Closing summary
We’re closing the liveblog for the day. Here’s a look at what’s unfolded in the aftermath of the verdicts against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and ex-lawyer Michael Cohen.
- Trump lashed out at Cohen (“I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!”) and praised Manafort (“He refused to break”). Trump again called the Russia investigation a “witch hunt”.
- In an interview with Fox & Friends, Trump denied knowing about payments made by Cohen during the presidential campaign to silence two women who said they had affairs with Trump until “later on”. But he said the payments “came from me” and claimed that they were not illegal.
- At the White House press briefing, Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed: “The president has done nothing wrong. There are no charges against him. There has been no collusion.” She would not rule out the possibility that Trump could pardon Manafort. And when asked if Trump has lied to the American people, Sanders replied: “that’s a ridiculous accusation”.
- In a series of interviews on Wednesday, Michael Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis said his client has information that would be of interest to special counsel Robert Mueller about a Russian conspiracy to “corrupt American democracy” and “a failure to report that knowledge to the FBI.” He also said Cohen would “not accept” a pardon from Trump.
- Democrats called for postponing the Supreme Court confirmation hearing for judge Brett Kavanaugh in the wake of Cohen’s guilty plea. Republicans said the hearing will go ahead as planned.
- A new report says Manafort went to Kyrgyzstan and promoted Russian interests.
For more, read our latest coverage here:
Updated
Cohen is fast becoming investigators most sought-after witness.
Congressional investigators have said they want to hear from him. And on Wednesday Cohen was slapped with a subpoena in a separate investigation into Trump’s charitable foundation.
The New York state attorney general, Barbara Underwood, sued the Donald J Trump charitable foundation, Donald Trump and three of his children in June for allegedly violating state charity laws.
“The foundation is little more than an empty shell that functions with no oversight from its board of directors,” the lawsuit alleged.
Prosecutors allege that Trump had not contributed to the charity since 2008 but used millions contributed tax-free by outside donors as “little more than a checkbook” to settle legal claims against his Mar-a-Lago resort and against Trump National Golf Club.
The suit additionally alleges that the charity paid $10,000 to buy a painting of Trump displayed at the Trump National Doral golf course, and that the charity operated as a wing of the Trump presidential campaign and not independently as a charity.
“Trump ran the foundation according to whim, rather than law,” the suit said.
Read the full story here:
Updated
The ceremony has concluded. Trump delivered remarks on Chapman’s gallantry and presented the medal of honor – the nation’s highest award for valor in combat – to the fallen airman’s family.
We’re tuning in now to a White House medal of honor ceremony, where Trump will posthumously award technical sergeant John Chapman, who was killed in 2002 trying to save a Navy Seal during an attack in Afghanistan. This would be an extremely surprising setting for the president to make any comments about the ongoing drama related to his former campaign manger and ex-lawyer but surprising doesn’t even begin to explain the last 24 hours.
Updated
Timeline: When did Trump learn of payments?
The timeline of when Trump learned of the payments made by Cohen during the campaign to two women – porn actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal – to silence them from speaking publicly about affairs they say they had with Trump remains fluid.
In an interview with Fox & Friends on Wednesday, Trump says he learned of the payments “later on”. But in court on Tuesday, Cohen said he was directed to make the payments by Trump, who he identifies as an “unnamed candidate”.
Who is telling the truth? Hard to say.
Here’s what we know.
- On April 6, 2018 Trump denied knowing about the $130,000 payment, telling reporters: “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney. You’ll have to ask Michael.” Days later, investigators raided Cohen’s offices and seized records related to the payments.
- On July 24, 2018, Cohen’s lawyer gives CNN an audio recording of Cohen and Trump in which they discussed using American Media Inc, the parent company of the National Enquirer to pay off McDougal, indicating that Trump was aware of the efforts to pay her off.
- On July 25 2018 Trump responds on Twitter: “What kind of a lawyer would tape a client? So sad! Is this a first, never heard of it before? Why was the tape so abruptly terminated (cut) while I was presumably saying positive things? I hear there are other clients and many reporters that are taped - can this be so? Too bad!”
- On August 21, 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to 8 counts, including two counts of violating campaign finance laws. Cohen said he acted “in coordination with and at the direction of a federal candidate for office,” which is believed to be Donald Trump. Prosecutors say that his arrangement of the hush money for Daniels and McDougal amount to an illegal campaign contribution.
- On August 22, 2018, in an interview with Fox & Friends, Trump says he learned of the payments “later on” and says he made the payments.
