Trump commented on his former lawyer Michael Cohen pleading guilty in federal court, and warned that impeaching him would cause an economic crash

Donald Trump has suggested that cooperating with the government in a criminal case in exchange for a reduced sentence “almost ought to be illegal” while warning that impeaching him would cause an economic crash.

Trump made the comments in an interview with the Fox News channel about his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to campaign tax violations in federal court in New York on Tuesday and implicated the president in his crimes.

“If I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash. I think everybody would be very poor,” Trump said, adding that Americans would see economic “numbers that you wouldn’t believe in reverse”.



He also sent a warning signal about any attempt by the US Congress to oust him from the White House.

“I don’t know how you can impeach somebody who’s done a great job,” he said.

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Trump’s ebullient interview came in the wake of the double blows to his presidency that unfolded in federal court rooms almost simultaneously in New York and Virginia this week. Cohen took a plea deal in one, while a jury convicted Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, on eight counts in his fraud trial, which could see him spend the rest of his life in prison.

The court outcomes immediately engulfed the Trump White House in its most serious internal crisis yet, drawing talk of whether the populist and inflammatory businessman-turned-president can survive.

Cohen has not agreed to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

But by making a plea deal, which has drawn the president’s wrath, he can expect a lighter sentence and could yet decide to cooperate with Mueller and ease his punishment further.

Trump has praised Manafort for not “breaking” under pressure to cooperate with prosecutors.

This raises questions over whether a highly controversial presidential pardon for Manafort could be on the horizon.

On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said the president had asked his lawyers for their advice on the possibility of pardoning Manafort several weeks ago, but that his lawyers had advised against it and told him it was better to wait for the Mueller investigation to come to a close.

In the interview with the Fox & Friends morning show on Thursday, Trump accused Cohen of implicating him to get a better deal with prosecutors. He said Cohen “makes a better deal when he uses me”. Cohen told the court he had been directed by the “candidate” – Trump’s name was never mentioned in court – to pay hush money to two women who allege they had affairs with him in the past.

“It’s called flipping and it almost ought to be illegal,” Trump said. “It’s not a fair thing, but that’s why he did it. He made a very good deal.”

Trump claimed people who decide to cooperate with the government “make up stories” and “just make up lies”.

But even as Trump accused Cohen of making up the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, he said in the same interview that he knew of the payments and also that he had made them.

“They didn’t come out of the campaign, they came from me. And I tweeted about it. You know, I put – I don’t know if you know but I tweeted about the payments. But they didn’t come out of the campaign.

“But they weren’t – that’s not a – it’s not even a campaign violation. If you look at President Obama, he had a massive campaign violation but he had a different attorney general and they viewed it a lot differently.”

Trump was apparently referring to a fine levied on the former president’s 2008 campaign over missing and delayed disclosure of high-dollar donors in the final days of that race.

During Manafort’s trial, Rick Gates, a former campaign aide and deputy chairman of Trump’s inaugural committee, also confessed that he stole money both for and from Manafort.

This week, prosecutors also said the former national security adviser, Michael Flynn – who pleaded guilty last year to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials and his Turkish lobbying work – is not yet ready to be sentenced. This implies he might still be cooperating with the FBI.

Five Trump associates have been found or have pleaded guilty to various crimes. The thread that runs through them is Mueller’s investigation.

Trump has argued that Mueller is on a fishing expedition, having lost sight of his original focus on Russia. Unfortunately for Trump, that does not appear to be the case.

If Manafort, facing the prospect of ending his life in prison, decided to testify against the president, his description of Trump campaign contacts with Russians could expose criminality or additional Trump lies. On Wednesday, Cohen’s lawyer suggested he was ready to tell Mueller everything he knows.

Speaking to Sky News on Thursday in Aberdeen, where he has been on holiday, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said: “I think it is inevitable that he won’t [be impeached]. President Trump has been completely cleared. You have this Cohen guy ... He’s a massive liar. If anything it has turned very much in the president’s favour.”

Additional reporting by Severin Carrell