The National Enquirer Flips On Donald Trump In Playmate Hush Money Scandal

12/12/2018 02:25 pm ET Updated 4 hours ago

The National Enquirer Flips On Donald Trump In Playmate Hush Money Scandal

The National Enquirer’s parent company, AMI, has offered “substantial and important assistance” in an investigation into hush money payments.

By Ryan J. Reilly and Maxwell Strachan

The parent company of the National Enquirer has admitted to federal prosecutors that “its principal purpose” in paying former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal $150,000 ahead of the 2016 election was to “suppress” her story about an alleged affair with Donald Trump for the explicit purpose of improving the then-candidate’s chances of victory.

The decision, the company also said, was made in direct “cooperation, consultation and concert with one or more” members of the Trump campaign.

At the bottom of a Wednesday press release touting the sentencing of former Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York revealed that it had recently reached a “non-prosecution agreement” with American Media Inc., which owns tabloids including the National Enquirer.

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As part of the deal, AMI offered “substantial and important assistance” in federal prosecutors’ investigation into payments made to McDougal, prosecutors said.

AMI has previously denied that it “paid people to kill damaging stories about Mr. Trump,” claiming that it paid McDougal to write fitness columns and appear on magazine covers, as well as for the story rights related to any relationship she had had with a married man. And on Monday, Trump seemed to dismiss any payment made on behalf of him before the election as a “simple private transaction,” rather than a “campaign contribution.”

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...00m_normal.jpgDonald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump


“Democrats can’t find a Smocking Gun tying the Trump campaign to Russia after James Comey’s testimony. No Smocking Gun...No Collusion.” @FoxNews That’s because there was NO COLLUSION. So now the Dems go to a simple private transaction, wrongly call it a campaign contribution,...

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But as part of its agreement with federal prosecutors, AMI now admits it paid the money to McDougal in order to catch and kill the story of her alleged affair to aid then-candidate Trump’s campaign.

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Neither McDougal nor Trump are mentioned in the Wednesday press release, which states that the payment was made “in concert with a candidate’s presidential campaign, and in order to ensure that the woman did not publicize damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election.”

“AMI further admitted that its principal purpose in making the payment was to suppress the woman’s story so as to prevent it from influencing the election,” the release added.

David Pecker, the chief executive and chairman of AMI, long considered himself a “personal friend” of Trump. He for many years granted Trump favorable coverage, particularly in the Enquirer, where Trump’s team was given “copy approval and headline approval and photo approval,” a senior editor told HuffPost over the summer.

That dedication to Trump extended through the election, when the Enquirer publicly endorsed Trump and vigorously attacked his opponents. Behind the scenes, Pecker agreed to go even further to help his friend become president, coordinating with Cohen in August 2015 to “deal with negative stories about” Trump’s “relationships with women,” a decision prosecutors say led to the McDougal deal.

But as outlined in AMI’s agreement with the Justice Department, the company knew at the time that corporations are not legally allowed to make payments in hopes of influencing an election, and it did not tell the Federal Election Commission about the payment to McDougal.

As prosecutors zeroed in on the idea that AMI’s payment could be considered as an illegal campaign contribution, Pecker ultimately decided to flip on his friend, agreeing to a deal with prosecutors this year that would grant him immunity in exchange for information related to payments made to McDougal and porn star Stormy Daniels. As part of the deal, chief content officer Dylan Howard also received immunity.

AMI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...b00e17a535ada6

Feds: Cohen broke the law at Trump's direction

Oh they lied when they were telling the truth, and then they tell the truth when they are lying to gain immunity.

That's so funny!

But as outlined in AMI’s agreement with the Justice Department, the company knew at the time that corporations are not legally allowed to make payments in hopes of influencing an election, and it did not tell the Federal Election Commission about the payment to McDougal.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

But as outlined in AMI’s agreement with the Justice Department, the company knew at the time that corporations are not legally allowed to make payments in hopes of influencing an election, and it did not tell the Federal Election Commission about the payment to McDougal.

