Donald Trump stood accused of conspiring to commit campaign fraud and two of his closest aides faced jail time Tuesday, after court proceedings that delivered a legal and political one-two punch to his embattled presidency.

In a drama that played out simultaneously across two US cities, two key aides each faced eight separate charges stemming from a federal investigation into the 2016 presidential election.

In New York, Trump's long-time attack-dog fixer Michael Cohen pled guilty to eight counts including making illegal campaign contributions.

In a sensational twist he pointed to the president as a coconspirator.

Cohen pled guilty to illegally making pre-election hush payments, including to porn star Stormy Daniels, who says she had an affair with Trump.

But as part of a plea deal Cohen said he acted "in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office."

"I participated in this conduct with the purpose of influencing the election," a visibly crestfallen Cohen told the judge, his voice trembling at times as he addressed the packed courtroom.

That admission put Trump himself in legal jeopardy and raised the prospect that a trusted lieutenant is ready to spill secrets, gathered over decades, in exchange for a reduced sentence.

The White House refused to comment on Cohen's allegation, with press secretary Sarah Sanders tersely telling reporters: "Refer you to the President's outside counsel."

While the Cohen drama was unfolding in New York, a jury in Virginia found Trump's one-time campaign chairman Paul Manafort guilty on eight counts including bank fraud, tax fraud and a failure to declare foreign bank accounts.

"I feel very sad about that," Trump told reporters as he arrived in West Virginia for a rally, claiming the conviction was part of a "witch hunt" after the 2016 election.

"It's a very sad thing that happened, this has nothing to do with Russian collusion."

Trump also sought to distance himself from Manafort -- who was instrumental in the 72-year-old securing the 2016 Republican nomination.

"He worked for many, many people," said Trump, citing campaigns for former president Ronald Reagan and vice presidential candidate Bob Dole.

But it is Cohen's decision to enter a plea deal that may pose the most problems for the White House.

While it is US legal tradition that the president cannot be tried, the allegation, if proven will only increase calls for his impeachment.

Questioned by a federal judge in Manhattan, Cohen indicated he had paid sums of $130,000 and $150,000 each to two women who claimed they had affairs with Trump.

The two women are believed Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who the president also denies having an affair with.

Cohen said he made the payments "at the request of a candidate" to silence "information that would be prejudicial to the candidate and the campaign."

In addition to two counts of violating campaign finance laws, Cohen pleaded guilty to five counts of tax fraud and one of bank fraud during the hearing before US District Judge William Pauley.

The judge informed the 51-year-old Cohen he faced a maximum of 65 years of imprisonment, with his sentenced set to be handed down on Dec 12.

The US president had spent much of Tuesday cooped up at the White House, as rainstorms raged outside and the two high profile legal cases with profound implications for his presidency reached their coda.

At a courthouse close to Washington, jurors spent four days deliberating on the 18 charges against Manafort.

While the jury was unable to reach a verdict on 10 counts, prompting the judge to declare a partial mistrial, Manafort was found guilty on the eight remaining charges.

These included five counts of making false income tax returns, two counts of bank fraud and one of failure to report foreign bank and financial accounts.

Each of the bank fraud counts carries a significant maximum sentence and the 69-year-old could theoretically live out the remainder of his years in prison -- though a legal expert contacted by AFP predicted his sentence would in reality run to under a decade.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says the conviction of his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort on financial crimes is “a disgrace.”

But he hasn’t publicly reacted to former personal attorney Michael Cohen’s guilty pleas to felonies, including campaign finance violations he stated he carried out in coordination with Trump.

Manafort was convicted Tuesday in Virginia on charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and potential obstruction of justice. Cohen pleaded guilty in New York, saying he and Trump arranged the payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels and a former Playboy model to influence the election.

