For the first time, prosecutors have tied President Donald Trump to a federal crime, accusing him of directing illegal hush-money payments to women during his presidential campaign in 2016.

The Justice Department stopped short of accusing Trump of directly committing a crime. Instead, they said in a court filing Friday night that Trump told his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to make illegal payments to buy the silence of two women — porn actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal — who claimed to have had affairs with Trump and threatened his White House bid. Trump has denied having an affair.

FACT CHECK: White House says there’s no ‘damaging’ info about Trump in Cohen, Manafort filings

Cohen has pleaded guilty to several charges, including campaign finance violations, and is awaiting sentencing.

Although Trump hasn’t been charged with any crimes, the question of whether a president can even be prosecuted while in office is a matter of legal dispute.

Here’s a look at a that long-running legal ambiguity and a few of the main issues at play:

That isn’t completely clear. But federal prosecutors didn’t accuse Trump in Friday night’s court filing of violating the law.

However, there was no ambiguity in the court documents that prosecutors believe Cohen’s actions were criminal and Trump was directly involved. Prosecutors charged that Cohen arranged the secret payments at the height of the 2016 campaign “in coordination with and at the direction of” Trump. They also alleged Cohen made the payment in order to fend off potential damage to Trump’s presidential bid.

WATCH: Mueller accuses Paul Manafort of lying about his contact with Trump administration

Federal law requires that any payments that are made “for the purpose of influencing” an election must be reported in campaign finance disclosures.

“There is a plausible case against the president,” said Rick Hasen, a professor who specializes in election and campaign finance law at the University of California at Irvine.

In order to bring charges, prosecutors would have to prove Trump had criminal intent and “willfully violated the law,” said Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law Houston. Something that would be perfectly legal to do as a businessman could take on a different standard as a candidate and campaign finance laws are “very open-ended,” he said.

READ MORE: Michael Cohen portrayed as a shady opportunist who cheated and lied for years

Hasen said Trump’s lawyers could argue Trump didn’t have willfulness to break the law if the payments were completely personal and not connected to the campaign, despite their timing. Some legal experts have also argued that hush-money payments to keep people silent about their affairs are inherently personal, though Hasen said he didn’t agree with that argument.

Legal experts are divided on that question. The Supreme Court has never ruled on whether the president can be indicted or whether the president can be subpoenaed for testimony.

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which provides legal advice and guidance to executive branch agencies, has maintained that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Two Justice Department reports, one in 1973 and one in 2000, came to the same conclusion.

Those reports essentially concluded that the president’s responsibilities are so important that an indictment would pose too many risks for the government to function properly.

Trump’s lawyers have said that special counsel Robert Mueller plans to adhere to that guidance, though Mueller’s office has never independently confirmed that. Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has also said that a president cannot be indicted.

Could Trump be indicted once he leaves office?

There would presumably be no bar against charging a president after he leaves the White House.

Legal scholars have said that based on the Justice Department’s guidance, it would appear that Trump could be charged for wrongdoing during the campaign or as president once he leaves office, but likely not before that.

Blackman said the statute of limitations for a campaign finance law violation — like the one Cohen pleaded guilty to — would be five years. The payments to Daniels and McDougal were made in 2016, meaning the statute of limitations would run out in 2021.

Trump has already shown he’s not afraid to use his pardon power, particularly for those he has viewed as unfair victims of partisanship. He’s pardoned Joe Arpaio, the former Arizona sheriff who was convicted of criminal contempt for disobeying a judge’s order, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a Bush administration official convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in a leak case.

Courts have never had to answer the question of whether the president can pardon himself. In June, Giuliani told NBC’s “Meet the Pres” that while Trump “probably does” have the power, “pardoning himself would be unthinkable and probably lead to immediate impeachment.”</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — Robert Mueller is set to reveal more details about his Russia investigation on Friday as he faces court deadlines in the cases of two men who worked closely with President Donald Trump.

The special counsel and federal prosecutors in New York will have to file separate memos in court detailing the cooperation of longtime Trump legal fixer Michael Cohen, who has admitted lying to Congress and orchestrating hush-money payments to protect the president. And Mueller’s team will also be disclosing what they say former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort lied about when his plea deal fell apart last month.

Cohen and Manafort are among five former Trump associates whom prosecutors have accused of lying either to federal investigators or to Congress.

The court filings will close out a week in which Mueller’s team for the first time provided some details of the help they’ve received from former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn. Prosecutors, who said Flynn’s assistance was “substantial” and merited no prison time, disclosed that he had cooperated not only with the Russia investigation but also with at least one other undisclosed criminal probe.