Updated
Sanders says the president “did nothing wrong”.
“Just because Michael Cohen made a plea deal doesn’t mean that implicates the president in anything,” she adds, after Cohen implicated the president in his plea deal.
Did the president lie to the American people about the payments? “That’s a ridiculous accusation,” Sanders said. “The president in this matter has done nothing wrong and there are no charges against him.”
Sanders is asked if Trump would pardon Manafort and she dodges, saying his convictions have nothing to do with the president, the 2016 campaign or Russia collusion. Asked again, she does not rule out the possibility that Trump would pardon him.
Sanders calls the effort by Senate Democrats to delay the Kavanaugh hearings in wake of Cohen plea “a desperate and pathetic attempt by Democrats to obstruct” the nomination.
Asked if Trump feels betrayed by Cohen, his personal lawyer for more than a decade who once said he would “take a bullet” for him, Sanders said: “I don’t think the president is concerned at all. He knows that he did nothing wrong and there was no collusion.”
Sanders won’t engage with a question on the discrepancy between Trump saying he only learned about the payments to silence women who claim they had affairs with him “later on” and a recording released by Cohen’s legal team on which Trump can be heard discussing the payments.
“The president has done nothing wrong. There are no charges against him. There has been no collusion,” she said.
Sanders says she has said all she will say about the payments, refusing to answer a question about whether there are more payments made to silence women from speaking out about an alleged affair. She directs the reporter to outside counsel.
Sanders call impeachment chatter a “cheap publicity stunt” and attacks Democrats for leaning on the issue instead of putting forward a galvanizing message ahead of November. (Democrats really don’t want to talk about impeachment.)
“The idea of an impeachment is frankly a sad attempt by democrats and the only message they seem to have going into the midterms,” she said.
Updated
White House press briefing in wake of Cohen guilty plea and Manafort conviction
Sarah Huckabee Sanders is opening with an advisory for residents in the path of a storm in Hawaii.
She is also sending prayers to the family of Mollie Tibbetts, a 20-year-old Iowa student whose body was believed to be found on Tuesday after she vanished in July. A 24-year-old undocumented immigrant was charged the murder.
Here’s Trump’s response in full to a question about hush payments during the Fox & Friends interview.
Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt: “Did you know about the payments?”
Trump: “Later on I knew. Later on. But you have to understand, Ainsley, what he did -- and they weren’t taken out of campaign finance, that’s the big thing. That’s a much bigger thing. Did they come out of the campaign? They didn’t come out of the campaign, they came from me. And I tweeted about it. You know, I put -- I don’t know if you know but I tweeted about the payments. But they didn’t come out of 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. And they didn’t come out of the campaign and that’s big. But they weren’t – that’s not a – it’s not even a campaign violation. If you look at President Obama, he had a massive campaign violation but he had a different attorney general and they viewed it a lot differently.”
Trump was also asked whether he believes the press is the “enemy of the people” as he has said.
Trump: “No, not at all but the fake news is and the fake news is comprised of -- it’s a lot -- it’s a big chunk, OK? Somebody said what’s the chunk. I said 80%. It’s a lot. It’s a lot. If I do something well, it’s not reported. Other than in the 20%. I mean, The New York Times cannot write a good story about me. They’re crazed. They’re like lunatics.”
Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs, who is on pool duty at the White House today, informs us that press briefing has been scheduled for 2:15pm EST. We’re standing by for Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Trump on hush money payments: 'They came from me'
Trump has sat down for an interview with Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt. In the teaser for the interview Trump says he knew about the payments Cohen made to silence the women from speaking publicly about affairs they said they had with him only “later on”.
“They weren’t taken out of campaign finance, that’s the big thing. that’s a much bigger thing. Did they come out of the campaign? They didn’t come from the campaign. They came from me,” Trump says in the interview when asked about the payments.
This directly contradicts what Cohen said in court on Tuesday. While pleading guilty to breaking campaign finance laws, Cohen alleged that he “worked in coordination with and at the direction of” then-candidate Trump to arrange payments to two women during the 2016 campaign.
Watch the full clip here:
EXCLUSIVE: President @realDonaldTrump on if he knew about the Cohen payments. See more from his interview with @ainsleyearhardt tomorrow 6-9amET. pic.twitter.com/HPJPslOG6X
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) August 22, 2018
Trump also suggests that Cohen’s guilty plea is somehow the fault of his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who recused himself from the Russia investigation and has drawn the president’s ire ever since.
