Cohen's plea done, where will federal prosecutors turn next?

NEW YORK (AP) — The guilty plea of President Donald Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, may not mean it's "case closed" for federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

Those prosecutors scrambled to get a plea deal done to avoid appearances that news of it could influence the midterm elections. And they were mum Wednesday about what might come next.

But court papers filed this week point to several avenues of further investigation for a U.S. Attorney's office known for its appetite for high-profile public corruption cases — with the Trump Organization, National Enquirer parent company American Media Inc. and perhaps even Trump himself as potential targets.

"It's hard for me to think that they're done," said Glen Kopp, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor now in private practice. "If they smell something, they're like a dog with a bone. They're going to keep going."

Court papers filed with Cohen's plea to eight counts including tax evasion and campaign-finance violations cited involvement of unnamed corporate executives in schemes to pay two women to keep quiet about claims they had affairs with Trump. The papers didn't name the executives or their companies, though it was clear they were referring to the Trump Organization and AMI.

In one instance, AMI conspired with Cohen to pay $150,000 to former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal, the papers said. Cohen paid another $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels using a sham home equity loan before he was reimbursed through the Trump Organization using false invoices, the papers add.

Cohen, in his plea, said that it was all done with the knowledge and at the direction of a "candidate for federal office" — obviously meaning Trump. But whether Trump or anyone else involved with those transactions broke the law remains an open question.

Prosecutors made it clear that Cohen was not acting alone in the payouts to McDougal and Daniels, saying Cohen teamed up with AMI's chairman and chief executive and one or more members of Trump's campaign in August 2015 — two months after Trump announced his candidacy — to help fend off negatives stories about Trump's relationships with women.

According to court papers, Cohen in January 2017 sought reimbursement for the $130,000 payment to Daniels and another $50,000 spent on "tech services" from the Trump Organization. Prosecutors wrote that executives of the company "'grossed up' for tax purposes" his $180,000 request by doubling it to $360,000 before tacking on a $60,000 bonus.

The company then arranged to pay Cohen the $420,000 in monthly installments of $35,000 throughout 2017 as if he was on a retainer for legal expenses, which is how the Trump Organization accounted for them, prosecutors said.

"In truth and in fact, there was no such retainer agreement, and the monthly invoices Cohen submitted were not in connection with any legal services he had provided in 2017," they said.

Part of what makes it too early to tell where the New York probe goes prior to Cohen's scheduled December sentencing is the volume of evidence prosecutors received from the Cohen raids. In recent weeks, they've gotten over 4 million items seized from Cohen in April raids, some of it cited in the charges brought this week.

An even bigger question is whether Cohen could still provide meaningful cooperation in the Russia probe. His lawyer, Lanny Davis, said Wednesday that Cohen has information "on certain subjects that should be of interest" to the special prosecutor and is "more than happy" to tell Mueller all that he knows.

The fact that a plea agreement that calls for a maximum sentence of five years behind bars didn't mention a cooperation deal wouldn't rule it out.

Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice, said it is in Cohen's interest to play ball.

"Based on his public statements and the prison time he is now facing," he said, "you can be virtually certain that he will try to leverage his involvement with the president into a cooperating deal with the government."</s>The National Enquirer's partnership with the Trump campaign was even more extensive than previously reported.

Michael Cohen's guilty plea on Tuesday revealed that the plot to "catch and kill" stories was hatched way back in August 2015, just two months after Trump entered the race.

Now there are new questions about the Enquirer's legal exposure.

For more than a year, unbeknownst to the tabloid's readers or the public, Cohen worked with the Enquirer's owner, American Media Inc., to bury stories that could have harmed Trump's chances of winning the presidential election.

While this tactic was exposed by news outlets months ago, it was described in new detail on Tuesday. And for the first time, Cohen fessed up to it. In court, he admitted that his hush money payments were illegal, and were done "for the principal purpose of influencing the election."

In the government's filings, American Media Inc. is only described as a media company that owns a tabloid, and its chairman and CEO David Pecker is only identified through his titles.

Cohen said in court that "I and the CEO of a media company, at the request of the candidate, worked together" to squelch stories.

Media companies, of course, are usually in the business of publishing bombshell stories, not covering them up. But the National Enquirer operates differently. Trump and Pecker have had a mutually beneficial relationship for years. Buying the rights to a potentially harmful story and then burying it as a favor -- a tabloid practice called "catch and kill"-- was one of the benefits.

Pecker has not been charged with a crime. But Pecker and American Media Inc. are part of an ongoing federal inquiry. The Wall Street Journal reported in June that Pecker and the company's chief content officer, Dylan Howard, were subpoenaed earlier in the year.

A spokesman for the company did not respond to multiple requests for comment about Cohen's guilty plea.

Related: Who is 'our friend David?' Meet tabloid king David Pecker

Others may be implicated, as well. According to the court filing, Pecker "offered to help deal with negative stories" about Trump's relationships with women "by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided."

