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The Guardian - US
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Kate Lyons (now), Kevin Rawlinson and Amanda Holpuch (earlier)

Trump cries 'Russian witch-hunt' after ex-campaign chair and former lawyer found guilty – as it happened

(L) Paul Manafort; (M) Donald Trump; (R) Michael Cohen
Donald Trump has pushed back after the Paul Manafort conviction and Michael Cohen plea deal. Composite: Jim Lo Scalzo/Mandel Ngan/Mike Segar/EPA/Getty/Reuters

Wrapping up and what we know so far

We’re wrapping up the live coverage of what has been an extraordinary day in US politics. Here’s a summary of what’s happened today:

  • Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been found guilty of bank fraud, tax fraud and failure to report a foreign bank account, which may mean he spends the rest of his life in prison.
  • In a separate court action in New York, former Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to eight federal crimes on Tuesday and said Trump had directed him to make two hush-money payments to women in violation of campaign finance laws. That case was referred to New York prosecutors by Mueller.
  • Trump spoke at a rally in West Virginia on Tuesday night and did not refer to either Manafort or Cohen, but did hit out at the “Russian witch hunt”.
  • As Trump landed in West Virginia he told reporters: “Paul Manafort’s a good man” and portrayed the Manafort prosecution, which grew out of an FBI investigation predating the 2016 campaign, as an unnatural outgrowth of the investigation being carried out by special counsel Robert Mueller.
  • “This has nothing to do with Russian collusion,” Trump said. “These are witch hunts and it’s a disgrace. This has nothing to do – it started out looking for Russians in our campaign and there were none.”
  • Trump ignored shouts from reporters requesting comment on the Michael Cohen case.
  • Speaking to MSNBC on Tuesday night, Lanny Davis, Michael Cohen’s laywer, said: “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.” Davis said Cohen had intel about the “possibility of a conspiracy to collude and corrupt the American democracy system in the 2016 election” and also knowledge about “the computer crime of hacking and whether or not Mr Trump knew ahead of time about that crime”.

For more, see our main story here. Thanks for following along.

Lanny Davis, the lawyer for Michael Cohen (pictured) says Cohen has knowledge that would be of interest to Robert Mueller.
Lanny Davis, the lawyer for Michael Cohen (pictured) says Cohen has knowledge that would be of interest to Robert Mueller. Photograph: Bryan Smith/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock

Michael Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, spoke to Rachel Maddow on MSNBC this evening. Davis says he took on Cohen as a client because “he wanted to tell the truth about Donald Trump”.

“It’s truth that Michael Cohen has committed to and it’s truth that so threatens the president of the United States,” he said.

Davis added: “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. 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, we know he cheered it on publicly, but whether he had private information.”

Davis is doing the rounds of interviews tonight and just finished speaking on CNN, where he said much of the same.

Updated

In case you missed it, Cohen and Manafort are not the only prominent Trump backers who are in hot water today. Duncan Hunter, US Republican congressman, and his wife have been indicted on corruption charges.

In 2016 Hunter was the second member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump for the White House, saying: “We don’t need a policy wonk as president. We need a leader as president.”

Prosecutors said the panel in San Diego charged Hunter and his spouse with converting more than $250,000 in campaign money to pay for personal expenses, including dental work, fast food, golf outings, and vacations and trips for their family and nearly a dozen relatives.

Earlier this month the first person from Congress to back Trump’s White House run, Chris Collins of New York, was indicted for insider trading. He subsequently5ended his bid for re-election.

The full story is here.

On a lighter note, Newsmax has this story about how Paul Manafort’s hometown tweaked a street name to make it clear the street had been named after Manafort’s father (Paul Manafort Snr) and not his beleaguered son.

Paul Manafort Snr served as mayor of New Britain, Conneticut from 1965-1971 and the town named a street after him – Paul Manafort Drive. As of last week, the street has been renamed Paul Manafort Snr Drive.

What do today’s events mean for Donald Trump?

Tom McCarthy writes that today’s guilty verdicts against Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chair, constitute a sign Robert Mueller has struck back against the president in a “silent yet forceful way”

For Trump, the implications of the Manafort conviction and Cohen plea are ominous. In convicting Manafort, Mueller has won new impetus to prosecute figures even closer to Trump, should the evidence warrant.

