Cohen and Manafort, Donald Trump's double whammy
Trump faces one of the most complex moments of his presidency after two former members of his inner circle were found “guilty” of criminal charges. Doubts about his legal exposure and political future are mounting.
Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was convicted on August 21 of financial crimes. Around the same time that Trump's former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, was pleading guilty to a series of crimes, including campaign financial violations, which the attorney claimed to have carried out in conjunction with Trump.
With two men - who played a prominent role in the president's campaign - convicted of multiple criminal charges, the investigations are turning ever closer to Trump.
"They are two consecutive but separate cases," explained France 24 international news commentator Douglas Herbert. “One involves the investigation of Robert Mueller (special counsel) and former Trump campaign manager (Paul Manafort) and the other, led by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, involves Trump's man who fixes everything, his own personal attorney (Michael Cohen) for a decade, the one who accompanied him even before his presidency, always being part of the Trump organization, always helping put the pieces together for Donald Trump, cleaning up the mess, so to speak. "
Manafort was convicted in Virginia on charges brought by Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 elections and potential obstruction of justice. Cohen pleaded guilty in Manhattan court, claiming that he and Trump had arranged a payment to silence porn star Stormy Daniels and a former Playboy model to influence the election.
A @nytimes front page for the history books pic.twitter.com/3nVz0DdSpi
— Mathieu von Rohr (@mathieuvonrohr) August 22, 2018
Cohen's case is more problematic than Manafort's
Cohen's case harms Trump the most, analysts say, as the president's former personal "fixer" acknowledged his role in a strategy to pay off women who accused the Republican candidate of sexual misconduct. .
Although Cohen never named Trump in court on Tuesday, he did claim to have worked "in conjunction with and under the direction of a candidate for federal office." Trump's former attorney also did not name the two women involved in the case.
“Michael Cohen, his former attorney, testified in court stating that, in effect, at the request of this candidate, he paid several women to buy his silence because if they got to talk about the affairs they claimed to have had with Donald Trump, they would have allegedly affected their electoral destiny. Bribing those women was essentially a campaign contribution to Donald Trump to help him get elected, ”Herbert said.
More than a year after he assumed the Presidency, the wave of allegations against Trump, vigorously rejected by the president of the United States and his allies, has begun to draw ever closer to him.
“It's going to be difficult for the president to try to discredit all this. He's wrapping it up, ”David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor, told the Associated Press.
Trump ignores court proceedings during campaign rally
Trump has shown an uncanny ability to shake off a relentless wave of accusations and shocking statements that have sparked outrage. His loyal base of sympathizers has continued to support him despite his effort to blame "both sides" for dangerous violence between white nationalist and anti-racist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, on the one hand, and for refusal, in Helsinki last month. last, to support the intelligence services of the United States on Vladimir Putin's Russia, among other controversies.
Despite the double setback he faces, Trump mostly ignored court proceedings Tuesday while campaigning in West Virginia.
During the rally in West Virginia, the audience chanted loudly the main statements of the Trump campaign "Drain the swamp!" and "Lock her up!" –Referring to 2016 Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton– despite the corruption convictions and threatening jail sentences faced by her former advisers.
Giuliani supports Trump: "there is no allegation of any kind of crime against the president"
Manafort's conviction served as a vindication of Mueller's work as investigators continue to track possible crimes committed by the president and those around him. Mueller's team also presented evidence to federal prosecutors for Cohen's case in New York.
Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, tried to exclusively blame Cohen in a statement made Tuesday, saying, "There is no allegation of any kind of crime against the President among the charges the government brought against Mr. Cohen."
Trump's legal team has also conducted extensive negotiations with Mueller's team regarding a potential meeting with the president, but has declined to the scope of the questions.
The explosive legal developments occur just as the White House is concentrating on the upcoming midterm elections, and as Trump allies like Steve Bannon seek to frame the election as a referendum that would potentially discredit the president. Trump's confidants have long argued that the president's fate in such a scenario would ultimately be more a matter of policy than law.
Regarding Cohen's statement, Bannon said Tuesday that this “ends the argument of those who tell the president that it is not so serious that he loses his position in the House. This becomes now more than ever a national election on the problem of discredit. "
The president seems to voice the stakes in Charleston, warning the public that “they are not simply voting for a candidate. They are voting for the party that will control the House and for the party that will control the Senate ”.
And the tabs are in... pic.twitter.com/xOpvidaesU
— Nick Turner (@NewsyNick) August 22, 2018
The presidential inner circle is concerned
Trump's confidants reiterated that according to the position of the White House a president cannot be accused, referring to the opinion issued in 2000 by the Office of Legal Advice of the Department of Justice, which provides legal advice and accompaniment to the agencies of the executive branch. Trump's attorneys have referred to Mueller's plans to obey this escort, although Mueller's office never independently confirmed it. In principle, it would not be prohibited to bring charges against a president after he or she leaves the White House.
Michael Avenatti, a lawyer working on a civil case against Trump for Daniels, - who claimed to have had sex with the president - trilled Tuesday that the resolution of the criminal case against Cohen "should also allow us to proceed with an expeditious statement from Trump under oath on what he knew, when he knew it and what he did about it ”.
In 1997, the Supreme Court, ruling in a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by Paula Jones, held that an incumbent president could be called upon to answer questions as part of a lawsuit. That ruling did not directly specify whether the president could be subpoenaed to testify in a criminal investigation.
Despite heated public denials, Manafort's fate and Cohen's have troubled the president's inner circle.
To many close to Trump, Cohen has posed an even greater threat than the Russia investigation, in the wake of his decade working as the "problem solver" for the then notorious real estate developer. An April FBI raid on Cohen's New York office and his hotel room stirred the president, who has publicly complained about what he deemed a government overreach, while privately concerned about what material Cohen might have. have had after working for the Trump Organization for a decade.
Those in Trump's orbit, including Giuliani, have steadily increased attacks on Cohen, insinuating he was untrustworthy and lying about what he knew about Trump's business. When Cohen's team showed a recording that the former aide had made, in which Trump could be heard discussing a payment to silence a woman about an alleged affair, Giuliani sought to challenge Cohen's credibility and question his loyalty.
Trump worried for weeks about the media coverage of the Manafort trial. Although the lawsuits were not connected to Russian interference in the election, Trump was enraged at his confidants because he views the charges against Manafort as "a threat" from Mueller.
"What matters is that the jury found that the facts presented by the special counsel justify the conviction of someone close to the president," Weinstein said.