Trump told reporters in West Virginia that Manafort’s conviction “has nothing to do with Russian collusion.” Of Manafort’s crimes, he says: “It doesn’t involve me.”</s>US President Donald Trump has made a harsh dig at former lawyer Michael Cohen via twitter. Picture: AFP

US President Donald Trump has made a harsh dig at former lawyer Michael Cohen via twitter. Picture: AFP

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump said he found out "later on" that his lawyer Michael Cohen paid two women he allegedly had affairs with to keep quiet before the 2016 election.

Mr Trump told Fox & Friends that he was not a criminal because the money came out of his own pocket and not campaign finances.

"They didn't come out of the campaign. In fact, my first question, when I heard about it, [was] 'Did they come out of the campaign because that could be a little dicey,'" Mr Trump said. "It is not even a campaign violation."

"They didn't come out of the campaign; they came from me," he said.

Asked if he knew about the payments, Mr Trump responded that "later on I knew ... later on."

Mr Cohen's lawyer Lanny Davis said in an interview on MSNBC that Mr Trump was "misstating the law."

"Donald Trump tweeted that it only is illegal if it's campaign funds, not if it's personal funds. That is completely false under the law," Mr Davis said.

"The interviewer didn't say, wait a minute, Mr President, it doesn't matter whether it's a campaign contribution, which you said is dicey, or whether you write a personal check," he said. "The campaign limitations under the law apply the same."

Mr Trump's critics have argued the case being made by the president that the payments to Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal were personal do not hold up given the timing - only weeks before the election.

Mr Trump took to his favourite social media platform to express some loaded remarks about Mr Cohen, tweeting that he would not recommend his former personal lawyer.

This comes as Mr Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations.

Mr Cohen's admission has thrown Mr Trump's presidency into crisis and raises questions about the President's own legal jeopardy.

TMZhas reported Mr Cohen will lose his right to practice law and will be disbarred in New York, after pleading guilty on eight federal counts, including tax evasion and campaign law violations.

Spokesperson for the Southern District of New York, Nicholas Biase, said "Mr. Cohen does lose his law license upon conviction, which technically does not occur until sentencing."

Perhaps more damaging for Mr Trump, though, is that Mr Cohen is reportedly willing to speak with Special Counsel Robert Mueller that his former boss knew about a "conspiracy to collude" with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign.

"Mr Cohen wants to tell Mr Mueller that Mr Trump knew of an infamous 2016 meeting at Trump Tower and the Russian hacking of Democratic institutions before they took place", Mr Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis told MSNBC.

"Mr Cohen has knowledge on certain subjects that should be of interest to the special counsel and is more than happy to tell the special counsel all that he knows," Mr Davis told the network.

"Not just about the obvious possibility of a conspiracy to collude and corrupt the American democracy system in the 2016 election, which the Trump Tower meeting was all about, but also knowledge about the computer crime of hacking and whether or not Mr Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on."

Mr Cohen's lawyer took to Twitter to accuse Mr Trump of inciting his client's crime.

"Today he (Cohen) stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election," Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis, said on twitter.

"If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, why wouldn't they be a crime for Donald Trump?"

Mr Trump and the White House have previously denied knowing about any of the payments organised by Mr Cohen.

Mr Davis said his client's guilty plea draws on a letter that Mr Trump's current lawyers sent special counsel Robert Mueller admitting the president "directed" Mr Cohen to make the Stormy Daniels hush-money payoff.

MICHAEL COHEN'S LAWYER ON WHAT HE KNOWS

"Let me make 100 per cent clear: the evidence was provided definitively by Donald Trump's lawyers," Mr Davis said. "It's not a dispute. It's not about credibility. It's his lawyers in a letter used the word directed."

Mr Cohen's plea in federal court in New York on Tuesday came at nearly the same moment that Trump's one-time campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was convicted by a jury in Virginia of financial crimes.

In a series of Tweets, the US President had nothing but praise for his former campaign chief.

Manafort faces separate charges in September in the District of Columbia that include acting as a foreign agent.

Mr Trump has repeatedly denounced the probe as a "witch hunt."

The previous night, at a political rally in West Virginia, the president mostly ignored the legal developments and insisted that his administration was still "winning."