The filing also said Pecker coordinated this with both Cohen and "one or more members of the campaign." Those campaign staffers, however, were not named.

The court filing does not say how many stories were buried by the National Enquirer's parent company. But it said that Pecker advised Cohen "of negative stories during the course of the campaign."

And "Cohen, with the assistance of Corporation-1," meaning American Media Inc., "was able to arrange for the purchase of two stories so as to suppress them and prevent them from influencing the election."

Those two stories involved former Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Related: 'Catch and kill': How a tabloid shields Trump from troublesome stories

On Tuesday Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations tied to the payments made to the women. One of the payments was made through a contract between McDougal and American Media, ostensibly for McDougal to produce content for the company's magazines.

The Journal first wrote about the contract in a story a few days before the 2016 election. The article was titled "National Enquirer Shielded Donald Trump From Playboy Model's Affair Allegation." At the time, the Enquirer claimed that "AMI has not paid people to kill damaging stories about Mr. Trump."

Now Cohen is admitting that AMI did just that.

Tuesday's charges by the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York are backed up by information seized from Cohen earlier this year.

One of Cohen's own tape recordings of his conversations with Trump, which his legal team shared with CNN last month, also corroborated his account.

"Um," Cohen was heard saying to Trump, "I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David."

This "friend" could have been David Pecker.

"So what are we goncna pay--" Trump asked. "Yes, um, and it's all the stuff," Cohen said. "All the stuff, all the stuff because you never know where that company -- you never know where he's gonna be." What if, Trump suggested, Pecker "gets hit by a truck?" Meaning, what if his friend is no longer in charge of the company that owns some of his secrets? "Correct," Cohen said, "so I'm all over that."

Investigations of media companies typically provoke First Amendment concerns. But this is an unusual case, to say the least. Last month The New York Times reported that federal investigators have concluded that AMI "at times acted more as a political supporter than as a news organization."

"If Mr. Pecker and his company acted as is alleged, there should and very likely would be no viable First Amendment defense for them," veteran First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams told CNN on Wednesday. "To be sure, publications make editorial decisions as to what to publish or not, but if it is true that as a matter of personal or corporate policy stories were purchased for the purpose of killing them to benefit a candidate for office, the First Amendment would not come into play."

"It is therefore possible that the US could commence some sort of action against Mr. Pecker and/or American Media -- which it has not yet done," Abrams added. "Of course, Mr. Pecker may deny the accuracy of the assertion about him and American Media and if he does that determination of what the truth is -- whatever Rudy Giuliani may say to the contrary -- is what the courts exist to decide."</s>Michael Cohen leaves a federal courthouse in New York City, on May 30, 2018.

NEW YORK - Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s former fixer, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to campaign finance and other charges.

He made the extraordinary admission that he paid a pornographic actress “at the direction of the candidate,” referring to Trump, to secure her silence about an affair she said she had with the billionaire in 2006.

Deputy U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami told reporters on Tuesday that Cohen submitted invoices to then-candidate Trump's company to obtain reimbursement for the unlawful campaign contributions.

Khuzami said Cohen worked to silence two women who had information that would be "detrimental to the 2016 campaign." Cohen then sought reimbursement for those payments in 2017 in an attempt to cover his tracks.

"He provided no legal services for the year 2017 and it was simply a means to obtain reimbursement for the unlawful campaign contributions,” Khuzami said.

Khuzami said Cohen decided, as a lawyer, that he was above the law and would pay a "very, very serious price" for his actions.

"These are very serious charges and reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over an extended period of time," Khuzami said.

Federal prosecutors alleged in a court filing on Tuesday that Cohen had “coordinated with one or more members” of President Trump’s campaign about payments to silence two women who claimed they’d had affairs with Trump in before the 2016 election.

Prosecutors said that “Corporation-1” (National Enquirer) entered into an agreement in August 2016 to buy the story of one woman (Karen McDougal) for $150,000. Prosecutors said the purpose of the agreement, in which Cohen participated, “was to suppress Woman-1’s story so as to prevent it from influencing the election.

Prosecutors have said Cohen arranged a separate payment to Stormy Daniels, who it describes as Woman-2, to prevent her from speaking to the press.

The 51-year-old Cohen said in federal court in New York on Tuesday that he made the payments in coordination with Trump, who wasn't named, to influence the election. Both women claimed Trump had affairs with them, which he denies.

The other charges Cohen pleaded guilty to involve bank fraud and income tax evasion.

As part of his plea agreement, Cohen agreed not to challenge any sentence from 46 to 63 months.

Cohen's plea follows months of scrutiny from federal investigations and a falling out with the president, whom he previously said he'd "take a bullet" for.

FBI raids in April sought bank records, communications with Trump's campaign and information on payments to Daniels and McDougal.

The deal comes after reports that federal investigators were looking into whether Cohen committed bank and tax fraud worth more than $20 million, according to a media report. The New York Times, citing anonymous sources, said authorities were focusing on loans obtained for taxi businesses owned by Cohen and his family.

Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti, said Tuesday's developments "will permit us to have the stay lifted in the civil case & should also permit us to proceed with an expedited deposition of Trump under oath about what he knew, when he knew it, and what he did about it."

Avenatti also seemed to taunt Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

"Buckle Up Buttercup," he wrote. "You and your client completely misplayed this.."

Cohen was also involved in an agreement to pay McDougal to remain quiet about her own affair with Trump. Last month, an audio recording of a conversation reportedly between Trump and Cohen, about a payment to a former Playboy model was released.

Prosecutors had reportedly considered filing charges against Cohen by the end of August.

Cohen, who long served as Trump's fixer, has been under investigation for months. In April, federal investigators for the Southern District of New York seized roughly 4 million files from Cohen's home, business office and hotel room.

The investigation has strained the once close relationship between Trump and Cohen.

More: Report: Ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen investigated for bank and tax fraud of more than $20 million

More: Feds win access to records seized from ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen

More: Michael Cohen tapes: Here's what we know about the secret recordings</s>(AP Photo/Craig Ruttle, File). FILE - In this Aug. 21, 2018 file photo, Michael Cohen, former personal lawyer to President Donald Trump, leaves federal court after reaching a plea agreement in New York. Investigators in New York state issued a subpoena...

NEW YORK (AP) - Mired in financial woes, Michael Cohen is sticking his hand out and asking the public for help paying for his legal defense, and one anonymous donor already has ponied up $50,000.

Through his lawyer, Donald Trump's former "fixer" says collecting contributions through a GoFundMe page set up after his guilty plea this week is the only way to ensure the truth comes out about the president.

It's also the latest sign that Cohen is broke.

Trump's former personal lawyer owes at least $1.4 million to the IRS after pleading guilty Tuesday to tax evasion, campaign finance violations and bank fraud, and has racked up millions of dollars in debt. Because of his plea, he's being forced to give up his New York City taxi medallions, which have shrunk in value as Uber and Lyft shake up the industry.

"He's without resources and owes a lot of money," Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis, said in a battery of television interviews on Wednesday.

Cohen, who once said he would "take a bullet" for Trump, commented in court on Tuesday that Trump directed him to arrange payments of $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels and $150,000 to former Playboy model Karen McDougal to buy their silence about alleged affairs before the election.

While Trump denies the affairs, his account of his knowledge of the payments has shifted. In April, Trump denied he knew anything about the Daniels payment. He told Fox News in an interview aired Thursday that he knew about payments "later on."

By Thursday afternoon, the GoFundMe page dubbed the "Michael Cohen Truth Fund" had raised more than $145,000 from about 2,600 donations. Most reaction on social media was incredulous and unsympathetic, but one $5 donor was encouraging, writing: "The USA would love you for your honesty."

Confusion over the web address for the fundraising page, michaelcohentruthfund.com , led someone on Wednesday to anonymously register a shorter version, michaelcohentruth.com , that redirects to Trump's re-election campaign website.

Cohen's crowdfunding campaign, which has a goal of raising $500,000, could be a way for Cohen to bolster his whistleblower status by appealing to Democrats and others who want to see Trump taken down.

It's not the first time someone who felt wronged by Trump has asked the public to pony up. Fired former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe raked in more than $500,000 in just five days of his legal defense campaign, and Daniels funded her lawsuit against the president with about $500,000 raised from nearly 17,000 donors.

Cohen could ultimately need much more to wipe his books clean.

Court papers filed in connection with Cohen's guilty plea detailed his precarious financial state, as well as his side gigs as a taxicab magnate, high-interest lender and broker of real estate and handbag deals.

In one arrangement, according to the papers, Cohen used a line of credit he obtained at 5 percent interest to float a $6 million loan to a Chicago taxi operator at 12 percent interest.

Later, when applying for the $500,000 home equity credit line used to finance the Daniels payment, the papers say Cohen failed to disclose $14 million in medallion-related debt. Cohen and his wife claimed on the loan paperwork that they had a positive net worth of more than $40 million.

In April, transaction records show, Cohen put up his multimillion-dollar Trump Park Avenue home - valued at $9 million - as collateral on some of his taxi-related loans.

The value of medallions, the physical plates affixed to cabs that owners are required to display, have dropped precipitously in recent years from highs of over $1 million apiece in New York just a few years ago to nearly a quarter of that amount today.

Cohen has been involved in the gritty New York City yellow cab industry since the 1990s. He's owned about 30 medallions with his wife and father-in-law, as well as a fleet of 22 cabs in Chicago, records show. Some of them are held through companies with names such as Love Bug Cab Corp. and Tailgater Cab Corp.

In addition to his Trump and taxi work, the court papers say Cohen made $100,000 in 2014 for brokering the sale of a piece of property in a Florida aviation community and $30,000 in 2015 for brokering the sale of a Birkin bag, a highly coveted French handbag.