Updated
New York congressman Jerrold Nadler, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is calling for immediate hearings on Trump’s “persistent, venomous attacks on the Department of Justice and the FBI”. He said Trump’s public comments in interviews and on social media are intended to undermine Mueller’s investigations.
“Yesterday’s felony convictions of President Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, show this is no “WITCH HUNT” and make it even more unconscionable that Chairman [Bob] Goodlatte and the Republican Leadership are continuing to sit by and rehash old conspiracy theories instead of taking action. House Republicans may be willing to abet President Trump’s worst behavior, but I am not. ...
The Congress stands at a crossroads. Democrats are poised to take action to respond to this culture of corruption that has taken hold under Mr. Trump and Republican Congressional Majorities. It is not too late for my Republican colleagues to put our country ahead of their politics and join us in our work.
Schumer, the Democratic senate leader, called Cohen’s guilty plea a “game-changer” and demanded that the chamber “pause” consideration of Trump’s supreme court nominee. Schumer met with Kavanaugh on Tuesday and said their conversation took on a “new light” after yesterday’s news.
Judge Kavanaugh’s refusal to say that a president must comply with a duly issued subpoena, and Michael Cohen’s implication of the president in a federal crime – makes the danger of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court abundantly clear. It’s a game changer. Should be.
A president, identified as an un-indicted co-conspirator of a federal crime – an accusation made not by a political enemy but by the closest of his own confidants – is on the verge of making a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. A court that may someday soon determine the extent of the president’s legal jeopardy.
If you want to hear more from Cohen, there’s a fund for that.
Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, is “pleading for donations so that his client can continue to tell the truth about the investigation into President Trump,” the New York Post reports.
“Right now, Michael Cohen needs help from the American people to tell the truth, and we’ve set up a website,” Davis said this morning on NBC’s Today show.
“The Michael Cohen Truth Fund” was set up as a GoFundMe page on August 21. The goal is to raise $500,000.
By Wednesday morning, 1,217 people had donated $45,492.
Mitt Romney, who is the Republican Senate nominee for an open seat in Utah, has tip-toed into the fray with a Tweet that does not refer to Trump by name.
The former Republican presidential nominee has a complicated relationship with the president, who has denounced as a “phony” and a “fraud”. But Romney has cooled his criticism of Trump since launching his campaign for Senate, instead choosing to speak out in general terms without directly antagonizing the president.
The events of the last 24 hours confirm that conduct by highly-placed individuals was both dishonorable and illegal. Also confirmed is my faith in our justice system and my conviction that we are a nation committed to the rule of law.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) August 22, 2018
Updated
Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer and the former mayor of New York, called Washington Post reporter Bob Costa this morning for a chat from a golf course in Scotland – unclear if it’s a Trump course – to chat about the latest developments.
Giuliani, calling Post from golf course in Scotland, says he has spoken with POTUS today and deliberated over what it all means—Manafort, Cohen, etc. Says, optimistically, they believe Mueller “might be at the end now. He has to be winding down. What else is there? Near the end.”
— Robert Costa (@costareports) August 22, 2018
Giuliani adds that Trump legal team is looking into its options re Cohen tapes and whether they can release audio of some of his conversations with reporters about the payment since they believe they can use Cohen’s own words to counter his latest claims.
— Robert Costa (@costareports) August 22, 2018
Wall Street is slightly sagging on Wednesday morning as the legal woes of two former Trump advisers threatened the president’s political standing.
According to a Reuters roundup of US stock markets:
- Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 2.77 points, or 0.01% at the open to 25,825.06
- S&P 500 opened lower by 1.97 points, or 0.07%, at 2,860.99.
- Nasdaq Composite dropped 15.13 points, or 0.19%, to 7,844.04 at the opening bell.
“Political pressure on Trump is increasing ... reducing the likelihood that he will have the political capital to continue driving fiscal stimulus in the U.S. economy. This suggests to many market participants that the era of U.S. outperformance is likely to end,” Karl Schamotta, director of FX strategy and structured products at Cambridge Global Payments in Toronto, told the agency.
Updated
More on Democrats avoiding the I-word...
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has told the Associated Press that impeaching is Trump is “not a priority” for Democrats despite the conviction of Trump’s former campaign manager and the guilty plea of his former lawyer.
Pelosi has for months urged her party to avoid raising the issue of impeachment, arguing that it was premature to go down that road before Mueller has finished his investigation. On Wednesday, Pelosi told the AP that “impeachment has to spring from something else”.
If and when the information emerges about that, we’ll see. It’s not a priority on the agenda going forward unless something else comes forward, Pelosi said.
