Michael Cohen pleads guilty, implicates Trump

Following a plea bargain reached with the prosecution, Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, admitted to a judge in the US District Court in Manhattan on Tuesday that “in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office” he had arranged payments to two women during the 2016 campaign to keep them from speaking publicly about affairs they said they had with Trump. “I participated in this conduct, which on my part took place in Manhattan, for the principal purpose of influencing the election” for president in 2016, Cohen said. This charge could implicate the president in a federal crime. The terms of the plea bargain were not all released, but it resulted in Cohen admitting to making illegal payments to the two women and pleading guilty to breaking campaign finance laws and other crimes related to his corrupt business dealings, for which he bargained for a reduced prison sentence.