Davis, who is listed as the creator of Cohen's fundraising page, told The Associated Press last month that Cohen was footing the bill for his defense after pivoting from loyalty to Trump to looking out for himself, but was "thinking of trying to get some help."

A description on the GoFundMe page describes it as a "transparent trust account, with all donations going to help Michael Cohen and his family" as he goes forward with telling the truth about Trump.

Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levinson said crowdfunding campaigns raise ethical concerns because they allow people to contribute to a political cause similarly to a campaign contribution, but without the same transparency and regulation.

"Who does the lawyer and client feel grateful to?" Levinson said. "Right now, there is no clear way of finding out."

GoFundMe no longer allows fundraisers to download a list of donor's information such as email addresses, citing new data protection regulations. Fundraisers can communicate with donors through the GoFundMe site. And although there is an option to make donations appear anonymously on the public-facing part of the website, it appears that the fundraiser can still view the name of these donors.

GoFundMe did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The money also could add to Cohen's already sizeable tax bill.

Robert Rizzi, a lawyer specializing in tax and government ethics, said the law is unclear whether Cohen would have to pay taxes on the fundraising proceeds. Taxes would apply if the money counts as income, but not if it's a gift - but gifts must be given "out of detached and disinterested generosity," Rizzi said.

"There would be an irony in being taxed on money he raised to defend himself for tax evasion," Rizzi said.

Follow Sisak at twitter.com/mikesisak and Groves at twitter.com/stephengroves

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty Tuesday in a Manhattan courthouse to eight violations of banking, tax and campaign finance laws in a federal investigation that scrutinized his business dealings and efforts to silence women with negative stories about Trump.

Cohen pleaded to five counts of tax evasion, one count of making a false statement to a bank and two campaign finance violations: making an unlawful corporate campaign contribution and making an excessive campaign contribution.

“Yes, sir,” Cohen answered when the judge asked if he pleaded guilty.

Cohen – long the self-professed “fixer” for Trump – agreed to the deal after prosecutors claimed he risked more than a dozen years in prison, according to a person familiar with the matter.

His guilty plea follow a months-long grand-jury investigation into Cohen’s activities, including his taxi business, as well as a hush-money payment that Cohen arranged to an adult-film actress, Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have had a tryst with Trump years ago.

Cohen has said he used a home-equity line of credit to finance a $130,000 payment to Daniels in October 2016, a month before the 2016 election.

Cohen is the fifth Trump associate to have pleaded guilty or be charged with criminal wrongdoing since Trump took office, including his former national security adviser, his deputy campaign chairman and a former campaign policy adviser.

Cable television played Cohen’s plea in an extraordinary legal split screen, as a Virginia jury convicted Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, on eight counts in his bank and tax fraud trial.

Reminded that he had previously vowed to “take a bullet” or “do anything” to protect the president, Cohen told ABC in July that Trump is not his top priority. “To be crystal clear, my wife, my daughter and my son, and this country have my first loyalty,” he said.

Last month, Cohen attorney Lanny Davis released an audio recording of a September 2016 conversation between Trump and Cohen in which they discussed a deal that a Playboy model made to sell the rights to her story of an alleged affair with Trump. The move was seen as a dramatic turn against Trump by the Cohen camp.

Trump’s current attorney and advisers have said he has nothing to fear from Cohen.

“If he gets indicted for something that has nothing to do with the president, well, I feel sorry for Michael, although I don’t know how sorry I feel for him, because he was tape recording the world and deceiving them, including his client,” Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani told Fox News on Monday.

“But it has nothing to do with us,” he added.

Cohen’s plea agreement comes just one day after the New York federal court overseeing the seizure of Cohen’s records finished its review of which documents were protected by attorney-client privilege.

The case against Cohen stems in part from a referral by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and examined Cohen’s role in at least two episodes involving Russian interests, according to people familiar with that probe.

However, special-counsel investigators have indicated to federal law enforcement officials that the office does not require Cohen’s cooperation for its probe, according to two people familiar with their work.

The Cohen investigation first burst into public view in April, when FBI agents searched his New York office, home and hotel room. The searches – in which agents collected all of Cohen’s phones and electronic devices – set off panic in the White House that federal investigators were looking into Trump’s business dealings and communications with Cohen.

Since then, the probe has led to revelations about how Cohen sought to squelch negative stories about Trump and then leverage his access to the president.

After the raid, Giuliani acknowledged that the president had made several payments reimbursing Cohen for the $130,000 settlement with Daniels. Trump had previously denied knowledge of the payoff.

Meanwhile, leaked documents showed that Cohen was paid millions last year by companies such as AT&T and Novartis to provide advice about the new administration.

Cohen had been under scrutiny by federal prosecutors starting in the fall of 2017, when Mueller’s team came across some unusual financial transactions and loans Cohen had obtained.

The special counsel referred the matter to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, which has been looking for evidence of possible bank fraud, wire fraud or violations of campaign finance laws in Cohen’s business dealings, according to people familiar with the matter.