Should Democrats win the House in November, Pelosi said she would prefer that they serve to conduct oversight and protect the special counsel’s investigation.
A bipartisan House majority has twice defeated attempts by Democrats to impeach the president. But the second vote attracted support from roughly a third of the Democratic caucus, an unexpectedly strong showing for the effort.
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are steering clear of the I word: “impeachment”.
Instead, they’re hammering the case that the confirmation hearing of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, should be postponed in light of Cohen’s guilty pleas and Manafort’s convictions.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, is leading the charge, calling for a postponement of the hearing, which is set to begin on September 4.
Judge Kavanaugh’s refusal to say a POTUS must comply w a duly issued subpoena & Mr Cohen’s implication of POTUS in a federal crime make the danger of Kavanaugh's nomination to the SCOTUS abundantly clear.
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) August 22, 2018
It's a game changer & Chairman Grassley should delay confirmation hearings
And on Wednesday, senator Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii, told reporters that she will cancel her meeting with Kavanaugh.
I have cancelled my meeting with Judge Kavanaugh. @realDonaldTrump, who is an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal matter, does not deserve the courtesy of a meeting with his nominee—purposely selected to protect, as we say in Hawaii, his own okole.
— Senator Mazie Hirono (@maziehirono) August 22, 2018
We googled. Apparently “okole” is a “Hawaiian word for the gluteus maximus region”.
Updated
We’re starting to get some reaction from Republican Senators this morning as the chamber convenes its workday in Washington.
Republican senator Orrin Hatch, often a staunch supporter of the president, said he’s “not very happy” about the charges against Cohen.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) on Cohen violated campaign violations under the direction of candidate Trump:
— Marianna Sotomayor (@MariannaNBCNews) August 22, 2018
“Those are some serious charges and they can’t be ignored,” he said. “I’m not very happy about it, I’ll put it that way and should have never happened to begin with.”
Republican senator Bob Corker, a vocal critic of the president, said he has “never seen anything like this”.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) said when asked about Michael Cohen implicating the president in his guilty plea.
— Marianna Sotomayor (@MariannaNBCNews) August 22, 2018
He added that observers of the White House “shouldnt be surprised” by the president’s actions.
Meanwhile, some Republicans are sticking to the script that Cohen and Manfort are in the wrong – not Trump.
Sen Kennedy (R-LA) on all the people in Trump’s sphere who have been convicted of crimes: “I’m sorry, I don’t see any deeper meaning in this other than you have to pay your taxes and you can’t lie on a loan application, I don’t know how else to put it.”
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) August 22, 2018
And some commentary from last night:
INBOX: Ben Sasse's statement on Manafort/Cohen
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) August 22, 2018
“Paul Manafort is a founding member of the DC swamp and Michael Cohen is the Gotham version of the same. Neither one of these felons should have been anywhere near the presidency.”
Updated
Democrats are preparing an emergency plan in the event Trump fires the special counsel as he has reportedly threatened to do, according to a report by NBC News on Wednesday.
Of top concern in the first 24 hours of such a move would be preventing Mueller’s documents from being destroyed and his team disbanded, according to interviews with nearly a dozen lawmakers, congressional aides, Democratic operatives and attorneys involved in the planning.
Almost immediately, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer would consult with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, while Democrats would demand a floor vote on a bill retroactively protecting Mueller and protecting his materials. In both the Senate and House, rank-and-file Democrats would contact a list of sympathetic Republicans who have signaled privately that they’d be willing to act should Trump pull the trigger.
Read the full report here.
Updated
While the events of the last 24 hours have sent political shockwaves through Washington and around the world, the news competed – and in some cases lost altogether – for front page billing in a handful of influential local newspapers.
Worth noting in Iowa today, almost every major newspaper led on Mollie Tibbetts and not Cohen. The exception was the Sioux City Journal which is 270 miles from where her death occurred pic.twitter.com/rYPMfTblMm
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) August 22, 2018
And in West Virginia, which will play host to a hotly contested Senate race, several newspapers led with Trump’s visit to the state on Tuesday night and local issues.
A sampling of West Virginia front pages this morning pic.twitter.com/RrzwuKCY8N
— James Arkin (@JamesArkin) August 22, 2018
Updated
Changing tack slightly, Trump has thanked New York Democrat Assemblyman Dov Hikind who he praised for his work to deport Jakiw Palij, the last known second world war Nazi in the US.