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Didn't Trump reimburse them through Cohen or something like that? It was actually paid by Trump, not them. They advanced it and did the contracts and agreements, but Trump paid for it with his personal money. That's what the story was a year ago. Trump Org made the arrangements because they have procedures to access his personal accounts and pay his bills for him subject to his approval, that's what that Trump Org accountant stated a year or more ago, maybe 2 years ago, when it first came out whenever that was.

AMI is not stupid, they're pretty smart, so I don't know why they would think they were liable for a campaign finance violation for a payment they didn't actually make unless they just didn't want to mess with the hassle of having the feds on their ass with a Witch Hunt investigation and when they were offered immunity to lie and tell the feds whatever they wanted to hear and be done with it, they took it and ran, which is fine, maybe most people would do that. I mean look what the feds did to Manafort and Flynn and Cohen. I can see why they would do whatever and say whatever the feds wanted. There's no telling what these prosecutors were threatening them with. It's a messed up system.

Also, corporations are fully entitled to make payments for the purpose of influencing an election. Who do you think funds the billions of dollars donated to political campaigns? Special interests, most of which if not all of which are: corporations.

There is also no limit on a business venture associated with a campaign to influence an election. It just has to be reported by whoever ultimately pays it. You don't report the whole supply chain, just the ultimate payor, which would be Donald Trump.

Then you must go to the issue of what were Trump's motives. Was his motive to influence the election? Why would it be? He has his own $10 billion business to protect, his own brand to protect, his own name and reputation to protect and MOST IMPORTANTLY OF ALL, his wife and son to protect.

The question is would Donald Trump have made the payment to buy McDougal's story if he wasn't running for President? Yes, he would have. And I believe both Cohen and Pecker will be great witnesses to that great simple fact with a trail of documents a mile long spanning years which the feds have which is EXCULPATORY EVIDENCE and proof beyond all doubt that this is the biggest most rotten malicious insidious unconstitutional WITCH HUNT in American History.

And a national disgrace.

The same for Stormy Daniels.

The problem is political hacks working for the DOJ, who don't understand having something more important to protect than winning an election, I guess because they've never had it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Judy

Didn't Trump reimburse them through Cohen or something like that? . . .

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That was one of the other mistresses that Trump reimbursed Cohen for his money.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

That was one of the other mistresses that Trump reimbursed Cohen for his money.

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I think Cohen paid for them both and Trump reimbursed Cohen for them both. Maybe not, but that's what I remember and that's why the amount Trump paid Cohen was supposed to be $420,000. $280,000 for the payments plus legal services for putting the deals together plus a bonus. I don't think he got the bonus, because both women breached their deals, and the whole thing blew up.

:)

I just heard on CNN that Cohen never reimbursed AMI. He offered to by purchasing the story rights in August of 2016 but AMI apparently decided for business reasons to hang on to the story. So don't know about the $150,000. I think Cohen billed Trump for it without maybe ever paying AMI for it. It's not clear, mixed stories coming out, I think the whole thing blew up before the election anyway.

Yeah, here it is. The Wall Street Journal ran the story about Karen McDougal 4 days before the 2016 Election.

Quote:

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In November 2016, The Wall Street Journal reported that McDougal had told her friend that she had an affair with a married Donald Trump from 2006 to 2007, with various sources quoting that it had lasted from ten months to a year. It also reported that American Media, Inc. (AMI), the owner of the National Enquirer, had paid McDougal $150,000 for exclusive rights to her story, but never published it. AMI stated to The Wall Street Journal that it had paid the amount to McDougal not "to kill damaging stories about" Trump, but for "exclusive life rights to any relationship she has had with a then-married man" and "two years’ worth of her fitness columns and magazine covers".[46][47] On June 20, 2016, Dylan Howard interviewed McDougal for several hours at the offices of her lawyer, Keith M. Davidson.[48] McDougal later met with investigative reporters from ABC News, which prompted American Media to offer to buy the rights to McDougal's story for $150,000 in August 5, 2016.[48]

The Wall Street Journal published the story four days before the 2016 United States presidential election, in which Trump was the Republican nominee. Trump was endorsed by the National Enquirer, and was friends with AMI CEO/Chairman David Pecker. Hope Hicks, speaking for the Trump campaign, denied the existence of an affair between Trump and McDougal, saying that the notion was "totally untrue."[49][50]

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So voters knew about it before the election. Trump still won so it didn't influence the election, voters didn't care, but I'm sure it impacted his family, his wife and son Baron. And Cohen knows that because when he went down to Mar-a-Lago after this all blew up, Cohen was heard apologizing over and over to Melania for the way he handled this and it all blowing up and how it would affect Baron.