The investigation has examined loans related to Cohen’s taxi medallion business and whether any laws were broken as part of an effort to stifle negative stories about Trump when he was running for president, according to people familiar with the matter.

A central focus of the probe has been on matters that have nothing to do with Cohen’s most famous client but rather Cohen’s attempts to borrow substantial sums of money against his taxi medallions and evidence suggesting he lied to get the money. On more than a dozen loan documents, according to two people familiar with investigators’ work, Cohen dramatically inflated the value of his medallion business year after year, even as the industry suffered from the rise of ride-hailing businesses.

In May, a New York taxi operator and former Cohen business partner agreed to cooperate with prosecutors as part of a plea deal in a separate New York state criminal tax fraud case.

Cohen is also under investigation for defrauding the IRS and failing to report his earnings, according to one person familiar with requests for information about Cohen’s financial records.

Cohen worked for Trump for more than a decade, starting in 2007. The raid on Cohen’s office enraged the president, who claimed prosecutors were violating attorney-client privilege.

Cohen also argued that prosecutors had violated attorney-client privilege by seizing what his lawyers said could be thousands or more items related to his work as a lawyer.

It is unusual for investigators to seize the papers of an attorney, but in court filings federal prosecutors maintained that Cohen was doing very little legal work and that they were investigating his business dealings to search for evidence of potential crimes.

U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood appointed a former federal judge to act as a special master and review the seized items to assess what material must be withheld from investigators because it is covered by attorney-client privilege.

In the end, only a tiny fraction of the seized material was found to be covered by the privilege, according to court filings.

Although Cohen has for years been portrayed as a lawyer who handled some of the most important and sensitive issues for Trump, the president has insisted to associates in recent months that Cohen was not that closely involved with him.

However, Giuliani said in May that Cohen was routinely asked to handle issues that could cause personal embarrassment for Trump, such as the claim of an affair by Daniels.

Trump has denied the affair, but Cohen directed that Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, be paid $130,000 just before the November 2016 election to ensure her silence, Cohen acknowledged this year.

“The agreement with Michael Cohen, as far as I know, is a long-standing agreement that Michael Cohen takes care of situations like this, then gets paid for them sometimes,” Giuliani said in May.</s>Cohen's plea done, where will federal prosecutors turn next?

NEW YORK (AP) — The guilty plea of President Donald Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, may not mean it's "case closed" for federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

Those prosecutors scrambled to get a plea deal done to avoid appearances that news of it could influence the midterm elections. And they were mum Wednesday about what might come next.

But court papers filed this week point to several avenues of further investigation for a U.S. Attorney's office known for its appetite for high-profile public corruption cases — with the Trump Organization, National Enquirer parent company American Media Inc. and perhaps even Trump himself as potential targets.

"It's hard for me to think that they're done," said Glen Kopp, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor now in private practice. "If they smell something, they're like a dog with a bone. They're going to keep going."

Court papers filed with Cohen's plea to eight counts including tax evasion and campaign-finance violations cited involvement of unnamed corporate executives in schemes to pay two women to keep quiet about claims they had affairs with Trump. The papers didn't name the executives or their companies, though it was clear they were referring to the Trump Organization and AMI.

In one instance, AMI conspired with Cohen to pay $150,000 to former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal, the papers said. Cohen paid another $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels using a sham home equity loan before he was reimbursed through the Trump Organization using false invoices, the papers add.

Cohen, in his plea, said that it was all done with the knowledge and at the direction of a "candidate for federal office" — obviously meaning Trump. But whether Trump or anyone else involved with those transactions broke the law remains an open question.

Prosecutors made it clear that Cohen was not acting alone in the payouts to McDougal and Daniels, saying Cohen teamed up with AMI's chairman and chief executive and one or more members of Trump's campaign in August 2015 — two months after Trump announced his candidacy — to help fend off negatives stories about Trump's relationships with women.

According to court papers, Cohen in January 2017 sought reimbursement for the $130,000 payment to Daniels and another $50,000 spent on "tech services" from the Trump Organization. Prosecutors wrote that executives of the company "'grossed up' for tax purposes" his $180,000 request by doubling it to $360,000 before tacking on a $60,000 bonus.

The company then arranged to pay Cohen the $420,000 in monthly installments of $35,000 throughout 2017 as if he was on a retainer for legal expenses, which is how the Trump Organization accounted for them, prosecutors said.

"In truth and in fact, there was no such retainer agreement, and the monthly invoices Cohen submitted were not in connection with any legal services he had provided in 2017," they said.

Part of what makes it too early to tell where the New York probe goes prior to Cohen's scheduled December sentencing is the volume of evidence prosecutors received from the Cohen raids. In recent weeks, they've gotten over 4 million items seized from Cohen in April raids, some of it cited in the charges brought this week.

An even bigger question is whether Cohen could still provide meaningful cooperation in the Russia probe. His lawyer, Lanny Davis, said Wednesday that Cohen has information "on certain subjects that should be of interest" to the special prosecutor and is "more than happy" to tell Mueller all that he knows.