The new details about Mueller’s investigation are set to become public as Trump continues to lash out at the Russia investigation and those who help prosecutors. Trump singled out Cohen, accusing him of lying to get a reduced prison sentence. The president also praised another associate, Roger Stone, for saying he wouldn’t testify against him, and Trump said a pardon for Manafort isn’t off the table.

In the latest filings Friday, prosecutors will weigh in on whether Cohen deserves prison time and, if so, how much. In doing so, they’ll have to provide a federal judge with at least some description of the assistance he’s provided to their investigations — the Russia probe and a separate investigation led by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan.

In August, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight criminal counts, including tax evasion and campaign finance violations. He said Trump had directed him before the 2016 election to arrange payments to buy the silence of porn actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, both of whom alleged they had affairs with Trump.

And then last week, Cohen made a surprise guilty plea to lying to Congress, a move that refocused attention on Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign. Cohen admitted he lied about the details of a proposed Trump Tower in Moscow, saying that talks about the project went on until June 2016 — longer than he previously said. Cohen also said he discussed the project with Trump during the presidential campaign, undercutting the then-Republican presidential candidate’s statements that he didn’t have any deals in Russia.

Trump has downplayed the project and stressed that he never put any money into the deal and ultimately decided not to do it.

In Manafort’s case, prosecutors are expected to lay out what torpedoed the cooperation agreement he made when he pleaded guilty in September to two felony charges of conspiracy against the United States and conspiracy to obstruct justice. In late November, prosecutors revealed that Manafort had repeatedly lied to them but did not say about what. The allegations exposed him to the possibility of additional criminal charges and a lengthier prison sentence.

Manafort’s attorneys have denied that he made false statements, and a judge is expected to hear from them before deciding whether he actually lied. Manafort, who was convicted in August in federal court in Virginia of eight financial crimes, also awaits sentencing in that case.

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Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.</s>WASHINGTON President Donald Trump unleashed a blistering new attack Friday on Robert Mueller, as he tapped a veteran conservative lawyer to head the US Justice Department — and assume oversight of the special counsel’s Russia investigation as it inches ever closer to the White House.

The latest of Trump’s increasingly frequent outbursts against the probe came ahead of crucial court filings that could reinforce suspicions the president’s campaign colluded with a Russian effort to get him elected in 2016, or that Trump himself sought to obstruct justice — two of Mueller’s lines of inquiry.

Trump fired off a feverish volley of early morning tweets rejecting the probe as a “total witch hunt,” accusing Mueller of “big time conflicts of interest” and alleging the prosecutor coerced false testimony from witnesses.

With speculation swirling that Trump’s chief of staff John Kelly may be on his way out, the president also lashed out at a gallery of figures from the campaign of his former rival Hillary Clinton, to former FBI director James Comey, to his own deputy attorney general who he said was “totally conflicted.”

The president also vowed his lawyers would produce a “major Counter Report” to rebut Mueller’s findings, as and when he delivers them.

“Already 87 pages done, but obviously cannot complete until we see the final Witch Hunt Report,” he fumed. “This should never again be allowed to happen to a future President of the United States!”

Shortly afterwards, speaking to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House, Trump announced his intention to nominate William Barr as his new attorney general — succeeding Jeff Sessions, who he sacked last month.

Sessions had angered the president by recusing himself from overseeing the Mueller probe because of his own contacts with Russian officials.

His recusal had effectively created insulation between Mueller and the White House — a barrier that would no longer exist if Barr is approved by the Senate, probably next month.

Barr — who previously served as attorney general under late George H.W. Bush — was seen in Washington as something of a consensus candidate for the highly sensitive post.

He does however have a record of endorsing strong executive powers, which could come into play if Mueller sought to compel the president to testify.

And while Barr initially endorsed Mueller’s naming to lead the Russia investigation, he subsequently voiced concerns that his team appeared too heavily Democratic, citing the fact that a number of its members had donated to the party.

The president’s attack on Mueller came as Washington was braced for potentially explosive new developments in the probe, related to two pivotal figures: Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen.

Accusing him of lying to investigators, Mueller last month cancelled a cooperation deal with Manafort, who has already been convicted on multiple charges of money laundering, financial and tax fraud and witness tampering.

A filing in the Manafort case is to lay out the newest charges against the veteran Republican consultant, which could shed new light on how other members of Trump’s inner circle may have been involved in his activities.

Meanwhile in New York, federal prosecutors are to file a sentencing recommendation for Cohen that might offer details of what he has told them about the financial activities and Russian contacts of the Trump family.