What’s next for the Trump hush money investigation

Michael Cohen got sentenced, and prosecutors announced they won’t charge AMI.

By Andrew
Dec 12, 2018, 5:15pm EST

New York federal prosecutors’ investigation into the hush money payments Michael Cohen arranged during the 2016 campaign isn’t yet over — and it appears to have moved closer to President Trump.

Shortly after Cohen was sentenced, prosecutors in his case announced they’d reached a non-prosecution agreement with a company involved in one of those payments, American Media Inc. — and said the company assisted in the investigation and admitted it acted “in concert” with Trump’s presidential campaign.

This follows up on a sentencing memo filed last week, in which prosecutors asserted that Cohen “acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1” — Trump — in violating campaign finance law.

Meanwhile, recent reports from both the Wall Street Journal and New York Times suggest the involvement of Trump and the Trump Organization in the payoffs both remain major focuses of the probe.

So prosecutors have concluded that the payoffs were criminal, because they were effectively designed to help Trump’s electoral chances but went far above campaign contribution limits. They’ve gotten Cohen to plead guilty to charges. They’ve also decided not to prosecute AMI.

Which means that the obvious next step in the probe would seem to involve Trump or his company.
Trump’s known personal involvement in the illegal payoffs

In August, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) charged Cohen with two campaign finance-related offenses, each involving a separate hush money payment to a woman who claimed she had an affair with Trump.

Quote:

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First was a $150,000 payment to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model. This payment was made by AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer, in August 2016. But Cohen pleaded guilty to “causing” the payment to happen.

Second was the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, made by Cohen himself in the final weeks of the campaign.

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Both reporters and prosecutors have suggested that Trump was informed about and involved in these payments at every step of the way.

Near the very beginning of Trump’s campaign, in August 2015, AMI’s CEO David Pecker had a meeting with Cohen, at which Pecker floated the idea of buying the silence of women who came forward with allegations about Trump. Prosecutors have said that “one other member of the [Trump] campaign” was at this meeting.

That seems to refer to Trump himself. According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump attended this meeting and asked Pecker for help with his campaign. That’s significant because it shows Trump and Pecker had an understanding about hush money payments well before they actually happened.

Fast-forward to a year later, when McDougal was talking about coming forward. Per the Journal, AMI executives then tipped off Cohen, Cohen told Trump, and then Trump called Pecker asking for help.

After the deal to pay McDougal was made, Cohen reported back to Trump — in a conversation he secretly taped. When Cohen vaguely brought up “our friend David” (Pecker), Trump asked, “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?” So that’s more evidence Trump knew what was happening.

SDNY prosecutors also said in a filing last week that, “as Cohen himself has now admitted, with respect to both payments” — to McDougal and Daniels — “he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1.” They haven’t revealed all the evidence they have to back up this statement, but it’s a clear assertion that Trump directed both payoffs.
The Trump Organization was also involved

There’s also potential legal danger for Trump’s company — “the Company,” as SDNY prosecutors have dubbed it.

Cohen was an executive at the Trump Organization when he arranged the payoffs. But he wasn’t the only one at the company (in addition to Trump) who was involved.

During Cohen’s taped conversation with Trump, Cohen also says he spoke to a Trump Organization executive — CFO Allen Weisselberg — about how to repay AMI for the McDougal payoff. “I’ve spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up,” Cohen says.

Weisselberg was also reportedly involved in paying back Cohen for the Daniels payoff with Trump Organization funds in 2017. The money was split into several monthly payments that the company falsely described as “legal expenses.”

Prosecutors investigating the payments reportedly gave Weisselberg immunity for testimony earlier this year. However, this does not mean that Weisselberg “flipped” on Trump, as some surmised: The New York Times reported that the immunity grant “was narrow in scope,” and it remains unclear what Weisselberg said.