The fact that a plea agreement that calls for a maximum sentence of five years behind bars didn't mention a cooperation deal wouldn't rule it out.

Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice, said it is in Cohen's interest to play ball.

"Based on his public statements and the prison time he is now facing," he said, "you can be virtually certain that he will try to leverage his involvement with the president into a cooperating deal with the government."</s>Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, leaves following a hearing at U.S. Federal Court in New York on Aug. 21, 2018.

President Donald Trump’s onetime personal attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to eight federal crimes on Tuesday.

Cohen’s abrupt plea caps one of the criminal investigations of members of Trump’s inner circle. Cohen admitted to charges of lying about his income to evade income taxes, lying to banks to obtain loans, and making illegal contributions to benefit Trump’s campaign.

Here are five things to know from the court filings and from Cohen's own words.

The charges against Cohen implicate others in Trump campaign

Prosecutors charged Cohen with two counts of violating campaign finance laws by arranging payoffs to silence two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump. The payoffs followed the release of video from an Access Hollywood outtake in which Trump had boasted about sexual assault.

Prosecutors said Cohen worked to secure a $150,000 payment from the National Enquirer to former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal, who claimed to have had a relationship with Trump years earlier. They said he also made a $130,000 payment to a Stephanie Clifford, a pornographic actress better known as Stormy Daniels.

Prosecutors said the payments were illegal because they were made by a corporation, and because they exceeded the maximum allowable donation to a federal candidate.

Cohen stunned a federal courtroom in New York on Tuesday by declaring that he made those payments “at the direction of the candidate,” by whom he plainly meant Trump. He also said he did so specifically to influence the outcome of the election.

Additionally, the Justice Department alleged in a court filing that Cohen had “coordinated with one or more members of the campaign, including through meetings and phone calls, about the fact, nature, and timing of the payments.” Cohen pleaded guilty to that allegation.

While the court record doesn't name names other than Cohen's, it provides sufficient detail to identify individuals and organizations involved in the public record of the widely-reported chain of events.

Trump's company was behind one of the payments

Prosecutors also alleged that Trump’s private company, The Trump Organization, agreed to reimburse Cohen for the $130,000 he paid to Clifford through a Delaware shell company, and the $35 it had cost him to wire the money. The company also reimbursed him $50,000 for what he described as “tech services.”

Then an executive at the Trump Organization doubled his payment and threw in a $60,000 bonus. Prosecutors said an unnamed executive told an employee to pay it and to falsely describe the payment as a retainer for legal services.

"Please pay from the Trust. Post to legal expenses. Put 'retainer for the months of January and February 2017' in the description."

President Trump's two adult sons and a third Trump Organization executive are in charge of a revocable trust which holds the president's business assets.

Five of the eight charges outlined by the Justice Department allege that Cohen “engaged in a scheme to evade income taxes by failing to report more than $4 million in income" between 2012 and 2016. Prosecutors charged that meant he failed to pay about $1.3 million in federal taxes.

More: Cohen says Trump 'directed' the payments

More: What we know about the Cohen tapes

The income came from a diverse array of sources which Cohen allegedly hid from his accountant and the Internal Revenue Service, including a $6 million loan to a business partner in the taxi industry at more than 12 percent interest which resulted in $2.4 million in interest payments which was not reported to the IRS.

Other income sources prosecutors said Cohen hid from tax authorities included:
• $100,000 for brokering the sale of a piece of property in a private aviation community in Ocala, Florida in 2014.
• More than $200,000 from an assisted living company "purportedly for Cohen's 'consulting' on real estate and other projects" in 2016.
• $30,000 for brokering sale of a French handbag, which retails for $11,900 to $300,000 "depending on the type of leather or animal skin used."

Tabloid media payments were to influence the election

One of the payments Cohen acknowledged violated campaign finance laws wasn't made by him.

Instead, prosecutors charged that he helped arrange an agreement for another woman to sell the story of her affair with Trump to The National Enquirer. The magazine paid Karen McDougal $150,000 for the rights to any story involving her relationship with "any then-married man."

The magazine was not named in court documents, but prosecutors' description matches the Enquirer. McDougal is referred to as "Woman-1."

Prosecutors said that although the agreement was ostensibly to pay her for writing for the magazine, "its principle purpose ... was to suppress Woman-1's story so as to prevent it from influencing the election."

The court records allege the chairman and chief executive of the magazine's parent company had agreed to help the campaign "deal with negative stories about [Trump's] relationships with women, by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided."

The court records describe a method known as "catch and kill" whereby a tabloid media company pays an individual for exclusive rights to a story, but never publishes it.

There is no cooperation agreement, but Cohen could still cooperate

Despite the details provided in the plea agreement, questions remain about the broader implications for people other than Cohen who prosecutors have said took part in the payment.

