Federal prosecutors laid out how President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen worked to illegally help the Trump campaign in 2016.

Chunks of the Southern District of New York's sentencing memo for the attorney detail what the government calls efforts to influence his boss's 2016 campaign for president. Another document from special counsel Robert Mueller explains Cohen's efforts to give the impression that a proposal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow fizzled out earlier than it actually did.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement, "The government's filings in Mr. Cohen's case tell us nothing of value that wasn't already known. Mr. Cohen has repeatedly lied and as the prosecution has pointed out to the court, Mr. Cohen is no hero."

Trump himself tweeted after memos about Cohen and former campaign chief Paul Manafort was released, claiming he had been cleared. It was not immediately evident which of the filings Trump was referring to. The SDNY's filing on Cohen said the lawyer committed crimes "in coordination with and at the direction of" Trump.

Trump tweet

Cohen's attempts to affect the campaign came primarily through payments to model Karen McDougal and Stephanie Clifford, a former adult film actress known by her stage name Stormy Daniels, to suppress stories about alleged affairs with Trump, prosecutors say. The document concludes what Cohen has previously said — that he acted "in coordination and at the direction" of the president in making the payments.

The SDNY asked Friday for a "substantial term of imprisonment" for Cohen, who has pleaded guilty in both cases and has been cooperating with the special counsel.

Here are the parts of the memo that mention Cohen's efforts to shape the election (Individual-1 is Trump, while Woman-1 and Woman-2 appear to refer to McDougal and Clifford, respectively):