Thank you to Democrat Assemblyman Dov Hikind of New York for your very gracious remarks on @foxandfriends for our deporting a longtime resident Nazi back to Germany! Others worked on this for decades.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 22, 2018
But as Washington Post political reporter Dave Weigel notes, Hikind isn’t exactly a paragon of Democratic resistance.
Dov Hikind managed to renew his “even this New York Democrat...” card despite not supporting a Democrat for president since 2000. https://t.co/qquYGFyc4D
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) August 22, 2018
Now, back to Cohen and Manafort.
Updated
Trump has tweeted yet again, claiming that the campaign finance regulations Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to are not in fact crimes.
Michael Cohen plead guilty to two counts of campaign finance violations that are not a crime. President Obama had a big campaign finance violation and it was easily settled!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 22, 2018
His longstanding former lawyer and fixer pleaded guilty to bank fraud, tax fraud and campaign finance violations in federal court in New York.
He said that hush money payments to women were directed by Trump himself, claims that his own lawyer, Lanny Davis, reiterated in a tour of US broadcast studios this morning.
The campaign finance charges against Cohen stemmed from payments he made to the pornographic film actor Stormy Daniels and to the former Playboy model Karen McDougal using campaign funds.
It is unclear precisely how the counts of campaign finance violations, which Cohen admitted, do not represent criminal offences.
If you would like to recap on Cohen’s court case yesterday:
Updated
It’s a “Witch Hunt!” proclaims Trump, returning to a common theme of his presidency, after he last night called verdict a “witch hunt” and “a disgrace”.
A large number of counts, ten, could not even be decided in the Paul Manafort case. Witch Hunt!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 22, 2018
As we have reported, Manafort was convicted on five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failure to report foreign bank accounts.
He avoided conviction on 10 other charges with the jury unable to reach a consensus.
Manafort spoke once during the trial, when asked by the judge whether he wished to testify in his own defense. “No, sir,” he said.
Updated
Trump: 'I feel very badly for Paul Manafort and his wonderful family'
The president has followed up on his riposte towards Michael Cohen by expressing his regret that Paul Manafort, his former campaign chair, could face decades in jail.
He praises Manafort, who was convicted on eight of 18 charges – some of which were financial crimes that allowed him to fund a lavish lifestyle – and states how much he respects the fact he appears to have refused to cooperate with prosecutors in order to get a reduced sentence.
I feel very badly for Paul Manafort and his wonderful family. “Justice” took a 12 year old tax case, among other things, applied tremendous pressure on him and, unlike Michael Cohen, he refused to “break” - make up stories in order to get a “deal.” Such respect for a brave man!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 22, 2018
The Guardian reported yesterday that:
Manafort stood stony-faced as he was found guilty on the eight counts, but winked at his wife Kathleen upon leaving the courtroom. Wearing a navy blue suit, he appeared weathered by his time in jail. His tan had faded, and his hair had greyed.
Updated
Elizabeth Warren, the high-profile Massachusetts Democrat senator, is attempting to build support for a new anti-corruption bill which she says would go after lobbying, state capture of regulatory agencies, and puts the onus on the judiciary to be more forthcoming and following a clearer set of ethical rules.
“Are the Saudis shovelling money into his pocket every time they take a floor at the Trump hotel?” she asks. “We don’t know! We know he didn’t divest himself of those businesses.”
The @realDonaldTrump era has given our country its most nakedly corrupt leadership of our lifetimes. But they didn't cause the rot – they’re just the biggest, stinkiest example of it. Join the fight for my new bill to #EndCorruptionNow: https://t.co/FaK9rJT0PI pic.twitter.com/dxHtovgcGL
— Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) August 22, 2018
Updated
“There’s only one cure for the cancer of Trump’s presidency”, writes Jill Abramson, Guardian political columnist and former senior editor at the New York Times.
The walls have suddenly caved in on Donald Trump’s presidency. First came Michael Cohen’s stunning plea agreement, in which Trump’s longtime fixer and trusted legal gun admitted in a federal courtroom in Manhattan that he had committed crimes at the direction of the president. Then, in Alexandria, Virginia, Robert Mueller’s prosecution team notched a big win with the guilty verdict on eight counts reached by the jury against Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager.
The cure, as was true in Nixon’s time, may involve impeachment.
Full piece below:
Trump’s flippant tweet has provoked a variety of responses with his old tweets pledging support for Cohen, along with his reactive, childlike manner being highlighted.