Cohen's legal deal struck as part of his plea agreement Tuesday does not include any explicit promises to cooperate with authorities as part of any broader investigation. (Cohen also has testified to congressional investigators examining Russian interference in the 2016 election.)

George Washington University Law School lecturer Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor, said Cohen "could certainly implicate at a minimum other members of the campaign."

"The biggest unanswered question in my mind is: Is he now going to seek to cooperate in additional investigations against trump or other members of the campaign?" he said. "Or, his he going to plead guilty, stay silent and just walk away from it all?"</s>Michael Cohen leaves a federal courthouse in New York City, on May 30, 2018.

Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s former fixer, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to campaign finance and other charges.

He made the extraordinary admission that he paid a pornographic actress “at the direction of the candidate,” referring to Mr. Trump, to secure her silence about an affair she said she had with Mr. Trump.

Deputy U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami told reporters on Tuesday after Cohen's guilty plea that he submitted invoices to the candidate's company to obtain reimbursement for the unlawful campaign contributions.

“Today, as you heard, Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to eight felony charges. Five of those dealt with tax evasion for the years 2012 through 2016, through which he failed to report approximately $4.1 million in reported income. Approxmiately 2.5 of that money was from interest payments from a personal loan that he failed to report. Approximately $1.3 million of that money was from the operation of his taxi medalion business. Approximately $100,000 of that money was from brokerage commissions and over $200,000 was from consulting fees. That’s over $4.3 mllion over a five-year period, which tranlates into a loss for the United States Treasury of approximately $1.3 million. “

Khuzami said Cohen decided, as a lawyer, that he was above the law and would pay a "very, very serious price" for his actions.

"These are very serious charges and reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over an extended period of time," Khuzami said.

Cohen pleaded guilty to charges including campaign finance fraud stemming from hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal.

The 51-year-old Cohen said in federal court in New York on Tuesday that he made the payments in coordination with Trump, who wasn't named, to influence the election. Both women claimed Trump had affairs with them, which he denies.

The other charges Cohen pleaded guilty to involve bank fraud and income tax evasion.

As part of his plea agreement, Cohen agreed not to challenge any sentence from 46 to 63 months.

Cohen's plea follows months of scrutiny from federal investigations and a falling out with the president, whom he previously said he'd "take a bullet" for.

FBI raids in April sought bank records, communications with Trump's campaign and information on payments to Daniels and McDougal.

Both women claimed Trump had affairs with them, which he denies.

The deal comes after reports that federal investigators were looking into whether Cohen committed bank and tax fraud worth more than $20 million, according to a media report. The New York Times, citing anonymous sources, said authorities were focusing on loans obtained for taxi businesses owned by Cohen and his family.

Investigators were also considering whether Cohen had violated campaign finance and other laws when he made financial arrangements to pay women to stay silent about alleged affairs with then-candidate Trump back in 2016.

Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, was paid $130,000 by Cohen. She has since filed a civil lawsuit to be released from a "hush" agreement over her affair.

Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti, said Tuesday's developments "will permit us to have the stay lifted in the civil case & should also permit us to proceed with an expedited deposition of Trump under oath about what he knew, when he knew it, and what he did about it."

Avenatti also seemed to taunt Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

"Buckle Up Buttercup," he wrote. "You and your client completely misplayed this.."

Cohen was also involved in an agreement to pay McDougal to remain quiet about her own affair with Trump. Last month, an audio recording of a conversation reportedly betweenTrump andCohen, about a payment to a former Playboy model was released.

Prosecutors had reportedly considered filing charges against Cohen by the end of August.

Cohen, who long served as Trump's fixer, has been under investigation for months. In April, federal investigators for the Southern District of New York seized roughly 4 million files from Cohen's home, business office and hotel room.

The investigation has strained the once close relationship between Trump and Cohen.

More: Report: Ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen investigated for bank and tax fraud of more than $20 million

More: Feds win access to records seized from ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen

More: Michael Cohen tapes: Here's what we know about the secret recordings</s>Two people familiar with the financial fraud investigation of Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, say he will plead guilty to federal charges including campaign finance fraud, bank fraud and tax evasion.

Cohen is due to appear in court in New York at 4 p.m. Tuesday. He was earlier seen going into an FBI building.

The people spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

They say the campaign finance charges involve payments to two women.

The investigation into Cohen has pulled back the curtain on Cohen's role as the president's loyal "fixer."

Earlier this year he admitted arranging a $130,000 payment to quiet porn actress Stormy Daniels' claims that she had an affair with Trump.

The investigation into Cohen has pulled back the curtain on Cohen's role as the president's loyal "fixer."

Both Cohen's lawyers and the U.S. Attorney's office declined comment on Tuesday.

The development came a day after prosecutors signaled that Cohen could be charged before the end of the month in a case that has been a distraction for the White House with the midterm elections approaching. Absent a quick resolution, it's believed that prosecutors would put off a decision on how to go forward with the case until after the election in compliance with an informal Justice Department policy of avoiding bringing prosecutions that could be seen as political and influence voters.