For Mueller’s team, the guilty verdict represents a substantial victory, a significant hurdle cleared. The case was Mueller’s first outing at trial, and a failure to convict might have called into question Mueller’s broader enterprise.

Tom’s full analysis is here:

The president has shared some photos on Twitter of the West Virginia rally, as well as a video of the speech, in case you fancied watching it in its entirety.

Trump rally speech - summary

Trump has wrapped up and left the stage at the rally. We’ll bring you a full report of the speech shortly, but here are a few initial reactions to Trump’s hour-long speech this evening.

  • Trump made no mention of either Michael Cohen, his longtime lawyer who today pleaded guilty to eight charges including directly implicating Trump in paying “hush money” to women with whom he allegedly had affairs or Paul Manafort, the president’s former campaign chairman, was convicted on eight charges of bank and tax fraud.
  • The closest Trump came was when he turned on the media pack at the rally, calling them (or what they were trying to do, it was unclear) “Fake news and the Russian witch hunt”. “Where is the collusion? They’re still looking for collusion,” he said.
  • The rest of the speech was a rambling affair, taking on a variety of subjects from ESPN, Thanksgiving turkeys, Chinese tariffs, threats to impose hefty tariffs on cars imported from the European Union, his positive relationship with Kim Jong-un, the Paris Accord and social media censorship.
  • Supporters at the rally were incredibly vocal, cheering Trump, booing when he mentioned an opponent or perceived enemy, and chanting “Lock her up!”, “USA! USA!” and “Built that wall!” It seems that among his base, support is undimmed despite today’s news.

Updated

It’s quite hard to keep up with the twists and turns of this speech. But it is worth going back to a baffling line from earlier on, in which Trump was explaining that some policies take time to come into effect.

“It takes time for things to gestate, like when you cook a chicken,” he said. Then the gestating chicken became a turkey, and now Trump is onto his mother making the best Thanksgiving turkey, which needed eight hours to cook. Baffling.

Updated

Trump is now saying a great danger is “social media censorship”. “That’s the new thing,” he says.

“I would rather have fake news like CNN than have anyone stop being censored. We’ve got to live with fake news, there are too many sources. Everyone of us is like a newspaper, Twitter, Facebook, but you can’t have censorship, you can’t pick one person and say we don’t like what they’re saying.

“We’ll live with fake news, I hate to say it, but that’s the better alternative… we believe in the right of Americans to speak their mind.”

This follows on from tweets from Trump accusing social media sites of “totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices”, which comes after social media platforms, including Facebook, restricted or banned Alex Jones, right-wing provocateur.

Trump is talking about the Paris Accord – “Is there a more beautiful name than the Paris Accord? The West Virginia Accord, maybe I would have signed it”.

Trump is saying he loves clean air and clean water, but that Trump thought the impact on the US was unfair. Plus, he adds: “We’ve got the cleanest country in the planet right now.”

“Our allies treat us worse than our enemies,” Trump says.

Trump has turned his anger on Canada, for tariffs on US dairy products. He says Justin Trudeau is a “nice guy”, but “I don’t want to have too much fun with you Justin.

“We’re like the big fat piggy bank that everyone wants to rob, and we’re not letting them rob us anymore, is that OK?”

This speech, in classic Trump style, is taking in a number of topics. So far we’ve had Trump say he will put a 25% tariff on every car that comes into the United States from the European Union.

Now we’re on the positive relationship Trump has with Kim Jong-un, with whom he says he has “good chemistry”.

“Who knows what’s going to happen?” he says of the North Korean situation. “Who knows?”

Now he is mentioning his previous hostile stance to North Korea – you will remember Trump called Kim “little rocket man”, after the Elton John song. Trump is saying he does not want to insult Kim by repeating the insult, though he is doing anything but, telling the crowd: “You remember, you remember. Elton John.”

Michael Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis has tweeted that this is a “new beginning” for Cohen, who is committed to telling the truth. There seems to be an implied threat here to the president, as Davis writes that Cohen’s commitment to “independence” and truth-telling was seen “from his sworn statement in federal court today” about Trump’s instruction to pay money to two women to stop them from making disclosures that would be detrimental to Trump.