But after Cohen pleaded guilty, “federal prosecutors in Manhattan shifted their attention to what role, if any, Trump Organization executives played in the campaign finance violations,” the Times reported this week, citing “people briefed on the matter.”

So Trump’s company certainly appears to have been heavily involved in these illegal payoffs — which raises the question of whether the company itself will be charged.

Matt Miller, a former Obama Justice Department aide, tweeted that he’d “have to think a non-prosecution agreement or indictment of the Trump Organization is coming,” based on prosecutors’ deal with AMI.

Indeed, though the AMI non-prosecution agreement was announced today, the accompanying document is dated September 20, 2018 — suggesting prosecutors have had ample time to move their focus to the next stage of the probe since then. And that next stage certainly seems to point toward Trump and his company.

https://www.vox.com/2018/12/12/18138...rer-hush-money

JD2, you're right, apparently AMI was never reimbursed for the payment they made to Karen McDougal to purchase her story. That's the $150,000. Maybe Cohen was going to purchase the story from AMI and then never got around to it and she breached the agreement 4 days before the election after which, there would be no point. AMI would now have its business rights to collect on the breach. I don't know if they ever did. Karen was writing a column for the National Inquirer as part of the deal and wanted more work activity and promotion for herself and her business she had started.

So it appears so far, the only actual payment by Trump and Cohen was the $130,000 to Stormy Daniels in accordance with a legal non-disclosure agreement. That's the one where Cohen worked out the agreement with Stormy's lawyer, advanced the money and then was eventually reimbursed by Trump.

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ANALYSIS
Why the National Enquirer cooperation deal is a VERY big problem for Trump

• Analysis: Trump's former friends flip as he faces a new reality

But AMI is admitting in their settlement deal that the goal of catching and killing McDougal's story was "to prevent it from influencing the election." Which means that the $150,000 amounted to an in-kind contribution to the campaign -- and broke campaign finance law.

Why the National Enquirer cooperation deal is a VERY big problem for Donald Trump

Maybe that was AMI's goal. Why didn't they report it, then? They're the only ones who could report it, they're the only ones who paid any money towards that goal with regards to Karen MacDougal, so they would have to report it if it was supposed to be reported based on what their goal was. It doesn't sound like an in-kind campaign contribution to me. It sounds like a business deal to control the rights to the story which would be worth a lot of money to AMI if Trump won the White House in one of three ways, to publish through the National Inquirer at some point in time, to sell the story to someone else who would publish the story, or wait until she breaches the agreement and cash in on the extensive penalties.

It all blew up because they didn't catch and kill the story, both ABC and Wall Street Journal also had the story, and the Wall Street Journal ran the story 4 days BEFORE the election, so it was just a bad deal for AMI that at this point could never pay off for AMI.

It will all come out eventually.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Judy

Maybe that was AMI's goal. Why didn't they report it, then? . . .

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Because they got away without reporting previous payments and they thought they could get away with it again.
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"It seems very unlikely that the catch-and-kill ploy that the Enquirer pulled with McDougal is the first and only time it ever did anything else like this with Trump. That's not to say there were lots and lots of women alleging affairs (we have no way of knowing at the moment) but it is to say that AMI -- and its head David Pecker, a longtime friend of the President -- may have helped bury other stories about Trump that were less than flattering."

Why the National Enquirer cooperation deal is a VERY big problem for Donald Trump

They got away with it because it's their First Amendment right to do so under the US Constitution to look for any story, to discuss any story, to purchase any story, to publish or not publish any story.

Trump: Payments With Cohen & Pecker 'Full-On Conspiracy' To Cover Up Affairs | MTP Daily | MSNBC

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGaXEJ-Aphg

JURISPRUDENCE
AMI’s Immunity Deal Is a Disaster for Donald Trump

There’s only one big target left for prosecutors.

By MICHAEL J. STERN
DEC 13, 20185:13 PM



If you look on the National Enquirer’s website you will find a story titled “Thief Hides GPS In His Anus!” That one headline sums up the journalistic stature of the grocery store tabloid.