Mr Cohen and Manafort played prominent roles in Mr Trump's political rise in 2016.

Mr Cohen was known as Mr Trump's longtime private "fixer" and once he'd take a bullet for Mr Trump.

Mr Cohen released a secretly recorded audio of Mr Trump discussing a payout made via a third party to Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal who says she had a sexual relationship with Mr Trump in 2006.

Such a payment could be regarded as an illegal campaign expenditure if the money was clearly meant to influence the 2016 election.

In a deal with federal prosecutors, Mr Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts, including tax evasion. He could get about four to five years in prison at sentencing December 12.

Manafort was convicted of eight felony counts, including charges of filing false tax returns and failing to report foreign bank accounts.

Prosecutors will decide whether to retry him on 10 other charges.

Manafort was a well-connected Republican consultant and lobbyist who prosecutors say made $60 million in foreign money working for Russia-backed politicians in Ukraine. He was campaign chairman for months during the Republican nomination battle in 2016.

At the West Virginia rally, he focused on developments on trade, taxes, North Korea and his plans for a space force.

"Where is the collusion?" he asked.

His supporters chanted Mr Trump's campaign staples "Drain the swamp!" and "Lock her up!" The White House is trying to keep the focus on the November election, when control of Congress is at stake.

This article was originally published in the New York Post and has been reproduced here with permission.</s>WASHINGTON — The guilty plea of Michael Cohen and conviction of Paul Manafort on Tuesday raised the question of whether President Donald Trump would use his authority to grant clemency or a pardon to the two former advisers or any of his other former confidants facing legal troubles.

Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges, including tax evasion and campaign-finance law violations, in a federal courthouse in New York. Separately, a jury in Virginia found Manafort, former Trump campaign chairman, guilty on eight counts of fraud, while the jury failed to reach a verdict on 10 other counts. Neither has been sentenced.

Read: Cohen pleads guilty to campaign-finance violations as Manafort found guilty of tax fraud

Trump has the unilateral and unambiguous authority to issue a pardon or commute the sentences of both men, legal experts say, as well as any other former aides facing a federal sentence, such as former national security adviser Mike Flynn or foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos, who have both pleaded guilty to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle said they wanted to see the cases reach their conclusion. A pardon is “above my pay grade. That’s the president’s choice,” said John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate. “But I think I’d like to see the case run its course and let the courts do their job.” Democrats were more blunt. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., warned that the president “better not talk about pardons for Michael Cohen or Paul Manafort tonight, or any time in the near future.” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., told reporters that a pardon for either man would be “reckless to say the least.”

An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.

The exercise that helps mental health the most.</s>Tuesday was a bad day in court for former associates of President Donald Trump, and it could foreshadow hard days ahead for the president.

In a New York courtroom, Trump's former personal lawyer and "fixer," Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to campaign-finance violations. Cohen said Trump directed him to arrange the payment of hush money to two women who claimed they had affairs with Trump, porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, acknowledging the payments were made to influence the election.

In Virginia, a jury found former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort guilty of eight financial crimes unrelated to the campaign. It was the first trial victory for prosecutors in the office of special counsel Robert Mueller, whose investigation Trump has derided as a witch hunt.

What do the developments mean for the president? Some questions and answers:

DOES COHEN'S GUILTY PLEA MEAN TRUMP VIOLATED THE LAW?

Cohen said in court he made one payment "in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office" and the other "under direction of the same candidate." The amounts and dates all line up with the payments made to Daniels and McDougal.

Prosecutors did not go as far as Cohen did in open court in pointing the finger at the president, saying Cohen acted "in coordination with a candidate or campaign for federal office for purposes of influencing the election." Legal experts said there could be multiple reasons for government lawyers' more cautious statements.

Daniel Petalas, former prosecutor in the Justice Department's public integrity section, said the issue of whether Trump violated the law comes down to whether Trump "tried to influence an election, whether he knew and directed it and whether he knew it was improper."

But Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani said in a statement: "There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President in the government's charges against Mr. Cohen."

Trump denied to reporters in April that he knew anything about Cohen's payments to Daniels, though the explanations from the president and Giuliani have shifted multiples times since.

DOES COHEN'S PLEA MEAN TRUMP COULD BE FORCED TO SUBMIT TO QUESTIONS?

Trump's lawyers have been negotiating with Mueller about whether the president would submit to an interview as part of Mueller's Russia investigation. Now Daniels' attorney Michael Avenatti says he'll renew efforts to get Trump to submit to a deposition in a lawsuit Daniels filed to invalidate a nondisclosure agreement she signed ahead of the 2016 election.

Avenatti tweeted that the Cohen pleas should "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."

Daniels' case is currently on hold, but Avenatti said he'll be looking to get that hold lifted.

The Supreme Court in 1997, ruling in a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by Paula Jones against President Bill Clinton, held that a sitting president could be made to answer questions as part of a lawsuit. But that ruling did not directly address whether a president could be subpoenaed to testify in a criminal investigation, a question the Supreme Court may have to confront if Mueller tries to compel Trump's testimony in his probe.

IF THERE IS EVIDENCE OF WRONGDOING, CAN TRUMP BE INDICTED?

The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, which provides legal advice and guidance to executive branch agencies, has held that a sitting president cannot be indicted.

Trump's lawyers have said Mueller plans to adhere to that guidance, though Mueller's office has never independently confirmed that. There would presumably be no bar against charging a president after he or she leaves the White House.

Sol Wisenberg, who conducted grand jury questioning of Clinton as deputy independent counsel during the Whitewater investigation, said he still wanted to see more details of Cohen's plea deal. But he said: "Obviously it's not good for Trump. The stuff on Stormy Daniels is not good for Trump."

"I'm assuming he's not going to be indicted because he's a sitting president," Wisenberg said. "But it leads him closer to ultimate impeachment proceedings, particularly if the Democrats take back the House."

HOW DOES COHEN'S PLEA RELATE TO THE MUELLER INVESTIGATION?

While the Manafort case was part of Mueller's investigation, the Cohen case was not. It was handled by prosecutors in New York. Still, it could give Mueller a boost.

Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, argued that Cohen's plea knocks back the argument that the investigations swirling around Trump are a "witch hunt," as the president has called Mueller's Russia investigation.

"No longer can you say Mueller is on a witch hunt when you have his own lawyer pleading guilty to things that were designed to impact the election," she said.

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 pardoned Joe Arpaio, the former Arizona sheriff who clashed with a judge on immigration, and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a Bush administration official convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in a leak case.

As for whether a president can pardon himself, not surprisingly, courts have never had to answer that question. Giuliani, Trump's lawyer, has said it won't come to that anyway.

"Pardoning himself would be unthinkable and probably lead to immediate impeachment," Giuliani told NBC's "Meet the Press" in June. And he has no need to do it, he's done nothing wrong." Still, Giuliani argued Trump "probably does" have the power to pardon himself.</s>The inquiry is seeking to determine whether Mr Cohen misrepresented the value of his assets in order to obtain the loans from two financial institutions, Sterling National Bank and the Melrose Credit Union. The investigators are scrutinising whether he did not report his income from taxi medallions, the permits allowing taxi drivers to operate, to the Internal Revenue Services. They are also looking at whether Mr Cohen violated campaign finance laws by making payments to secure the silence of women who claimed to have had affairs with US President Donald Trump. The New York Times, which cited sources close with the investigation, reported that prosecutors are considering "filing charges" against Mr Cohen by the end of the month.

If convicted of tax and bank fraud, the former lawyer who once claimed he would take a bullet for Donald Trump, may find himself subject to a long jail sentence. The attorney representing Mr Cohen claimed on Sunday he had asked for help from President Nixon’s former lawyer. Lanny Davis told Politico that he had contacted John Dean, the ex-White House attorney who became a key witness in the Watergate scandal following his guilty plea to a single count of obstruction of justice. Mr Davis said: “I reached out to my old friend John Dean because of what he went through with Watergate, and I saw some parallels to what Michael Cohen is experiencing.

