Michael Cohen deal a critical step for Mueller that exposes
Trump to new risk
An agitated Trump tried to play down his ex-aide’s deal with
prosecutors – but experts call it ‘potentially very significant’
Tom McCarthy in New York
@TeeMcSee Email
Thu 29 Nov 2018 18.34 GMT Last modified on Fri 30 Nov 2018
07.14 GMT
Michael Cohen in New York in April. Trump could be legally
vulnerable on a number of fronts, analysts said.
A deal announced on Thursday between Michael Cohen, the
longtime personal lawyer and fixer for Donald Trump, and federal prosecutors
has left the president and his family vulnerable to new legal hazards and could
represent one of the most significant advances so far in the work of special
counsel Robert Mueller, legal analysts said.
Cohen pleaded guilty to making false statements to Congress
about a deal he pursued on Trump’s behalf to build a Trump tower in Moscow.
Court documents revealed Cohen was in contact with top
Kremlin officials about the prospective tower; that Trump was closer to the
negotiations than previously acknowledged; and that the deal was alive as late
as June 2016 – six months longer than Cohen told Congress.
The court filing appeared to expose multiple and repeated
public lies by Trump about his links to Russia. “I have no deals that could
happen in Russia, because we’ve stayed away,” Trump said at a press conference
during the presidential transition. “I have no deals … because I think that
would be a conflict.”
Confronted with the contradiction outside the presidential
helicopter on Thursday morning, a visibly agitated Trump said “this deal was a
very public deal – everybody knows about this deal”, then denied there was ever
a deal, then said if there had been a deal it would have been no problem.
“This was a deal that didn’t happen,” Trump said. “That was
no deal. If you look – this was an option. To my way of thinking, it was an
option that we decided not to do.”
Former US attorney Barb McQuade called the Cohen deal
“potentially very significant”, pointing out that in court documents, Cohen
admitted to lying to Congress “in hopes of limiting the ongoing Russia
investigations”.
McQuade said: “That says to me that – you know people only
lie and take a risk like that when the consequences of telling the truth are
even worse. So what would be so bad about it? Certainly the mere fact that they
were negotiating a building in Russia was not in any way illegal, so what more
was he trying to hide there?”
Trump could be legally vulnerable on a number of fronts,
analysts said. Last summer, Mueller charged Russian hackers with a “conspiracy
to defraud the United States” by tampering with the 2016 election; it is
possible that a Trump associate or family member could at some point be charged
as a co-conspirator.
“Michael Cohen is likely someone to be a trusted confidant
who knows about these things and has now agreed to cooperate about them,” said
McQuade. “This suggests that his cooperation is about the heart of the Mueller
investigation and that is collusion with Russia.”
Other analysts said that the pattern of lying by former
Trump aides about the campaign’s Russia ties – at least seven former Trump
aides and associates have either been charged with making false statements or
face such charges – could mean trouble for Trump, if the president were shown
to have directed it.
“There are an awful lot of Trump underlings now caught lying
to Congress and others about Russia and Trump specifically,” tweeted Neal
Katyal, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center. “Why? At whose
direction? Who stood to gain from the lies?”
Former US attorney Preet Bharara was one of many to point
out that just last week, Trump submitted written answers to questions from
Mueller, reportedly including questions about a potential real estate deal in
Moscow.
“This is perhaps the most significant issue I’ve seen raised
so far: does Cohen contradict Trump’s recent written answers to Mueller
specifically on the Moscow Trump Tower project,” Bharara tweeted. “If so and
Cohen’s version is corroborated, Trump is guilty of a false statement.”
The Cohen deal could pose difficulties for Trump’s family
members, too. Court documents referring to Trump as “Individual 1” said Cohen
“briefed family members of Individual 1 within the Company about the [Moscow]
project”, and that “COHEN agreed to travel to Russia in connection with the
Moscow Project and took steps in contemplation of Individual 1’s possible
travel to Russia.”
If Donald Trump Jr was part of those conversations, he could
be in fresh trouble. In May, Trump Jr told the Senate he “wasn’t involved” with
the Moscow deal, and denied awareness that Cohen had contacted the Kremlin to
negotiate the deal.