Trump has turned his ire on the media again, pointing to them on the floor of the rally as the crowd boos.

He is calling the journalists (or their mission, it’s unclear): “Fake news and the Russian witch hunt”.

“Where is the collusion? Where is the collusion?” he says. “They’re still looking for collusion.”

The responses of this crowd at the West Virginia rally suggest support for the president among his base is undimmed by the convictions today of Manafort or Cohen.

So far we have had rousing chants of “Build that wall”, “Lock her up”, and “USA, USA”, as well as repeated boos whenever Trump mentions anyone he doesn’t like, and screams whenever Trump mentions one of his perceived achievements.

The US department of justice has released a statement about the Michael Cohen conviction.

“Michael Cohen is a lawyer who, rather than setting an example of respect for the law, instead chose to break the law, repeatedly over many years and in a variety of ways. His day of reckoning serves as a reminder that we are a nation of laws, with one set of rules that applies equally to everyone,” said Robert Khyzami, attorney for the United States.

FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William F. Sweeney Jr. said: “[A]s we all know, the truth can only remain hidden for so long before the FBI brings it to light. We are all expected to follow the rule of law, and the public expects us - the FBI - to enforce the law equally. Today, Mr. Cohen has been reminded of this important lesson, as he acknowledged with his guilty plea.”

Trump is back on one of this favourite subjects: the wall along the US-Mexico border.

“It’s coming along nicely,” he tells a crowd that responds by chanting “Build that wall”.

Wall Street Journal reporter Rebecca Ballhaus is pointing out the irony of a crowd of Trump supporters chanting “Lock her up” in relation to Hillary Clinton after the convictions of Michael Cohen and Paul Manfort today.

We haven’t had much of substance yet from Trump, who is speaking at the rally in West Virginia. He is currently boasting about his record of endorsements, citing candidates whose standing in the polls has improved dramatically after he has endorsed them.

“Then you watch the news, ‘will this endorsement mean anything?’ It’ll mean a lot.”

Hi, this is Kate Lyons taking over from Kevin Rawlinson, just as Donald Trump is taking the stage at a rally in West Virginia. We’ll have updates of what he says and whether he addresses today’s dramatic Manafort/Cohen news.

Paul Ryan’s statement was spartan. The statement from the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, is – perhaps unsurprisingly – more comprehensive:

Today’s guilty verdicts against President Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and the guilty plea of Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, are further evidence of the rampant corruption and criminality at the heart of Trump’s inner circle.

Cohen’s admission of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in hush money ‘at the direction of the candidate’ to influence the 2016 election shows the president’s claims of ignorance to be far from accurate, and places him in even greater legal jeopardy.

These convictions are further proof that the special counsel’s team and prosecutors in New York are conducting thorough and professional investigations, which must be permitted to continue free from interference.

Congressional Republicans’ determination to cover up for the president and his criminal cronies betrays their oath of office and undermines their duty to the American people. House Republicans must abandon their complicity with president Trump and affirm that no one is above the law.

The Trump administration and congressional Republicans’ unprecedented culture of corruption, cronyism and incompetence is characteristic of the dysfunctional political system in Washington.

Cohen will “pay a very, very serious price”, the prosecutor and deputy US attorney, Robert Khuzami, has said. Here’s a pretty comprehensive run-down of his comments to reporters outside the federal court in Manhattan:

[Cohen] failed to report income from his taxi medallion business, brokerage commissions, and over $200,000 from consulting fees. That’s over $4.3m over a five year period, which translates into a loss to the US Treasury of approximately $1.3m. In count six, Cohen pleaded guilty to making false statements to a financial institution in connection to an application for a home equity line of credit. He failed to disclose $14m in debt that he had and, as a result of that concealment, attained that $500,000 line of credit.

He pleaded guilty to two campaign finance charges: An unlawful corporate contribution; and making an excessive personal contribution, both for the purpose of influencing the 2016 election.

He worked to pay money to silence two women who had information that he knew would be detrimental to the 2016 campaign and to the candidate and the campaign. In addition, Mr Cohen sought reimbursement for that money by submitting invoices to the candidate’s company, which were untrue and false.

