Michael Cohen secretly recorded a conversation with then-candidate Donald Trump. Trump scaled down his prop during a trip to the Midwest on Thursday. He showed off a twist on the classic MAGA hat, this one reading "Make Our Farmers Great Again." This headgear wins the week.