But the brazen nature of Trump’s public lying could
represent the ultimate hazard for the president, whose party suffered huge
losses in elections earlier this month and who himself comes up for re-election
in 2020.
Andy Wright, a law professor and founding editor of the Just
Security blog, called the Cohen news a “bombshell” development.
He said: “The president was lying to the American people at
a critical time during the vetting of his candidacy about whether or not he was
pursuing a deal with Russia. Before we get to the law, that’s very troubling.
“I still think that those fundamental dynamics about lying
to American people apply.
“The legal process is also incredibly important, but at the
end of the day it’s our democracy that matters more than whether Donald Trump
gets punished.”
After Cohen's guilty plea, the threads of Trump Inc are fraying
Richard Wolffe
The spectacle of Mueller cornering Trump’s gang is
fascinating to watch and essential to the rebuilding of the rule of law
@richardwolffedc
Thu 29 Nov 2018 22.23 GMT Last modified on Fri 30 Nov 2018
07.14 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/29/michael-cohen-guilty-plea-trump-richard-wolffe
Trump and Melania on Thursday. We now live in a world where
America’s truly worst president ever insists that cash is king.
The great unraveling has begun. Between the latest guilty
plea by Donald Trump’s fixer and the breakdown of a guilty plea by his campaign
chairman, the threads are fraying on the scheming enterprise that is Trump Inc.
The man pulling at the many loose ends of this loosey-goosey
business is working methodically in ways that are only clear in hindsight.
Robert Mueller, the special counsel, is a strategic mastermind cornering a gang
of simpletons watched by a peanut gallery of gawkers and hecklers.
The spectacle is both fascinating to watch and essential to
the rebuilding of the rule of law. The United States urgently needs to resume
its role as a global example of good government. Especially when its own
government is rotten to the core.
Republicans in Congress may refuse to investigate the Trump
administration, but Mueller and the courts are reaffirming that it matters when
people break election laws, tax laws, lobbying laws, or lie under oath. It
matters when foreign agents conspire to attack the United States by hacking
into the computers of one of its main political parties.
Meanwhile our simpleton-in-chief can only sputter on the
sidelines of Twitter about the many ways Mueller is plainly driving him nuts.
“Did you ever see an investigation more in search of a
crime,” Trump tweeted while he should have been prepping for another world
summit. As a matter of fact, investigations are supposed to search for crimes,
but that’s beside the point for the man who can fire and hire an attorney
general. He would much prefer an investigation into anyone else right now: the
Grinch who stole Christmas, Hillary Clinton, the man who broke the bank at
Monte Carlo. Anyone will do.
“After wasting more than $40,000,000 (is that possible?), it
has proven only one thing – there was NO Collusion with Russia,” he tweeted
barely an hour later, still stewing in his own resentment. “So Ridiculous!”
To answer the president’s questions: yes, it’s possible to
spend a lot of federal dollars (see: corporate tax cuts, Trump administration).
No, Mueller hasn’t cost the taxpayer a dime after all the property he seized
from Trump’s campaign chairman. The only Ridiculous Thing about this is pretending
that the Question of Collusion has been Answered.
But since you mentioned Collusion, Mr President, let’s yank
a little more on this thread, shall we?
Michael Cohen’s bombshell of a plea deal on Thursday
establishes that Trump’s personal and business lawyer was colluding with the
Russian government during the presidential election of 2016 to profit from a
possible real estate deal.
Cohen’s guilty plea touches on at least three criminal
undertakings. He lied to Congress to cover up the fact that the wheeling and
dealing continued through the campaign. He literally coordinated his efforts on
Trump’s behalf with the Russian government, which was at the time engaged in a
criminal conspiracy to manipulate the election through hacking. And he was
securing foreign financial support for a presidential candidate. The only way
this proves NO Collusion is if colluding does not qualify as collusion any
more.
Normally you might describe a political figure profiting
from his public office – even his potential for public office – as corrupt. But
the leader of the free world prefers to describe it another way: good business.