He indicated that the reimbursement was for services rendered for the year 2017 when, in fact, those invoices were a sham; he provided no legal services for the year 2017 and it was simply a means to obtain reimbursement of the unlawful campaign contributions.

These are very serious charges and reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant a period of time. They are particularly significant when done by a lawyer; a lawyer who, through training and tradition, understands what it means to be a lawyer who upholds honest and fair dealing and adherence to the law.

Mr Cohen disregarded that training and tradition and decided he is above the law and for that he is going to pay a very, very serious price.

There has been a somewhat muted response from the US House speaker, Trump’s Republican colleague Paul Ryan:

According to the Associated Press, Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, says Michael Cohen’s guilty plea should open the door to questioning Donald Trump about “what he knew, when he knew it, and what he did about it”.

Cohen has admitted Trump directed him to make payments that violated campaign finance laws in an effort to keep quiet two women who alleged sexual affairs with the billionaire.

Both Daniels and Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, have made such allegations, though they were not explicitly named in court.

Daniels said she and Avenatti, felt vindicated and look forward to apologies “from the people who claimed we were wrong”.

Avenatti is flirting with running for president in 2020 as a Democrat. He said the likelihood of that happening will dwindle if Trump resigns or decides not to run for re-election.

The US Department of Justice has announced that the second member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump, Duncan Hunter, has been indicted on charges of using campaign funds for personal ends, along with his wife Margaret.

Trump’s first congressional backer, Chris Collins, was indicted on insider trading charges about two weeks ago.

Referring to the Hunters, the Department of Justice said:

A 48-page indictment details scores of instances beginning in 2009 and continuing through 2016 in which the Hunters illegally used campaign money to pay for personal expenses that they could not otherwise afford.

The purchases included family vacations to Italy, Hawaii, Phoenix, Arizona, and Boise, Idaho; school tuition; dental work; theatre tickets; and domestic and international travel for almost a dozen relatives.

The Hunters also spent tens of thousands of dollars on smaller purchases, including fast food, movie tickets, golf outings, video games, coffee, groceries, home utilities, and expensive meals.

They are scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday before US magistrate, Judge William Gallo.

Updated

CNN’s chief White House correspondent has a little on how the Trump family is reacting to the day’s news at the president’s campaign rally in West Virginia:

Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, says there is nothing in Cohen’s admissions that represent an allegation of wrongdoing against the president.

According to Reuters, Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, said his client testified under oath that Trump directed him to commit a 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.

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

Davis said Cohen agreed to plead guilty “so that his family can move on to the next chapter”, Reuters reported.

Cohen entered the courtroom on the 20th floor of the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan at 4:03pm and sat at a table with his attorneys. He turned and winked at someone in the crowd. He reviewed a series of documents and shook his head repeatedly as he looked them over.

The judge, William Pawley, asked a series of questions to establish his competence. Asked his age, Cohen said: “in four days I’ll be 52.” Asked if he had any drugs or alcohol in the last 24 hours, said yes: “last night at dinner I had a glass of Glenlivet 12 on the rocks.”

Asked if he wanted to enter a plea of guilty, Cohen said: “yes sir.”

It was explained to Cohen that, if sentenced consecutively, he faced a total of up to 65 years and that any estimate of how much time he would get from his attorney might be inaccurate. Cohen said: “No estimate was given to me your Honor.”

Cohen was asked to describe what he did with regard to each crime. On the first five counts, he said: “I evaded paying substantial taxes” on income he knew was omitted from his tax returns.

On count six, he said that, in order to get approved for a home equity line of credit, he signed an application that omitted some of his liabilities.

On count seven, the illegal corporate contribution, he said that, in the summer of 2016 – in coordination with and “at the request of” a candidate for federal office, in order “to keep an individual with information that would be harmful to the candidate and the campaign from publicly disclosing this information,” he arranged a payment through a media company of which he was the chief executive.

“She received compensation of $150,000.” This was done “for the principal purpose of influencing the election”.

On count eight – the illegal excessive campaign contribution – he said that, in coordination with the candidate, he “arranged to make a payment to a second individual with information that would be harmful to the candidate and the campaign”. He said he used a company under his control and paid $130,000. These funds “were later repaid to me by the candidate”.

This was done “for the principal purpose of influencing the election”.