In recent weeks, filings in the Mueller probe have suggested the White House knew Cohen planned to lie to Congress about his contacts with Russians.

They also suggest Trump and his family were in the loop on discussions with the Russians on a Moscow project, even after the real estate tycoon had secured the Republican presidential nomination in mid-2016.

A sentencing memorandum last Friday for former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn revealed that Mueller’s prosecutors are investigating top members of Trump’s presidential transition team, and that the Justice Department might have two other separate probes ongoing into Trump campaign members.

Separately on Friday, another key figure in the investigation — Trump nemesis Comey — was testifying behind closed doors in the House Judiciary Committee.

Trump fired Comey last year, angry over his refusal to reel back the Russia investigation — an event that led Mueller to probe Trump over possible obstruction of justice.</s>Donald Trump has five children from his three marriages to Ivana Trump, Maria Maples and Melania Trump. He had Donald Trump Jr, Ivanka and Eric Trump with Ivana Trump, Tiffany Trump with Marla Maples and Barron Trump with First Lady Melania Trump.

Who is Ivanka Trump mother? Donald’s first wife Ivana

Ivan is her father’s advisor and is the first Jewish member of a First family, as she converted to Judaism before marrying her husband, Jared Kushner.

Her mother Ivana Trump has Czech and Austrian ancestry.

She was born in New York in 1981 and spent her early years among the Manhattan elite studying at the Chaplin school.

Donald Trump Jr is the eldest child of the president and after graduating moved to Aspen, Colorado where he stayed for a year.</s>Following Mueller's Friday filings on Cohen, California congressman Ted Lieu is convinced it's the beginning of the end for Trump.

Friday filings by federal prosecutors and Mueller’s team showed that Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former fixer, had informed him about the two election-related crimes he had committed back in 2016. Experts on either side of the political spectrum appear increasingly convinced that Mueller has got Trump cornered, with California congressman Ted Lieu saying the Friday disclosures proved that Trump committed at least two felonies, according to The Hill.

Lieu, who is a member of the House Judiciary Committee and has been one of the most vociferous critics of Donald Trump while in office, was speaking with MSNBC‘s Chris Matthews when he claimed that Trump “committed two felonies while running for president”.

According to the filings, Cohen has informed prosecutors that Trump had directed payments to silence both Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal before the elections in an attempt to steer away from the bad publicity it would invariably have brought. Although the filings don’t explicitly name Trump, it does name an Individual-1 who Cohen “acted in coordination with and at the direction of” to make the payments. The filings then state that Individual-1 went to become the president of the United States, leaving little to the imagination.

“In particular, and as Cohen himself has now admitted, with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1,” the filings read.

Apart from this, Mueller’s filings also showed that Cohen had informed Trump about his attempts to create a synergy between the Trump team and Russian government officials, and acted on the direction of Trump to coordinate a possible meeting with Kremlin officials, including Putin.

“Cohen said he briefed Trump and his family extensively on the project. Trump, his son Donald Jr and son-in-law Jared Kushner could face problems if their own answers to Mueller and Congress contradict this,” a report in the Guardian states.

Lieu contends that prosecutors have evidence to implicate Trump now. Several legal pundits agree with this assessment, with former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal tweeting that this was the first time that prosecutors had effectively stated that Trump had committed a felony.

“I think my reading here is correct. If so, it is the first time federal prosecutors have said they believe Donald Trump committed a felony,” Katyal said.

There is little doubt that Trump finds himself increasingly cornered now, and it would be interesting to see how the investigation plays out from this stage for the president and his ostensibly beleaguered family.</s>Photo by Al Drago-Pool/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team interviewed White House chief of staff John Kelly about obstruction of justice as it relates to President Donald Trump and those close to him, sources with direct knowledge of the matter told ABC News.

As ABC News has previously reported Kelly was among members of the administration and those outside advisers close to the president who have been interviewed by the special counsel, according to sources over the course of the investigation.

Kelly’s interview with the special counsel’s team was first reported by CNN.

Kelly, who signed on as President Trump’s chief of staff in July of 2017, joins a long list of current and former White House officials to have interviewed with Mueller.

Since his appointment as special counsel, Mueller has met with the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner; former legal counsel Don McGahn; former communications director Hope Hicks; senior aide Stephen Miller; former press secretary Sean Spicer; and Kelly’s predecessor, former chief of staff Reince Priebus, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge.

The president recently responded in written testimony to a slew of questions posed by Mueller and his team of prosecutors. ABC News has previously reported that the questions, which were divided into five sections, focused mostly on whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the presidential campaign cycle, according to sources.