“I was running my business while I was campaigning,” Trump
told reporters on Thursday. “There was a good chance that I wouldn’t have won,
in which case I would have gone back into the business and why should I lose
lots of opportunities.”
Why indeed? Why surrender private profit when you want to
enter public service? What a quaint idea, enshrined into US law by something
called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Trump has found
himself surrounded by the most dismal collection of indicted, colluding, lying
aides and employees
We used to live in a world where America’s worst president
ever was defined by his insistence that he wasn’t a crook. We now live in a
world where America’s truly worst president ever insists that cash is king.
To be fair, Trump has good reason to feel victimized. Some
way, somehow, he has found himself surrounded by the most dismal collection of
indicted, colluding, lying aides and employees.
Imagine Trump’s surprise when he discovered that Cohen was,
as he put it on Thursday, “a weak person” who is “lying very simply in order to
get a reduced sentence”. Don’t you hate those weak selfish liars who pretend to
be strong and helpful? It’s like saying you’re helping the depressed rust belt
while slapping down tariffs that shutter its remaining factories.
Imagine Trump’s horror when he found that Paul Manafort, his
campaign chairman, was guilty of financial fraud and lying to prosecutors. All
the poor man was trying to do was change the Republican party platform on
Russia’s annexation of Ukraine, and, well, collude with the president’s
lawyers. Yes, he may have also secretly met with WikiLeaks during the election.
But that’s no reason to think there was actual, you know, collusion.
We can be sure that Trump is as surprised as we are that
federal agents on Thursday raided the offices of a Chicago alderman who also
worked on property taxes for one Donald Trump.
Truly, has there ever been a wealthy businessman so
mistreated by so many people who worked so closely for him? Even his national
security adviser turned out to be a liar who had close contacts with the
Russians after the 2016 elections. Imagine how Trump will feel when he sees
Michael Flynn sentenced in a few days’ time.
Betrayed, no doubt, in more ways than one.
Trump is right. This investigation needs to come to an end.
We need to know what Mueller knows. We need to know how Trump’s honest motive
to make money was honestly at the heart of everything he has done. We need to
forget the pee tapes and follow the money.
Em plena campanha eleitoral, empresa do então candidato
ofereceu apartamento ao presidente russo no edifício que o grupo ia construir
em Moscovo
29 Novembro 2018 — 23:58
Ex-advogado de Trump confessa que mentiu ao Congresso
A trama das relações entre Trump e a Rússia. Depois de, na
manhã de quinta-feira, o antigo advogado do presidente norte-americano ter
admitido que mentira ao Congresso, o site Buzzfeed vem agora acrescentar os
contornos dos negócios entre o então candidato republicano e uma nação rival
que é acusada de interferir nas presidenciais.
São quatro fontes aquelas a que o Buzzfeed recorre, uma das
quais a pessoa que organizou o plano.
Cohen, diz o site, ter-se-á encontrado com um representante
do secretário de imprensa de Putin, Dmitry Peskov, com uma proposta simpática.
A empresa de Trump negociou em plena campanha eleitoral para
as presidenciais norte-americanas a construção de uma torre de 100 andares no
centro de Moscovo. E Cohen terá oferecido ao presidente russo a penthouse do
edifício, avaliada em 50 milhões de dólares (44 milhões de euros).
O acordo não chegou a acontecer porque o plano para
construção da torre acabaria por ruir. Mas, apesar de o Buzzfeed não ter
conseguido apurar se Trump estava a par do negócio, o facto é que o advogado
Michael Cohen já declarou que mantinha regularmente a família Trump a par dos
negócios da empresa, mesmo durante a campanha para as presidenciais.
Michael Cohen foi advogado e conselheiro de Donald Trump
durante mais de uma década e é considerado uma das mais importantes figuras
neste processo de investigação, juntamente com Paul Manafort, antigo diretor de
campanha de Trump, que também fez um acordo de confissão com o procurador
especial Robert Mueller que investiga a ingerência russa nas eleições
presidenciais americanas.
Donald Trump reagiu à confissão de Cohen dizendo que este é
uma "pessoa fraca", que está a mentir para conseguir uma redução de
pena.
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