Andrea Bernstein:

Well, it was a dramatic moment.

I mean, we began to hear around the middle of the day that there might be some activity. And then at about 2:00, we were told something was going to happen at 4:00. But that's all we knew. So the courtroom was packed, and the prosecutors had all come in. Four of them stood at their table, and then there was Michael Cohen.

He walked in a side door. He stood at the table by himself for a moment, and then the proceedings began, in which the judge asked him, did he know what he was doing? And it was dramatic, because, as you said, he was a lawyer, he was someone who knew what he was doing.

He was asked, what is your education? He said, I went to law school. And he was asked, did you — are you pleading guilty because you are guilty? And he said — he stopped for a moment to sigh, and then he said, yes, your honor.

And he proceeded to plead guilty to these eight counts, five counts of tax evasion, one count of misleading a bank on a loan application, and these two other very dramatic counts of campaign finance violations, which is significant, both in the Michael Cohen case, but also in all of the investigations into the Trump campaign, that he stood in a federal court and said under oath, I committed these crimes at the direction of a candidate for federal office.