Asked if he knew these actions were illegal and wrong when he took them, Cohen said: “Yes your Honor.”

The assistant US attorney, Andrea Griswold, reviewed what would have been the government’s case.

On tax evasion, she said Cohen failed to report more than $4m (£3.1m) in income.

On illegal contributions: “These payments were made in order to ensure that each recipient did not publicise their stories” about “alleged affairs with the candidate”.

She said the government had texts, phone and email records, and statements from the individuals involved as evidence.

Asked how he now pleaded, Cohen said: “Guilty, your Honor.”

He was released on a $500,000 personal recognisance bond to be signed by his wife and one other person. His travel was restricted to parts of the states of New York, New Jersey and Illinois, as well as the city of Washington DC. He agreed to surrender his passport. Sentencing was set for 12 December this year.

After the hearing, Cohen left in a car with his attorneys as some bystanders shouted, “lock him up!”

Updated

Echoing the comments of his client somewhat, Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani claims the government’s charges against Michael Cohen contain “no allegation of any wrongdoing against the president”, Reuters reports.

Cohen has told a judge he acted at the direction of “the candidate”, acting for the “purpose of influencing the election”.

Cohen is Trump’s former personal lawyer and the US president has previously said Cohen represented him in the “crazy Stormy Daniels deal”.

Reuters reported that Giuliani said Cohen’s actions reflected a “pattern of lies and dishonesty” over a significant period of time.

Updated

Some more on the comments Trump made as he landed in West Virginia. He told reporters: “Paul Manafort’s a good man,” adding: “He was with Ronald Reagan, he was with a lot of people.”

The US president portrayed the Manafort prosecution, which grew out of an FBI investigation predating the 2016 campaign, as an unnatural outgrowth of the investigation being carried out by special counsel Robert Mueller.

“This has nothing to do with Russian collusion,” Trump said. “These are witch hunts and it’s a disgrace. This has nothing to do – it started out looking for Russians in our campaign and there were none.”

Standing on the windswept airport tarmac, he continued: “This is the way it ends up. It was not the original mission, believe me. It had nothing to do with Russian collusion, we continue the witch hunt.”

He then walked off to the waiting car, ignoring shouts from reporters requesting comment on the Michael Cohen case.

Updated

Donald Trump just spoke to reporters outside of Air Force One after landing in Charleston, West Virginia.

He commented briefly on the Manafort guilty verdict, calling it “very sad” and noting that it had “ nothing to do” with Russian collusion.

“We continue the witch hunt,” he said.

He did not respond to questions about Cohen.

The Guardian’s Erin Durkin has updates from the federal court in Manhattan.

Cohen stood and plead guilty to charges, including that in October 2016, he, in coordination with “the candidate” arranged to make a payment to an “individual with information that would be harmful to the candidate and to the campaign.”

Cohen said he used a company that was under his control to make the payment of $130,000 and those monies were later repaid to me by the candidate and that this was done “for the principal purpose of influencing the election.”

US attorney Robert Khuzami just addressed the press outside the New York courtroom where Cohen pleaded guilty.

Khuzami spoke extensively about one of the most shocking charges, which stems from a payment Cohen made to silence two women “that he believed would be detrimental” to a candidate in the 2016 presidential election. Khuzami said Cohen sought reimbursement for paying off the two woman by submitting invoices to the candidate’s company that were “untrue and false”.

Khuzami ignored shouted questions from reporters asking who the candidate he referred to is.

Cohen is Trump’s former personal lawyer.

And Trump in April said Cohen represented him in the “crazy Stormy Daniels deal”.

Updated

Paul Manafort stood stonefaced as he was found guilty on eight counts of filing false tax returns and bank fraud.

The jury deadlocked on the other ten counts of fraud that Manafort had been charged with.

The only visible emotion that Manafort, the former Trump campaign manager, displayed was when he winked at his wife Kathleen upon leaving the courtroom.

After the sentencing, federal judge TS Ellis III praised attorneys both for the government and for Manafort for their “effective and zealous representations.”

