All the denials melt away.... Guilty..

Cohen says he paid hush money at candidate Trump’s direction

The statement came as part of a plea deal that Cohen struck Tuesday afternoon with federal prosecutors in New York.

By JOSH GERSTEIN, LAURA NAHMIAS and JOSH MEYER

Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s combative former personal lawyer, on Tuesday implicated the president in hush money payments he said were designed to sway the election, as part of a plea deal he struck with federal prosecutors on fraud charges.

Cohen, who once stated he would take a bullet for Trump, flipped on his former boss in a dramatic courtroom appearance that went down just as news emerged that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had been found guilty in his own fraud trial.

“I participated in the conduct for the purposes of influencing the election” Cohen said about his payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal, two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump in the past. Trump denies the claims.

The statement came as Cohen formally entered his plea at a Manhattan federal court, in which he admitted guilt to a slate of eight tax evasion, financial fraud and campaign finance charges.

It represented a bombshell moment — and the most politically and potentially legally damaging for Trump, who had previously denied knowledge of the payments.

Cohen said one payment, for $150,000, was made during "summer of 2016, in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office."

The second payment, for $130,000, was made around "October of 2016, at the direction of the same candidate."

“This isn’t a terrible day for President Trump, it’s the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for him,” said former Assistant Attorney General David Kris, who worked for the Justice Department under four Democratic and Republican presidents.

Kris was referring to the developments in both the Cohen and Manafort cases. But he said Cohen's plea is potentially far more damaging to Trump, and “obviously very, very significant” in that it makes several express references to other, unnamed, campaign officials being involved in criminal acts pertaining to campaign financing, said Kris, the founder of the Culper Partners business consulting firm.

“The only word that seems to be missing from that string of ‘C’ words is collusion, but when you say they acted in concert, coordination and consultation with [Cohen], you are getting to the idea of a joint effort to violate law,” Kris said.

But Cohen’s claims in court that he acted at the direction of Trump are especially damaging to the president himself, Kris said. “They are obviously much more pointed, and therefore much worse, for Donald Trump.”

Some legal experts speculated that because the Cohen plea included campaign finance violations based on payoffs, it is possible that Trump could be listed as an unindicted co-conspirator.

“It’s certainly possible, and I emphasis possible, that the president could be treated as a co-conspirator,” said the lawyer representing a senior Trump aide in the Russia probe.

“If Cohen broke the law by making these payments, then folks knew about it and agreed with it and assisted with it also broke the law. It’s that simple,” the lawyer added.

Cohen's statements also stand out because the documents outlining his plea deal do not appear to offer any examples or evidence of Trump himself directing Cohen to do anything.

And Cohen's attorney, Lanny Davis, didn't shy away from directly calling out the president.

"If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn't they be a crime for Donald Trump?” he asked in a statement.

Notably, the documents leave unanswered the question of whether Cohen has agreed to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the election — and any potential coordination with Trump's campaign on those efforts.

Rudy Giuliani, who is representing Trump in the Mueller probe, insisted the Cohen deal in no way implicated the president.

"There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the president in the government's charges against Mr. Cohen," he told POLITICO. "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.”

In total, the eight counts Cohen pleaded guilty to include five counts of personal tax evasion from 2012 to 2016, which included a failure to report more than $4 million, and one count of making a false statement to a lending institution.

On the campaign finance front, Cohen pleaded guilty to two counts of making contributions in excess of $25,000 for the purpose of influencing a federal election.

The crimes carry a maximum sentence of 65 years, but sentencing guidelines recommend 46-63 months of prison time.

A source close to Cohen said prior to the plea that Cohen agreed to a plea deal “to save millions of dollars, protect his family, and limit his exposure,” the source said.

At Tuesday's hearing, Cohen, wearing a black suit with a yellow tie, appeared in decent spirits, chatting with his lawyer and mouthing "hello" to several different reporters.

When the judge asked Cohen whether he had ingested drugs or alcohol in the previous 24 hours, Cohen noted, "Last night at dinner I had a glass of Glenlivet 12, on the rocks,” prompting chuckles in the courtroom.

Cohen will be sentenced on Dec. 12. Until then, he is out on $500,000 bail, limited to only traveling within New York City, and to a few notable places, such as Washington, D.C.

Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York have been investigating Cohen for months over allegations of tax fraud, bank fraud and campaign finance violations stemming from hush payments he arranged to women, including Daniels and McDougal, prior to the 2016 presidential election. The probe was fueled in part by a referral from Mueller's team.

Cohen’s apartment and Manhattan office, as well as a hotel room, were raided by federal investigators in April.

Mueller's team has been pursuing legal action against Trump associates for months. The special counsel has already secured indictments against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who has been on trial in Virginia, where a jury is deliberating on multiple counts of bank and tax fraud. Former campaign aides Rick Gates and George Papadopoulos, as well as former national security adviser Michael Flynn, are among those who have pleaded guilty in the Mueller probe.

But Cohen’s plea brings the investigation squarely into the realm of the president’s private life and family, and it marks the most formal break yet between the president and one of his most vocal, visible and forceful defenders.

For years, Cohen boasted that he would do anything to protect Trump, his reputation and his business empire, once saying he would take a bullet for Trump. The relationship began to fray after Trump’s surprise election, when the president decided not to offer his trusted attorney a position in his administration. Cohen had told acquaintances that he had expected such a position, perhaps even White House chief of staff or counsel.

Cohen’s loyalty was tested after FBI agents raided several locations and seized literally millions of documents and digital records that provided investigators with a roadmap of his — and Trump’s — myriad financial dealings. Some of those documents presumably relate to Trump Organization business deals and proposals, potentially including one that Cohen was trying to negotiate for a Trump property in Moscow during the early stages of the presidential campaign.

FBI agents also recovered numerous recordings of phone calls between Cohen and Trump that legal experts have said could be a gold mine for prosecutors.

For prosecutors to secure a plea agreement like this with Cohen is a major achievement, given the high bar for proving such violations, said Liam Brennan, a former federal prosecutor and public corruption task force chief.

“Campaign finance violations are very hard to prove, and require a lot of mental evidence, or evidence of intent — not just that you know you are doing something wrong, but that you know you are doing something illegal,” Brennan said. “So to get a plea to that charge is a huge win for the government, and for the whole series of investigations.”

Cohen’s willingness to enter into the cooperation agreement “is hugely damaging on two levels,” Brennan added.

On the political level, Cohen can offer investigators and prosecutors critically important details about hush money payments and other potentially damaging information “about willful violations of the law to support the presidential campaign.”

And on the legal front, Cohen’s cooperation could spell trouble for Trump even if Mueller continues to believe a sitting president cannot be indicted.

“If you sign a cooperation agreement, you essentially agree to share information with the FBI about any criminal wrongdoing you are aware of,” Brennan said.