While the Enquirer’s standing as a news source would make the editors at almost any publication cringe, the Enquirer has played a significant role in supporting Donald Trump’s political ambitions and in tearing flesh from bone every time his political opponent, Hillary Clinton, did something as innocuous as cough, or wear an expensive pant suit, or express her love for hot sauce during the 2016 election.

For years, the Enquirer has been there for Trump. Until now.

On Wednesday, an agreement between the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and American Media Inc., the National Enquirer’s corporate parent, was released.

Federal prosecutors agreed to give AMI immunity from prosecution, for its participation in a campaign finance violation, in exchange for cooperation in the ongoing investigation of that crime. With the other culprit in the crime, Michael Cohen, having been sentenced to three years in prison on Wednesday, there appears to be only one direction for AMI’s cooperation to lead: President Donald Trump.

In the agreement, AMI admitted that it paid former Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 to stop her from disclosing an alleged affair with Trump, out of concern her story would negatively affect Trump’s chances of winning the White House. It appears the illegal arrangement was the brainchild of David Pecker, AMI’s chief executive and a former confidant of the president.

Until recently, speculation that the Department of Justice may proceed with campaign finance charges against the president, or indict and hold charges until he leaves office, centered on his former personal attorney, Cohen. According to Cohen’s August guilty plea, to identical charges from the same set of facts, his old boss directed him to commit this crime.

But last week New York prosecutors filed their sentencing memo on Cohen, and it included a revelation that Cohen refused to provide full and continuing cooperation. That seems to have extinguished speculation that Cohen will be a star witness against Trump in a campaign finance case.

As a former federal prosecutor who frequently handled prosecutions in which I gave a plea deal to one conspirator to testify against another, the potential loss of Cohen as a witness against Trump appears significant. Cohen could testify not only to the transactions that formed the bulk of the crime, he could also credibly testify to a key element of the crime: whether Trump’s purpose for the hush-money payoffs was to save his shot at the White House, rather than save his marriage.

As Cohen seemed to fall out of the picture as a potential witness, Pecker appeared to take his place. The factual basis AMI agreed to in the immunity agreement covers most of the bases that Cohen could have testified to and comes in a less compromised package that may be more believable to a jury.

New York prosecutors thoroughly dismantled Cohen’s character in their sentencing papers.

Before filing such a brutal sentencing memo, they must have ruled him out as a trial witness.

While no sane prosecutor relishes the idea of offering the National Enquirer’s mastermind as a witness at trial, Pecker’s baggage appears to be carry-on size while Cohen’s appears to come with a “heavy, handle with caution” tag.

What is significant, from a prosecutor’s perspective, is the early decision to offer immunity to Pecker and the National Enquirer.

The U.S. attorney’s move in this regard tells us a few things. First, Pecker and AMI must have already offered substantial cooperation. Next, the April raid on Cohen’s offices—said to have netted all forms of evidence, including surreptitious audio recordings—must have given federal investigators substantial evidence not just against Cohen, but also against AMI.

Under ordinary circumstances, the media organization would have had a strong First Amendment defense in that choosing not to publish the Trump affair allegations was done for journalistic reasons. But AMI decided to cooperate. That would indicate that prosecutors had them dead to rights, or that it was afraid of what a fulsome investigation of AMI’s other dealings might produce.

New York prosecutors thoroughly dismantled Cohen’s character in their sentencing papers.

Finally, and most importantly, prosecutors do not like to let people who commit crimes walk away without a conviction—especially in high-profile cases where a conviction could mean substantial deterrence of other people who may be considering similar crimes.

In AMI’s case, proving the most difficult element of a campaign finance violation—an intent to influence the election—comes with an easy roadmap. The Enquirer broke the story about former presidential candidate John Edwards’ alleged campaign finance violation for a similar hush-money scheme, which led to his indictment, trial, and eventual acquittal based on the argument that Edwards was trying to protect his personal life and not his electoral prospects. Since Pecker and AMI broke a similar story, they would be hard-pressed to claim naiveté about the basics of campaign finance laws.

Further, the chief executive of the National Enquirer’s parent company is not a sympathetic character who prosecutors would lightly agree to let escape a criminal conviction—unless he has something the prosecutors really want him to offer in return. That something is likely Donald Trump. Giving Pecker and AMI a pass makes sense when the return on the prosecutors’ investment is the president of the United States.