Updated

Donald Trump is holding a rally in West Virginia tonight. He did not respond to shouted questions about Cohen, according to the pool report, but gave a thumbs up before boarding Air Force One to West Virginia.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) executive director Noah Bookbinder, a former federal prosecutor, released the following statement on the Paul Manafort verdict:

The president’s former campaign chairman has just been convicted of very serious crimes. Paul Manafort engaged in corrupt behavior and illicit self-enrichment for years, and it appears he tried to use the Trump campaign as a way to get out of a major financial hole. It remains to be seen how many others in the orbit of the Trump campaign and administration are implicated in corrupt conduct; it seems far too prevalent. We applaud the Department of Justice on this important conviction. This is just the latest conviction for Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation, as multiple defendants have already pleaded guilty, and it likely will not be the last. This investigation is moving quickly and effectively, and it will continue bringing us closer to the truth.

Cohen pleads guilty to campaign finance and other charges

Within minutes of Manafort’s conviction, Cohen plead guilty to campaign finance violations including payoffs to women, bank fraud and tax fraud.

The vice-chair of the Senate intelligence committee, Mark Warner, a Democrat who is helping lead the Senate’s Russia investigation, has a statement about Manafort’s conviction:

This verdict makes it absolutely clear that the Mueller probe is not a ‘witch hunt’ — it is a serious investigation that is rooting out corruption and Russian influence on our political system at the highest levels. The President’s campaign manager was just convicted of serious federal crimes by a jury of his peers, despite the President’s continued attempts to undermine the investigation which has brought Mr. Manafort to justice. Any attempt by the President to pardon Mr. Manafort or interfere in the investigation into his campaign would be a gross abuse of power and require immediate action by Congress.

Updated

Manafort found guilty on eight counts

A deluge of news from the Cohen and Manafort courtrooms ...

For Manafort, the judge has said guilty on eight of eighteen counts. A mistrial on 10 counts.

How dangerous is Cohen for Trump? This excellent piece by Tom McCarthy has some answers.

Apart from what he might be able to tell Mueller, the former aide could provide evidence of alleged elections law violations by the Trump campaign, legal analysts say. Or Cohen could damage Trump politically, exploding the president’s credibility – what remains of it – in a way that would change the basic picture of the man and his leadership.

Cohen is not the only former Trump aide at a federal courthouse today, writes the Guardian’s Ben Jacobs, who is currently outside court in Alexandria, Virginia.

Jacobs is awaiting a verdict for the trial of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort on 18 counts of bank and tax fraud.

Jurors sent a note earlier in the day to ask what would happen if they were deadlocked on only one of the 18 counts, leading to the belief that they have reached consensus on the other 17.

In the meantime, reporters and lawyers are camped out in the lobby of a hotel across the street. In between the hotel and the courthouse, an outdoor plaza has transformed into a vast television studio filled with a dozen television cameras set up for cable news liveshots.

Cohen has entered the courtroom, according to local New York Daily News reporter Stephen Brown.

And the Associated Press said Cohen was seen leaving his apartment earlier and “traveling to the Manhattan offices of one of his lawyer, former federal prosecutor Guy Petrillo, before going into a building where the FBI has its New York offices.”

Sam Nunberg, a former Trump aide, brushed off Cohen’s guilty plea as unimportant in the larger scheme of things. “Unless I see a direct correlation and coordination on hacking of the emails, I don’t see what this does for getting the president removed from office,” said Nunberg.

He saw this as a continuation of “Mueller playing Watergate” and trying to bring down Trump.

Nunberg noted that once after a television interview, he was informed by the special counsel’s office that prosecutors in the southern district were thinking about calling him. Although he never testified there, he saw it as an extension of the same effort, noting Mueller’s team has limited bandwidth and may not have jurisdiction in some cases.

Nunberg also dismissed concerns that Cohen paid off women on Trump’s behalf.

“So what do they [the prosecutors] have?” Nunberg said. “That Cohen paid off a woman and Trump told him to? My argument would be Trump has done this before, this wasn’t his first rodeo doing this.”

Updated

Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen is due to appear in a New York court at 4pm ET after reaching a plea deal with prosecutors investigating him for alleged financial fraud and other charges.

Cohen intends to plead guilty to at least one charge, according to multiple news organizations.

We’ll have analysis and details on the court hearing, which is less than 15 minutes away. The latest news story is below:

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