What a fucking putz....

Trump breaks silence on Michael Cohen sentencing

The president claims he never directed his ex-lawyer to break the law.

By CAITLIN OPRYSKO

President Donald Trump on Thursday broke his silence on Michael Cohen's prison sentencing, claiming he never directed his longtime fixer to break the law and that he bears no responsibility for Cohen's campaign finance violations.

In his first tweets since Cohen was sentenced to three years for a series of tax fraud and lying charges on Wednesday, Trump argued that Cohen pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance laws to get a lighter sentence and questioned whether any violations even occurred.

“I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law. It is called ‘advice of counsel,’ and a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made. That is why they get paid," Trump wrote on Twitter across a flurry of posts Thursday morning. "Despite that many campaign finance lawyers have strongly stated that I did nothing wrong with respect to campaign finance laws, if they even apply, because this was not campaign finance."

"Cohen was guilty on many charges unrelated to me, but he plead to two campaign charges which were not criminal and of which he probably was not guilty even on a civil bases," the president continued. "Those charges were just agreed to by him in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence, which he did-including the fact that his family was temporarily let off the hook. As a lawyer, Michael has great liability to me!”

Cohen pleaded guilty earlier this year to violating campaign finance law when he made hush money payments ahead of the 2016 election to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, both of whom claimed they had affairs with Trump.

Trump’s ex-lawyer stated that he made these payments at the direction of then-candidate Trump and that they were intended to sway the election.

The president first denied advance knowledge of the payments but has since shifted his position to state that even if he was aware of the payments, they had nothing to do with the election.

Trump’s prior claims that the payments were not intended to sway the election conflict with Cohen’s statements as well as a non-prosecution deal between federal prosecutors and American Media Inc., the publisher of the tabloid National Enquirer that coordinated the hush money payments.

On Thursday, Trump appeared to argue that he relied on Cohen to know the statutes, and that he himself lacked the necessary criminal intent to violate any campaign financial laws.

Generally, prosecutors must show a “knowing and willful” attempt to flout the statute, and there has not been an indication that Cohen ever explicitly discussed with Trump the idea that the payments could be criminal.

Trump’s broadsides against Cohen, a long-time attack dog for the president who once said he would take a bullet for Trump, have been particularly scathing in the aftermath of the announcement that he would cooperate with investigators from special counsel Robert Mueller’s team.

In remarks at his sentencing hearing, Cohen was unsparing toward his former boss. Responding to previous claims by the president that he was “weak,” Cohen countered that his only weakness was “blind loyalty” to the president.

He said despite the near certainty he would have to serve jail time, he told the judge that his sentencing date ironically would be the day he was getting his freedom “back.”

“I have been living in a personal and mental incarceration ever since the fateful day that I accepted the offer to work for a famous real estate mogul whose business acumen I truly admired,” he said.