Choosing to cooperate in this manner is not, as the president has attempted to portray it, some unethical “flipping” scheme. People who commit crimes do not agree to cooperate out of the goodness of their hearts. They want something in return. And, the best witnesses are co-conspirators. Having been a participant in the crime, they know of what they speak—that makes them believable. Particularly when moving up the culpability chain, it is both routine and righteous to offer a deal to one criminal to obtain evidence against a more significant criminal.

If prosecutors are considering an indictment against Trump, they undoubtedly have additional evidence—like recordings, texts, and email—that will support testimony that may come from Pecker. A recording in which Cohen and Trump plotted the payment to McDougal has already emerged.

A quick read of AMI’s immunity agreement may result in missing a briefly noted but key point.

The agreement identifies “at least one other member of the [Trump] campaign” who was present at the August 2015 meeting between Cohen and AMI officials when the seeds of the crime were planted. It has been reported that Trump was the other person, which would put him at the center of the conspiracy. If those reports are accurate, Pecker’s testimony, placing Trump at ground zero of the criminal scheme, would undo Trump’s defense that the hush money was not intended to influence the election.

Wednesday’s disclosure of AMI’s immunity agreement was bad news for the president. The speed with which new details of the payoff scheme are surfacing could ultimately prove to be terrible news for the president. You should know you’re in trouble when the National Enquirer turns against you.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...ker-trump.html

LOL!! Trump like every other American has every right to cover-up alleged affairs as well as stories about alleged affairs.

Nuisance lawsuits.

Look at Christine Blasey Ford...a LIAR who made $1 million on GoFundMe off of it and tried to destroy someone's life.

Who knows if Trump had an affair. That is between him and his family and there a lot of lying barracudas out there going after rich men knowing they will get a pay off for their lies.

Exactly, Beezer. Our campaign finance laws do not apply to payments like this because it's not a campaign expense for a campaign activity.

Investigate the sexual harassment SLUSH FUND in the White House!

Why are our taxpayer dollars paying for that...those monies need to be paid back! Remove those people from office.

Now we pay for the swamp rats to sexually harass people. Bad enough they destroy our country with our money, now they can get away with being perverts and sexual deviants at our expense!

Ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen says Trump knew it was wrong to make hush-money payments during campaign

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GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ERIC AVRAM, ELIANA LARRAMENDIA and JAMES HILL

,Good Morning America•December 14, 2018

Trump knew payments were wrong, Cohen says

Ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen says Trump knew it was wrong to make hush-money payments during campaignoriginally appeared on abcnews.go.com

Donald Trump directed Michael Cohen to arrange hush-money payments with two women because then-candidate Trump “was very concerned about how this would affect the election” if their allegations of affairs became public, the president’s former personal attorney said in an exclusive interview with ABC News.

Cohen’s comments are his first since being sentenced earlier this week to three years in federal prison for financial crimes, lying to Congress and two campaign finance violations in connection with the deals with the women, Karen McDougaland Stormy Daniels, who claim past affairs with Trump.

“I knew what I was doing was wrong,” Cohen told ABC News’ Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos. “I stood up before the world [Wednesday] and I accepted the responsibility for my actions.”

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/uH...n_16x9_608.jpg
PHOTO: Michael Cohen sits down for an interview with ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on 'Good Morning America,' Friday, Dec. 14, 2018. (ABC News) More

When asked if the president also knew it was wrong to make the payments, Cohen replied,

“Of course,” adding that the purpose was to “help [Trump] and his campaign.”

Cohen said he is “angry at himself” for his role in the deals, but that he did it out of “blind loyalty” to Trump.

(MORE: Cohen said Trump made him 'follow a path of darkness rather than light')

“I gave loyalty to someone who, truthfully, does not deserve loyalty,” he said.

Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have implicated, but not charged, the president in the deals reached in the closing weeks of the 2016 election. They allege that Cohen acted “in coordination with and at the direction of” Trump, according to court filings.