Holly Figueroa O’Reilly, the founder of a Democrat-supporting nonprofit, has unearthed one of Trump’s tweets from April 2018 where he admonished those who were “going out of their way to destroy Michael Cohen and his relationship with me in the hope he will “flip”.
There.
— Holly Figueroa O'Reilly (@AynRandPaulRyan) August 22, 2018
Is.
A.
Trump.
Tweet.
For.
EVERYTHING.
Michael Cohen Edition.#NostraDumbAss strikes again!
Lanny Davis said that Cohen will not accept a pardon so OF COURSE you're freaking out!#WednesdayWisdom pic.twitter.com/SQ3jzpFjR5
NBC correspondent Haillie Jackson has also provided us with this refresher: Trump said how he had “always liked” Cohen as recent as June this year. Friendship fades fast.
Donald Trump, Jan. '17: "Michael Cohen is a very talented lawyer." June '18: "I always liked Michael and he’s a good person." https://t.co/Td8Fmiv1y4
— Hallie Jackson (@HallieJackson) August 22, 2018
Meanwhile, CNN anchor Jake Tapper has reminded everyone that this is the president’s first announcement in response to his fixer pleading guilty to felonies that he said he committed at the direction of and in coordination with Trump.
The president’s first public reaction to his fixer pleading guilty to felonies to hide from the public before the 2016 election women accusing Mr. Trump of extramarital affairs, crimes Cohen said he committed at the direction of and in coordination with Mr. Trump. https://t.co/JECTFeTrQT
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) August 22, 2018
One user, looking towards the 2020 presidential election, suggested voters not vote Trump if they are “looking for a good president”.
If anyone is looking for a good president, I strongly suggest you don’t elect trump.
— Randy (@TR_4U2) August 22, 2018
Updated
Trump: 'I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!'
Donald Trump has tweeted, at 0844 EST, declaring that “if anyone is looking for a good lawyer” he would “strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen”.
If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 22, 2018
Michael Cohen was Trump’s lawyer for 12 years and once said that he would take a bullet for Donald Trump.
Even prior to his appointment as the property moguls’s right-hand man he was quoted hyping up a Trump condo development in New Jersey.
“Trump properties are solid investments,” said Cohen, who by then had bought at least three.
Once he was in post, Cohen’s duties were both idiosyncratic and expansive, ranging from putting together foreign real estate deals to telling off reporters to buying the silence of women linked romantically to Trump, wrote Tom McCarthy, national affairs correspondent for Guardian US.
“If somebody does something Mr Trump doesn’t like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr Trump’s benefit,” Cohen told ABC News in 2011.
Full story on Michael Cohen, and his strange life as Trump’s fixer:
Updated
Maggie Haberman, the White House correspondent for the New York Times, says “When Trump is cornered, he is at his most dangerous”, although she stopped short of speculating on what his next move might be.
When Trump is cornered, he is at his most dangerous, as several people close to him have said. During "Access Hollywood" weekend, he was wounded and he behaved as if he had nothing to lose. This is a different order of magnitude, touching on his business and potentially family.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 22, 2018
Twitter personality Tea Pain asks why Trump will not go under oath to profess his innocence.
Michael Cohen went under oath and confessed his crimes. Why won’t @realDonaldTrump go under oath and profess his innocence?
— Tea Pain (@TeaPainUSA) August 22, 2018
Put up or shut up, Donald.
At the weekend, Trump’s current lawyer Rudy Giuliani said he would not have a meeting with Mueller because “Truth isn’t truth”, and what he might say privately would be misrepresented.
Others have declared that Trump’s presidency is “illegitimate”
Donald Trump broke the law to win the White House. His Presidency is illegitimate.
— Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) August 22, 2018
While NBC have declared yesterday was the “darkest day for the presidency since Watergate”.
Analysis: Two of the president's former associates were in court. Both guilty of multiple felonies.
— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 22, 2018
It wasn't just a bad day for Trump, it was a historically awful day for the presidency. https://t.co/y6fROJ4vmN
Updated
Reaction coming in from across the world contains some of perhaps the strongest criticism of Trump imaginable.
Guy Verhofstadt, the president of a large grouping of MEPs in the European Parliament, has said Trump is the “head alligator” in a self-created swamp.
Trump said he would "drain the swamp" in Washington, but instead he created his own one and is acting as its head alligator. His Presidency, one in which values and integrity do not seem to count, is detrimental to people's faith in democracy. https://t.co/kbRbMnml6k
— Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt) August 22, 2018
The influential columnist Shaun King has declared that Donald Trump’s campaign was “fundamentally a criminal enterprise”.