This is a developing story. Please refresh for details.</s>President Donald Trump on Friday tapped William Barr, a conservative lawyer who was attorney general in the administration of the late George H.W. Bush, to lead the US Department of Justice.

Barr would succeed Jeff Sessions, who Trump forced to resign last month amid rising pressure on the White House from the Russia collusion investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

"Bill Barr will be nominated for the United states Attorney General position. I think he will serve with great distinction," Trump told reporters.

"He was my first choice from day one. Respected by Republicans and respected by Democrats," he added, describing Barr as "a terrific man, a terrific person, a brilliant man."

Barr has a record of supporting strong executive powers, which could play into high-stakes legal battles on everything from immigration policy to war powers to whether the president can be required to give testimony in the Russia investigation.

He expressed support in May 2017 when Trump fired then-FBI director James Comey, which has become a focus of Mueller's investigation into whether Trump obstructed justice, and has expressed support for Trump's calls to reopen investigations into his 2016 rival Hillary Clinton.

While Barr initially expressed support for Mueller's naming as an independent prosecutor to lead the Russia investigation, he subsequently voiced concerns that Mueller's investigative team appeared too heavily Democratic, citing the fact a number of his prosecutors had donated to the party.

Trump's naming of Barr came after he unleashed a new series of attacks on the special counsel and his team, with the prosecutor expected to release documents that could shed new light in the Russia probe.

Repeating his regular dismissal of the probe as a "total witch hunt," Trump once again accused Mueller of political bias in an early morning tweetstorm alleging that the prosecutor had coerced false testimony from witnesses.

Barr would replace current Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, a little-experienced Republican activist named by Trump last month after Sessions was dismissed.

While he led major initiatives of the Trump administration to crack down on crime and illegal immigration, Sessions had angered the president early on when he recused himself from overseeing the Mueller probe because of his own contacts with Russians.

His recusal had effectively created insulation between Mueller and the White House -- a barrier that would no longer exist once Barr is approved by the Senate, probably next month.

For the latest News & Live Updates on Election Results from each assembly constituency in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Mizoram, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for updates.</s>Donald Trump's continued angry Twitter posts about the Russia investigation show that he now understands that the probe is not going away, a close Trump ally says.

Russia Investigation Special Counsel Robert Mueller released two new filings on Friday detailing crimes by Trump’s ex-lawyer Michael Cohen and 2016 campaign chief Paul Manafort, as CNN reported, but not before President Trump unleashed a series of six Twitter posts attacking Mueller and the investigation. Trump’s Twitter explosion continued later in the day when he posted a message declaring incorrectly that Mueller’s filing “totally clears” him.

In fact, as Politico reported, far from “clearing” Trump, Mueller said he has evidence that contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign began as far back as November 2015, and that Cohen had discussed the possibility of Trump meeting Russia President Vladimir Putin not only with a Russian official but with Trump himself — indicating that Trump likely had direct knowledge of his campaign’s involvement with the Russian government.

The contacts with Russia were not merely incidental, Mueller’s filings showed, according to a Daily Beast account. One Russian official offered to create “political synergy” — in other words, cooperation, or “collusion” — between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Yet on Saturday, Trump returned to his Twitter account at 8:01 a.m. Eastern Time, to declare, “AFTER TWO YEARS AND MILLIONS OF PAGES OF DOCUMENTS (and a cost of over $30,000,000), NO COLLUSION!”

Trump has mentioned Mueller in his Twitter posts many times before, invoking Mueller’s name 66 times already this year alone, according to the Trump Twitter Archive. But never before had Trump mentioned Mueller’s name on Twitter as many as four times in a single day, as he did on Friday.

Why does Trump now seem to have reached an increased level of concern over Mueller’s Russia investigation? According to what longtime Trump friend and political mentor Roger Stone told the New York Times on Friday, Trump has finally come to understand that Mueller’s Russia probe “was not going away, his lawyers’ promises notwithstanding.”

As MSNBC reported, for more than a year, Trump’s lawyers have given him repeated assurances that the end of the Russia probe was imminent, starting in November of 2017 when Trump’s then-lawyer Ty Cobb promised him that the investigation would end “before Thanksgiving” of 2017. Cobb and Trump’s other lawyers then repeatedly extended their projections to “Christmas,” “the end of the year,” and then, “the end of March.”

When Trump replaced Cobb with his current lawyer Rudy Giuliani in April of this year, the former New York City mayor immediately announced, according to CNN, that the Russia investigation would end in “maybe a couple of weeks.” Giuliani later revised his prediction to September 1 as his projected end of the Mueller investigation.

