Michael Cohen said he paid hush money at 'direction' of Trump

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NEW YORK — President Donald Trump’s onetime attorney and personal fixer, Michael Cohen, told a federal court on Tuesday that he had paid off two women to silence them before the 2016 election at Trump’s "direction," and admitted that the payments were illegal.

Cohen admitted he paid an adult film star hush money "at the direction of" a candidate running for federal office, a reference to Trump. He said the payment was intended to keep her from talking about an affair she said she had with the billionaire in 2006.

The payment came at a particularly sensitive moment, after the release of an Access Hollywood outtake in which Trump boasted about sexually assaulting women and less than a month before the election that carried Trump to the White House.

The Justice Department alleged that Cohen paid to silence the actress and another woman, a former Playboy playmate, "in order to influence the 2016 presidential election." And prosecutors charged that the payments were "coordinated with one or more members of the campaign, including through meetings and phone calls about the fact, nature, and timing of the payments."

Cohen pleaded guilty to eight charges, including allegations that the payments violated campaign finance laws and unrelated charges that he lied to banks to obtain improper loans and lied to the government to avoid paying taxes.

Deputy U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami said Cohen decided, as a lawyer, that he was above the law and would pay a "very, very serious price" for his actions.

"These are very serious charges and reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over an extended period of time," Khuzami said.

Trump's suspected involvement

Two of the charges against Cohen center on payments during Trump's 2016 campaign to women who'd alleged they'd had affairs with Trump years earlier. Both, prosecutors charged, had been "coordinated" with Trump's campaign, and both violated federal campaign finance laws.

Trump has denied the affairs.

Court records don't include the names of the women or the other participants in the scheme, but in most cases, their identities were obvious based on months of disclosures about the investigation into Cohen and the women's separate lawsuits.

In one instance, prosecutors said "Corporation-1" - whose description matches public descriptions of the National Enquirer, entered into an agreement in August 2016 to buy the story of one woman, Karen McDougal, identified as "Woman-1," for $150,000. Prosecutors said the purpose of the agreement, in which Cohen participated, "was to suppress Woman-1’s story so as to prevent it from influencing the election."

Prosecutors said Cohen arranged a separate payment to Stormy Daniels, referred to as Woman-2, to prevent her from speaking to the press.

The 51-year-old Cohen said in court that he made the payments in coordination with Trump, who wasn't named, to influence the election.

Khuzami said Cohen worked to silence the women whose stories would be "detrimental to the 2016 campaign." Cohen then sought reimbursement for the payments in 2017 by writing invoices for legal services to Trump's company..

"He provided no legal services for the year 2017 and it was simply a means to obtain reimbursement for the unlawful campaign contributions,” Khuzami said.

Lanny J. Davis, Cohen's attorney, said his client fulfilled a promise to "tell the truth" about Trump.

"Today he stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election," Davis said in a statement. "If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn't they be a crime for Donald Trump?"

Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, said Tuesday that Cohen's case has nothing to do with the president.

"There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President in the government's charges against Mr. Cohen," Giuliani said in a written statement. "It is clear that, as the prosecutor noted, Mr. Cohen's actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time."

The investigation

Cohen's plea follows months of scrutiny from federal investigations and a falling out with the president, for whom he previously said he would "take a bullet."

In April, federal investigators for the Southern District of New York seized roughly 4 million files from Cohen's home, business office and hotel room.

FBI raids in April sought bank records, communications with Trump's campaign and information on payments to Daniels and McDougal. But court records filed Tuesday also show investigators' interest swept far more broadly, and that the FBI had mined deeply into Cohen's finances.

Prosecutors charged that Cohen had illegally concealed more than $4 million in income from the IRS so that he wouldn't have to pay taxes on it. The money came from real estate deals, consulting fees and even brokering the sale of an expensive handbag. They also said he lied to banks about his assets to obtain loans for which he otherwise wouldn't have qualified.

Cohen pleaded guilty to those allegations Tuesday afternoon.

Reaction pouring in

Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti, said Tuesday's developments "will permit us to have the stay lifted in the civil case & should also permit us to proceed with an expedited deposition of Trump under oath about what he knew, when he knew it, and what he did about it."

Avenatti also seemed to taunt Trump Giuliani.

"Buckle Up Buttercup," he wrote. "You and your client completely misplayed this."

Cohen was also involved in an agreement to pay McDougal to remain quiet about her own affair with Trump. Last month, an audio recording of a conversation reportedly between Trump and Cohen, about a payment to a former Playboy model was released.

Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor who handled corruption cases, said the government’s allegations against Cohen “certainly implicate other people, potentially in a conspiracy to commit the campaign violations.”

He said it’s “a little surprising” that Cohen’s plea agreement with federal prosecutors didn’t include a cooperation agreement, though that doesn’t bar him from cooperating in the future.

More: Report: Ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen investigated for bank and tax fraud of more than $20 million

More: Feds win access to records seized from ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen

More: Michael Cohen tapes: Here's what we know about the secret recordings

Contributing: Associated Press