Donald Trump’s campaign was fundamentally a criminal enterprise.
— Shaun King (@shaunking) August 22, 2018
His campaign manager, the #2 staffer of his campaign, his personal attorney, his national security advisor, the first two congressmen who endorsed him, and multiple other staffers are all in jail or on the way.
Elizabeth Warren, the high-profile Democrat senator many have tipped to be president, has called on Congress to pass a law to make sure that the special counsel’s investigation is protected, after she said the Trump administration is “the most corrupt administration in living memory.”
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren says Congress should pass a law to make sure that the special counsel's investigation is protected, but does not say whether the latest developments are grounds for impeaching President Trump pic.twitter.com/2dcwKMQgPs
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) August 22, 2018
Just to remind you, we’re still waiting for Donald Trump to tweet.
For the first time in 3 years, I'm actually looking forward to the next tweet from @realDonaldTrump
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) August 22, 2018
Updated
Cohen has information on a Russian conspiracy, says lawyer
Michael Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis has come out all guns blazing on a tour of the broadcast studios in the US today. He has reiterated the guilt of the president regarding the hush money paid to two women, and stressed his client possesses information about Russian interference that would be of interest to investigators.
He told MSNBC and Cohen knows information that would be of interest to special counsel Robert Mueller about a Russian conspiracy to “corrupt American democracy” and “a failure to report that knowledge to the FBI.”
Michael Cohen's lawyer Lanny Davis says on MSNBC that Cohen has information regarding a Russian conspiracy to "corrupt American democracy" and "a failure to report that knowledge to the FBI." pic.twitter.com/YXV4MvQ3Ph
— Axios (@axios) August 22, 2018
In an interview on MSNBC, Davis says: “There is no dispute that Donald Trump committed a crime”
“The president of the United States directed him to commit a crime meaning the president committed the crime and covered it up because he didn’t sign the cheque to keep quiet the affairs with the two women,” Davis says, explaining what Cohen told the court under oath yesterday.
"Very clearly, there is no dispute that Donald Trump committed a crime." -- @LannyDavis pic.twitter.com/wgC0BtVdjc
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) August 22, 2018
Cohen and his legal team are angling for a plea deal that would see any potential sentence reduced in exchange for information, and have released various files to corroborate their claims.
In an interview with NPR, Davis said: “Mr Cohen would never accept a pardon from a man that he considers to be both corrupt and a dangerous person in the Oval Office.”
Emphasising that not only is Cohen not hoping for a pardon from Donald Trump, which would exonerate him of any future charges, Davis said he would not accept one either.
🔊 Michael Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis, tells NPR that Cohen considers President Trump "to be both corrupt and a dangerous person in the Oval Office." https://t.co/vOkyTbmMMN
— NPR (@NPR) August 22, 2018
He told the Today Show that Cohen has turned his life around “from what he did for Donald Trump, much of which he now regrets”.
“He’s [Cohen] turned his life from what he did for Donald Trump, much of which he now regrets…but he decided, fundamentally, that his family and his country were his priorities.”
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) August 22, 2018
Watch Michael Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis’ full interview with @savannahguthrie pic.twitter.com/h4T4Zexc8v
Trump’s real estate company authorised paying $420,000 to lawyer Michael Cohen in his effort to silence women during the presidential campaign and then relied on “sham” invoices from Cohen that concealed the nature of the payments, the Washington Post reported, according to legal filings released Tuesday.
However, in an interview with CNN, Davis refused to say whether Cohen has spoken to Mueller’s team.
"I don't want to interfere in anything the special counsel is doing": Michael Cohen's attorney, Lanny Davis, will not say whether Cohen has spoken to Robert Mueller's team https://t.co/pZidtDSs9g pic.twitter.com/iSsOeMNttt
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) August 22, 2018
Updated
Scott Jennings, former special assistant to President George W. Bush and former campaign adviser to senator Mitch McConnell, has written an op-ed for CNN where he states: “I have no doubt that a House of Representatives under Democratic control will use the Cohen guilty plea, among other things, as grounds to impeach the President.”
The US mid-term elections will be held in November and if the Democrats manage to wrest control of the House, overturning the majority of 43 the Republicans currently hold, then they would be able to enact impeachment proceedings.
Manafort promoted Russian interests in Kyrgyzstan during 2005 - report
Donald Trump last night addressed a rally in West Virginia where he made no mention of Cohen or Manafort. However, prior to the ‘Make America Great Again’ event, he told reporters: “This has nothing to do with Russian collusion. These are witch hunts and it’s a disgrace.”