Prosecutors had been investigating Cohen for possible fraud related to his businesses for months. The FBI raided his hotel room, home and office on April 9, seizing more than 4 million items.

The search of Cohen's files sought bank records, communications with the Trump campaign and information on hush money payments made in 2016 to two women: former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who received $150,000, and the porn actress Stormy Daniels, who got $130,000.

The New York Times reported earlier this week, based on anonymous sources, that prosecutors have been focusing on more than $20 million in loans obtained by taxi businesses that Cohen and his family own.

Cohen had gained notoriety as Trump's loyal "fixer" before the FBI raid. And Trump branded it "a witch hunt," an assault on attorney-client privilege and a politically motivated attack by enemies in the FBI.

But the president's initial support for Cohen has since degenerated into a public feud, prompting speculation that, to save himself, Cohen might be willing to tell prosecutors some of the secrets he helped Trump keep.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>President Trump’s former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen appeared at FBI headquarters in New York on Tuesday afternoon ahead of a 4 p.m. court proceeding where he will plead guilty to federal charges, according to multiple reports.

Cohen will reportedly plead guilty to charges concerning violations of campaign-finance law, bank fraud, and tax fraud stemming from a four-month investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan.

The probe has focused on his business dealings, but also touched on pre-election-year payoffs to two women who claimed they had affairs with Trump years ago.

Prosecutors announced there would be a proceeding of interest for a defendant identified only as John Doe, followed by a news conference outside the courthouse. About 90 minutes before that scheduled event, Cohen was seen walking into the FBI building.

The downfall of Trump’s longtime lawyer was set in motion April 9 by an FBI raid on his home, office and hotel room. The raid was reportedly authorized by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a target of Trump’s frequent ire over the Russia investigation.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said in court filings at the time that it was investigating “Cohen’s personal business dealings and finances.” Prosecutors eyed Cohen for months, reportedly over possible bank fraud, wire fraud and campaign-finance violations.

Search warrants reportedly sought information on $20 million in loans Cohen took out from two banks that deal with the taxi industry, which Cohen was a part of through his ownership of medallions that authorize cabs in New York.

The warrants also sought information on Cohen’s role in muzzling at least two women who allegedly had extramarital affairs with Trump: Stormy Daniels, who claimed she bedded the now-president at a Lake Tahoe golf tournament in 2006, and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal, who said she dated Trump throughout 2006 and 2007.

Daniels signed a nondisclosure agreement with Trump and Cohen days before the election in exchange for $130,000, while McDougal’s story was bought, then buried, by the Trump-friendly publisher of the National Enquirer. Both women filed lawsuits asking to be released from these contracts. McDougal has settled and stepped out of the spotlight, but Daniels’ case is on hold pending the outcome of the Cohen probe.

Hours after the FBI came knocking, President Trump called the raid a “disgraceful situation” and “an attack on our country.” Cohen was famously Trump’s most-dependable bulldog, saying he would “do anything” to protect him, even to “take a bullet.”

Weeks after the raid though, their relationship — said to have been frosty since Trump became president and reportedly spurned Cohen for a West Wing job — turned to ice.

In June, CNN reported Cohen claimed that Trump has prior knowledge of the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russians offering “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. In response, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said Cohen had “lied all his life.”

Days later, in Cohen’s first and only interview since the raid, Trump’s former fixer said his family “have my first loyalty and always will.”

Days after the FBI search, Cohen, 52, lawyered up and sought a temporary restraining order in Manhattan federal court, asking that his legal team inspect the materials for attorney-client privilege before handing them to prosecutors.

On April 26, U.S. District judge Kimba Wood appointed a former colleague, Barbara Jones, as the “special master,” or independent party, tasked with reviewing the seized paper and electronic items for privilege.

Federal agents confiscated over 3.7 million files, and a review of the documents came to an end on Monday. Judge Wood on Tuesday accepted Jones’ finding that “7,146 of those items are privileged, eight are partially privileged, and 285 are highly personal.” None of those items may be supplied to the government as part of its investigation, Wood ruled.

After the raid, Cohen then hired two new lawyers, one to deal with feds and one to deal with Trump: Guy Petrillo, former chief of SDNY’s criminal division and an experienced trial lawyer; Lanny Davis, a lawyer “best known as a high-profile spinner for Bill and Hillary Clinton,” as The New York Times put it.

Davis took on Trump’s own lawyer, Giuliani, in a fight that played out on TV in July.

That month, Davis released one of several tapes Cohen is said to have made of Trump when they two worked together at the Trump organization. On the tape, Trump and Cohen apparently discuss how to pay off McDougal.

"I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David," Cohen said, likely referencing AMI owner David Pecker. When Cohen tells Trump about financing, Trump said “pay with cash.”

Giuliani said Trump never paid any money towards the McDougal catch and kill.

Prosecutors have 12 audio tapes made by Cohen, CNN reported last month.
New York state investigators subpoena Michael Cohen as part of their investigation into the Trump Foundation.