Prosecutors also reached a non-prosecution agreement with AMI, the publishers of the National Inquirer, in which the tabloid admitted to making a $150,000 payment to McDougal “in concert” with the Trump campaign.

The president has denied allegations of the affairs -- but has had shifting explanations about when he learned about the payments to the women. He has also contended that the deals were private and unrelated to the campaign and that if anything illegal occurred, it was Cohen’s responsibility.

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PHOTO: Michael Cohen sits down for an interview with ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on 'Good Morning America,' Friday, Dec. 14, 2018. (ABC News) More

Trump has lashed out at Cohen since his sentencing, contending in a Thursday tweet that his former close confidant only agreed to plead guilty “in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence, which he did.”

“It is absolutely not true,” Cohen said. “Under no circumstances do I want to embarrass the president. He knows the truth. I know the truth.”

(MORE: Tabloid involved in Trump hush money payment reaches deal with federal prosecutors)

Cohen was particularly distressed by another Trump tweet on Thursday, in which the president implied that prosecutors investigating Cohen had let his wife and father-in-law off the hook.

“Instead of him taking responsibility for his actions, what does he do?” Cohen said. “He attacks my family.”

And Cohen refuted the president’s contention that he never directed Cohen to do anything wrong.

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PHOTO: In this Sept. 19, 2017, file photo, President Donald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen departs following a closed door meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Andrew Harnik/AP, FILE) More

“I don't think there is anybody that believes that,” Cohen told Stephanopoulos. “First of all, nothing at the Trump organization was ever done unless it was run through Mr. Trump. He directed me to make the payments, he directed me to become involved in these matters.

“He knows the truth. I know the truth. Others know the truth,” Cohen continued. “And here is the truth: People of the United States of America, people of the world, don't believe what he is saying. The man doesn't tell the truth. And it is sad that I should take responsibility for his dirty deeds.”

(MORE: Trump denies he 'directed' Michael Cohen to break the law as prosecutors contend)

When confronted about his convictions for lying to Congress and for tax evasion and banking crimes, Cohen said he was “done with the lying. I am done being loyal to President Trump and my first loyalty belongs to my wife, my daughter, my son and this country.”

“Why should we believe you now?” Stephanopoulos asked.

“Because the special counsel stated emphatically that the information that I gave to them is credible and helpful,” Cohen replied.

“There’s a substantial amount of information that they possessed that corroborates the fact that I am telling the truth.”

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PHOTO: President Donald Trump answers questions from the press while departing the White House, Nov. 29, 2018 in Washington. (Win McNamee/Getty Images) More

Cohen -- who is due to report to prison on March 6 -- has professed his willingness to continue to answer questions for special counsel Robert Mueller and other federal and state investigators.

He declined in the interview to answer specific questions about the Mueller investigation “out of respect for process.”

“I don’t want to jeopardize any of their investigations,” he said.

(MORE: Federal judge orders Stormy Daniels to pay Trump nearly $300K in legal fees)

But when asked if he thinks the president is telling the truth about the Russia probe, Cohen replied simply, “No.”

Cohen once said he would “take a bullet” for the president, but now he finds himself opposing the president and facing the prospect of becoming a witness against him.

“It’s never good to be on the wrong side of the president of the United States of America, but somehow or another this task has now fallen onto my shoulders and as I also stated ... I will spend the rest of my life in order to fix the mistake that I made.”

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PHOTO: Michael Cohen, center, President Donald Trump's former lawyer, accompanied by his children Samantha, left, and Jake, right, arrives at federal court for his sentencing in New York, Dec. 12, 2018. (Craig Ruttle/AP) More

Cohen said as he observes Trump’s actions in the White House, he barely recognizes the man he served for more than a decade at the Trump organization.

“He’s a very different individual,” Cohen said. “I think the pressure of the job is much more than what he thought it was going to be. It’s not like the Trump organization where he would bark out orders and people would blindly follow what he wanted done. There’s a system here; he doesn’t understand the system and it’s sad because the country has never been more divisive and one of the hopes that I have out of the punishment that I’ve received as well as the cooperation that I have given I will be remembered in history as helping to bring this country back together.

“I will not be the villain of his story,” he said.

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/ex-trump-l...opstories.html

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