Despite his conviction on federal charges, Trump called Manafort a “good man”, adding: “He was with Ronald Reagan, he was with a lot of people.”
It has today been claimed that Manafort, whose work as a political consultant in Russia and Ukraine led to Wednesday’s conviction, worked more extensively in the former Soviet Union than was previously reported.
According to a report, Manafort and his fixer went to Kyrgyzstan and promoted Russian interests, including the closure of the US military base Manas, in 2005 in a trip funded by a Russian oligarch who was later sanctioned by the US over meddling in the 2016 US presidential elections.
Full story below:
Updated
So what’s next for Trump’s embattled former advisors? Well, Michael Flynn’s sentencing has been repeatedly delayed and is now slated to be pushed back until September 17.
Paul Manafort faces additional charges in a separate case, to convene in Washington DC next month, and will be held in prison until that date. The 69-year old could be imprisoned for decades.
Michael Cohen is expected to be sentenced on December 12.
No date has yet been set for Rick Gates’ sentencing - with any jail time likely to be reduced depending on his level of cooperation with the investigation.
George Papadopolous is due to be sentenced on September 7 and special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, has recommended he receives a six month custodial term.
Full story below:
Updated
“PLEADING GUILTY, COHEN IMPLICATES PRESIDENT”, the front page of today’s New York Times proclaims.
The newspaper reports that Manafort was found guilty on eight out of 18 charges, with former fixer, Michael Cohen, admitting to making illegal payments to two women in order to ‘sway “16 campaign”
Here's the front page of The New York Times 8/22/2018. Read our coverage from a long, busy day of news here: https://t.co/StRCWRYlLj pic.twitter.com/8B5pZZK8Mb
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 22, 2018
The Washington Post, meanwhile, have splashed with: “Convictions tighten squeeze on Trump”.
And here is the front page of tomorrow's @washingtonpost: pic.twitter.com/sDmg1WVFlI
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 22, 2018
The Wall Street Journal report: “Former Trump advisors guilty”.
Take an early look at the front page of The Wall Street Journalhttps://t.co/5xQPDPcm8q pic.twitter.com/l325VslgCy
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) August 22, 2018
Elsewhere, USA Today announce: “Legal spotlight turns on Trump”
A look at Wednesday's paper: Legal spotlight on #Trump as former aides face jail time; #California consumers study fire-resistant houses; Nerves on edge as kids head back to school; Fall movie preview; Former player alleges #TexasA&M violated NCAA rules pic.twitter.com/0WAwnG8XgT
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) August 22, 2018
Updated
The pornographic film actor Stormy Daniels, whose whirlwind world tour has gripped the world as she seeks to cash in on her new-found fame, was combative in the early hours of this morning, tweeting: “How ya like me now?!” in apparent reference to the doubts that were cast upon her allegations regarding the hush money paid to her.
How ya like me now?! # teamstormy
— Stormy Daniels (@StormyDaniels) August 21, 2018
She has maintained that she and Trump had sex in 2006, and that the $130,000 (£95,650) paid to her during the 2016 presidential election campaign was hush money. Her lawyer said on Tuesday that they look forward to apologies “from the people who claimed we were wrong”
Trump has claimed such agreements are “very common among celebrities and people of wealth”. He tweeted: “In this case it is in full force and effect and will be used in arbitration for damages against Ms Clifford. The agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair.”
Now, however, Cohen has claimed Trump directed him to make the payment – which violated campaign finance laws – in an effort to stop Stormy Daniels, the pornographic film actor, along with Karen McDougal, the former Playboy model, going public about the alleged extramarital affairs.
Updated
Good morning, we’ll bring you live reaction to the aftermath of the verdicts against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and ex-lawyer Michael Cohen after they became the fourth and fifth associates of the US president to either be convicted of a crime or to plead guilty in a rapid period of high drama yesterday.
Cohen, his longtime lawyer and “fixer”, pleaded guilty to eight charges including campaign finance violations and directly implicated Trump in paying “hush money” to women with whom he allegedly had affairs.
Just minutes earlier, Paul Manafort, the president’s former campaign chairman, was convicted on eight charges of bank and tax fraud. The dual courtroom dramas set up a moment of rare peril for the president.
In a tweet Lanny Davis, Cohen’s lawyer, mused on Trump’s culpability regarding the payments –which he has denied any knowledge of.
Today he 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?
— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) August 21, 2018
The latest news story from our Washington correspondent is below:
.jpg?w=600)
