Safer in jail...

Cohen won't accept pardon from Trump, attorney says

By STEPHANIE MURRAY

President Donald Trump's former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen will "under no circumstances" accept a pardon from his former boss, Cohen's attorney Lanny Davis said Wednesday.

Cohen pleaded guilty Tuesday in a Manhattan federal court to violating campaign finance laws during the 2016 campaign, including making hush-money payments to two women who claim they had affairs with the president. Cohen implicated the president in his guilty plea, telling the court that he made those payments "in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office."

Asked whether his client would seek a pardon from the president, Cohen's attorney Lanny Davis said "the answer is definitively no" during an appearance on CNN Wednesday morning.

"His answer would be no, I do not want a pardon from this man," Davis said. "Under no circumstances, since he came to the judgment after Mr. Trump's election to the presidency of the United States that his suitability is a serious risk to our country. And certainly after Helsinki, creates serious questions about his loyalty to our country."

Davis was a fixture on Wednesday morning's TV news programs, sitting for at least five interviews that aired before 9 a.m., including all three network morning shows — NBC's "Today," ABC's "Good Morning America" and "CBS This Morning."

He told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that Trump's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, was a "significant turning point" for Cohen in deciding to turn against the president, Cohen's attorney said Wednesday. Cohen, who has worked alongside the president and his family since 2006, went through an "evolutionary" process before taking the plea deal he formally accepted on Tuesday, Davis said.

"Helsinki was a significant turning point, as he worried about the future of our country with the president of the United States aligning with somebody who everybody in his intelligence community who he appointed, including [Director of National Intelligence] Dan Coats, said that Putin interfered and tried to help Trump get elected," Davis said. "And Trump is the only one left denying that. And that shook up Mr. Cohen."

Earlier this summer, Trump met face-to-face with Russian president Putin in Helsinki, meeting one-on-one and then with aides. Those meetings were followed by a bilateral press conference where Trump seemed to accept Putin's denials that Russia was not behind a campaign of cyberattacks aimed at interfering with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, apparently taking the word of the Russian president over that of the U.S. intelligence community.

Trump later walked back his Helsinki remarks, insisting he does believe Russia was behind the interference efforts. But already, Cohen seemed to have made up his mind.

“As an American, I repudiate Russia’s or any other foreign government’s attempt to interfere or meddle in our democratic process, and I would call on all Americans to do the same,” Cohen told ABC's "Good Morning America" in an interview last month. “Simply accepting the denial of Mr. Putin is unsustainable.”

While Cohen's attorney insisted Wednesday that the former Trump attorney's decision-making process had been shaped by the Helsinki summit, Cohen's legal jeopardy was already well underway. Acting on a referral from the office of special counsel Robert Mueller, Cohen's office and residences were raided by the FBI last April, spurring discussion that Trump's attorney might turn against him in order to protect himself.

Davis said Wednesday that his client has information that would be of interest to Mueller, who is at the helm of an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Mueller's team is also probing whether Trump's campaign colluded with Russia, an inquiry the president often calls a "witch hunt."

According to Davis, Cohen has more information that would be of interest to the Mueller investigation, and he plans to tell the truth to whoever asks. Davis was an attorney for President Bill Clinton during the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and for the subsequent impeachment proceedings.

"Michael Cohen knows information that would be of interest to the special counsel, in my opinion, regarding both knowledge about a conspiracy to corrupt American democracy by the Russians and the failure to report that knowledge to the FBI," Davis said. "Donald Trump violated criminal law. He may not be able to be indicted. That's an unclear question, but there's no dispute here. He directed Michael Cohen to do something that was criminal. Michael did it and admitted to it."

Cohen's decision to flip on the president and implicate Trump in his own guilty plea was a "painful process," Davis said. Cohen could face four years in prison for allegedly paying off women at Trump's request.

Asked if Cohen possesses evidence that would corroborate his claim that Trump directed him to make the hush-money payments, Davis insisted that the president's own lawyers, in a letter to Mueller's office, have written that Trump "directed" Cohen to make those payments. That admission from Trump's legal team, Davis said, is evidence enough.

"His lawyers wrote the special counsel and said that he directed Michael Cohen to make these payments. So the answer is, yes, he committed a crime," Davis said in an interview with "CBS This Morning" on Wednesday. "When a lawyer makes an admission of fact on behalf of a client, that is dispositive evidence. It's not disputable evidence."