President Donald Trump has a habit of attacking political opponents on Twitter and using the social media network to respond to segments he sees on Fox News. | Lex Edelman/AFP/Getty Images white house Trump claims Cohen hush money payment was 'simple private transaction'

President Donald Trump on Monday sought to downplay the felony his former personal attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to this month, arguing that Cohen’s hush money payments on behalf of Trump were a “simple private transaction” rather than a breach of campaign finance law.

Apparently citing a Fox News segment, Trump insisted on Twitter that there is “no smocking [sic] gun” pointing to coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia that emerged from the closed door congressional testimony of former FBI Director James Comey last week.


He accused Democrats — several of whom spoke publicly over the weekend to slam Trump following revelations in a series of sentencing memos from special counsel Robert Mueller over the past week — of pivoting to the hush money payments because of a lack of evidence of collusion.

"There was NO COLLUSION,” Trump wrote on Monday. “So now the Dems go to a simple private transaction, wrongly call it a campaign contribution, which it was not (but even if it was, it is only a CIVIL CASE, like Obama’s - but it was done correctly by a lawyer and there would not even be a fine.).”

Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney and fixer, pleaded guilty in August to paying off women, including an adult film actress and a Playboy model, who alleged affairs with Trump in return for silence, testifying that he did so at Trump’s behest in an attempt to influence the campaign. Trump and his allies have argued that the payments should have been considered a business expense rather than a campaign contribution. But even if the payments were ruled to be an illegal campaign contribution, many legal experts have said Trump would not necessarily share equally in Cohen's guilt.

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Even as Trump claimed the payments have been misconstrued, on Monday he tried to argue that Cohen’s charges were no different from thecampaign finance violations made by former President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, which included missing filing deadlines for certain contributions and resulted in a massive fine.

Cohen’s payments were by the book, the president argued, but if they were not, it’s the “lawyer’s liability if he made a mistake, not me."

“Cohen just trying to get his sentence reduced,” he added of his former attorney, a man who once said he would take a bullet for Trump.

Cohen is set to be sentenced on Wednesday, and federal prosecutors on Friday have recommended that he serve “substantial” prison time of nearly four years despite his cooperation.