But as Mueller has only become more active, Trump has now come to a new understanding — one that has driven his angry Twitter activity — according to what Stone told the Times.

“He has finally figured out that this is about him,” Stone said. “I think he has finally woken up.”

Stone himself is under investigation by Mueller for his alleged role in possible collusion, and as Inquisitr reported, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination earlier this week to avoid testifying to congress about the 2016 campaign.</s>President Donald Trump has started what is expected to be a busy day for special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation by launching a Twitter broadside against the prosecutor and his team.

Mr Mueller faces court deadlines in two pivotal cases on Friday, and ex-FBI Director James Comey is set to appear before politicians on Capitol Hill.

Mr Trump has made little secret of his frustration with the swirling probe into Russian election interference and potential misdeeds committed by those in his orbit and is seeking to undermine the legitimacy of Mr Mueller’s investigation.

Mr Trump tweeted: “Robert Mueller and Leakin’ Lyin’ James Comey are Best Friends, just one of many Mueller Conflicts of Interest.”

Mr Mueller’s investigation has produced dozens of criminal charges and four guilty pleas from Trump associates.

Mr Trump also argues his deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, is “totally conflicted”.

Mr Rosenstein oversaw the probe until last month.</s>Robert Mueller is to reveal more details about his Russia investigation on Friday as he faces court deadlines in the cases of two men who worked closely with President Donald Trump.

The special counsel and federal prosecutors in New York were filing court memos detailing the cooperation of longtime Trump legal fixer Michael Cohen, who has admitted lying to Congress and orchestrating hush-money payments to protect the president. And Mueller's team will be disclosing what it says former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort lied about to cause his plea deal to fall apart last month.

Cohen and Manafort are among five former Trump associates whom prosecutors have accused of lying either to federal investigators or to Congress.

The court filings will close out a week in which Mueller's team for the first time provided some details of the help they've received from former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn. Prosecutors, who said Flynn's assistance was "substantial" and merited no prison time, disclosed that he had cooperated not only with the Russia investigation but also with at least one other undisclosed criminal probe.

The new details about Mueller's investigation are becoming public as Trump continues to lash out at the Russia investigation and those who help prosecutors. Trump has singled out Cohen, accusing him of lying to get a reduced prison sentence. The president also praised another associate, Roger Stone, for saying he wouldn't testify against him, and Trump said a pardon for Manafort isn't off the table.

In a series of Friday morning tweets, the president attacked individual law enforcement and intelligence officials by name and accused Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — the Justice Department official who appointed him — of conflicts of interest. He also said his lawyers were preparing a "counter to the Mueller Report."

"Already 87 pages done, but obviously cannot complete until we see the final Witch Hunt Report," he said.

In the latest filings Friday, prosecutors were to weigh in on whether Cohen deserves prison time and, if so, how much. In doing so, they must provide a federal judge with at least some description of the assistance he's provided to their investigations — the Russia probe and a separate investigation led by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan.

In August, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight criminal counts, including tax evasion and campaign finance violations. He said Trump had directed him before the 2016 election to arrange payments to buy the silence of porn actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, both of whom alleged they had affairs with Trump.

Last week, Cohen made a surprise guilty plea to lying to Congress, a move that refocused attention on Trump's ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign.

He admitted he lied about the details of a proposed Trump Tower in Moscow, saying that talks about the project went on until June 2016 — longer than he previously said. Cohen also said he discussed the project with Trump during the presidential campaign, undercutting the then-Republican presidential candidate's statements that he didn't have any deals in Russia.

Trump has downplayed the project and stressed that he never put any money into the deal and ultimately decided not to do it.

In Manafort's case, prosecutors are expected to lay out what torpedoed the cooperation agreement he made when he pleaded guilty in September to two felony charges of conspiracy.

In late November, prosecutors said that Manafort had repeatedly lied to them but did not say about what. The allegations exposed him to the possibility of additional criminal charges and a lengthier prison sentence.

Manafort's attorneys have denied that he made false statements, and a judge is expected to hear from them before deciding whether he actually lied. Manafort, who was convicted in August in federal court in Virginia of eight financial crimes, also awaits sentencing in that case.

Also Friday, the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed that George Papadopoulos, the first person sent to prison in the Russia investigation, was released after serving his 14-day sentence.

The former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser pleaded guilty last year to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian intermediaries. Those contacts during the presidential campaign prompted the FBI in July 2016 to open a counterintelligence investigation. That investigation was later taken over by Mueller.

Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.
American attorney Robert Mueller is set to reveal more details about the Special Counsel investigation as he faces court deadlines in the cases of two men who worked closely with Donald Trump.