Mr Dean suggested last month that Mr Cohen seems to be looking to strike a deal with prosecutors. He said: "I don’t think it is boding well for the President.

"It’s clear, as I read the situation, that Michael Cohen is looking for a deal and he is upping the stakes." Mr Cohen's case could potentially reach an agreement with the investigators as they might offer him leniency in exchange for his cooperation with Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into whether the Trump campaign was involved with Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. In June, Mr Cohen stated he was willing to give evidence to Mr Mueller that the US President was aware of the meeting in the Trump Tower between Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and a high-flying Russian lawyer just months ahead of the 2016 election where he beat Hillary Clinton to the White House. US President Donald Trump has criticised the investigation into his former attorney, branding it an "attack on our country in a true sense".</s>WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump suffered back-to-back legal blows Tuesday, a whiplash series of court dramas that threatened to consume his agenda and overshadow his efforts to help the Republican Party in the November midterm elections.

As the president flew to West Virginia for a rally, a federal jury in Virginia found his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, guilty of bank and tax fraud. At almost the same time, longtime Trump attorney Michael Cohen acknowledged violating campaign finance laws, and said that he did so at Trump’s direction.

With two former aides to the president facing jail time, observers said the outcome of the separate, high-profile prosecutions on Tuesday could represent a turning point in Trump’s presidency in which the months-long investigations into his former dealings begin to leave a mark.

"The walls appear to be closing in," said Matt Mackowiak, a Texas-based Republican political consultant.

As the legal developments unfolded on what was arguably the most perilous day of his presidency, Trump boarded Air Force One for the trip to Charleston, West Virginia, part of an all-out political strategy to keep the House and Senate in Republican hands in the midterm elections this year.

The stakes for Trump are now legal as well as political: A Democratic-led House could start impeachment proceedings, which could lead to a trial in the Senate.

More: Michael Cohen said he paid hush money at 'direction' of Trump

More: Paul Manafort trial: Jury finds former Trump campaign manager guilty on 8 counts in tax fraud case

It was not immediately clear if the outcome of either case had legal ramifications for the president, who has repeatedly dismissed both efforts. But the conclusion of the two sagas involving men close to Trump nevertheless put the White House on defense politically.

“It’s obviously not a happy day for the president,” said Renato Mariotti, a defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor. “When you direct someone to commit a crime you are responsible for the underlying crime. Period.”

If Trump was concerned about widening impact from the downfall of his former aides he showed little sign of it Tuesday. After landing in Charleston for the rally, the president said the Manafort verdict didn’t have anything to do with him.

“Paul Manafort is a good man,” Trump said. “It doesn’t involve me but it’s a very sad thing.”

Trump, speaking to reporters on the tarmac, declined to answer questions about Cohen.

Rudolph Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, said there were no allegations of wrongdoing against the president in the Cohen case.

“It is clear that, as the prosecutor noted, Mr. Cohen's actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time,” Giuliani said.

Discrediting special counsel Mueller’s investigation as “rigged,” Trump has managed to parry several difficult news cycles during his presidency, maintaining a high approval among Republicans even as Democrats have blasted the president.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty in December to lying to the FBI about his dealings with Russian agents. Deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates took a plea deal in February in exchange for testifying against Manafort.

But Cohen’s guilty plea could expose the president to extraordinary legal jeopardy, implicating him in a plot to pay hush money to a pornographic actress to buy her silence on the eve of the 2016 presidential election in violation of campaign finance laws.

The plea was the latest consequence of a stunning break between Trump and his one-time fixer, who once said he would “take a bullet” for the president. The bitter split burst into view last month when Cohen revealed he taped a conversation with then-candidate Trump discussing the payment.

While Trump continues to criticize the Mueller investigation as a “witch hunt,” the president's fate will be determined by how the probe proceeds – and that will depend on decisions by Manafort and Cohen. Cohen's guilty plea on charges of tax evasion, bank fraud, and campaign finance violations did not include a cooperation agreement with prosecutors.

Aside from the potential legal impact, Republican operatives noted the outcome means the White House will be forced to continue to respond to the probes rather than discussing an agenda or trying to address the headwinds the GOP already faces as the November midterm approaches.

Several Republican consultants acknowledged that the news Tuesday was not good for Trump, but said it was too early to say how it may affect voters.

"His legal team will argue that he was protecting his family and he would have done it in the middle of a campaign or if there was no campaign," Mackowiak said.

Liz Mair, a Republican strategist, said "the good news" is that Trump is accused of a campaign finance violation, and "voters don’t understand campaign finance law nearly as well as they understand, say, burglary or murder or tax fraud, and they are inclined to trust Trump more than a lot of other people."

Those are just the Republicans, however.

"I imagine this further damages Trump and Republicans with swing voters, independents, and of course, Democrats," Mair said.

Democrats, including Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, were quick to argue that the turn of events Tuesday underscored the importance of Mueller’s work.

“This verdict makes it absolutely clear that the Mueller probe is not a ‘witch hunt,’” he said.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says the conviction of his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort on financial crimes is "a disgrace."

But he hasn't publicly reacted to former personal attorney Michael Cohen's guilty pleas to felonies, including campaign finance violations he stated he carried out in coordination with Trump.

Manafort was convicted Tuesday in Virginia on charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and potential obstruction of justice. Cohen pleaded guilty in New York, saying he and Trump arranged the payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels and a former Playboy model to influence the election.

Trump told reporters in West Virginia that Manafort's conviction "has nothing to do with Russian collusion." Of Manafort's crimes, he says: "It doesn't involve me."

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>Two of Trump's closest associates were handed convictions within hours on Tuesday.

Donald Trump’s campaign manager and his personal lawyer were both handed eight federal convictions each within a matter of hours on Tuesday, but supporters at Trump’s West Virginia rally are instead waiting for Hillary Clinton to go to jail.

The crowd at Trump’s Tuesday rally erupted into chants of “Lock her up!” just hours after both Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen were handed federal convictions. As Business Insider noted, the crowd seemed more interested in reliving one of the most popular sentiments from the 2016 campaign, when Clinton was investigated for her use of a private email server before the FBI declared that they would not recommend charges.

The chants came at a boisterous rally during which Trump took aim at some of his favorite targets, including the media and NFL protesters who protest during the national anthem. West Virginia gave Trump one of his largest win margins during the 2016 campaign and he remains a popular figure there. The state will also be important in the 2016 midterms, with Republicans looking to take a Senate seat from vulnerable Democrat Joe Manchin.

While the crowd at Trump’s rally may have been angling to see Hillary Clinton in prison, Michael Cohen faced some hecklers of his own as he left a federal courthouse in New York on Tuesday. After finalizing the terms of a plea bargain for eight charges of fraud and other offenses, Cohen heard chants of “Lock him up!” from some who had gathered to watch his proceedings, The Hill reported.

Paul Manafort had faced similar chants during his earlier court proceedings.

While Manafort’s convictions stemmed from financial crimes that predated his time as Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Cohen’s conviction had a direct connection to Trump and the 2016 presidential campaign. One of the convictions came for violating campaign finance law, and Cohen admitted to paying off two women on the direct orders of Donald Trump. It was not immediately clear if Cohen was working with investigators against Trump or if the president could be under investigation for his involvement in the payouts.

Many of Trump’s critics noted the irony of the campaign rally crowd’s chants to lock up Hillary Clinton on the same day two of the figures closest to Trump were headed to prison, and Twitter was abuzz with jokes about the chants.

Donald Trump did not make reference to either Paul Manafort or Michael Cohen during his rally in West Virginia.</s>Your privacy

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Former Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is found guilty on eight charges for false tax returns and bank fraud.