Surprise Second Michael Cohen Guilty Plea in NY Federal Court Rocks Trumpworld
Is this why Donald Trump had a freakout moment at last night’s White House Christmas Tree lighting? Advance word might well have that effect on a brain-addled, easily-triggered, evidently corrupt-to-the-core tyrant-wannabe.
Journos were tipped off mid-morning to something coming down at 60 Court Street (the federal court building) in New York City.
?Journalists have abruptly been alerted to a hearing in a “USA v. John Doe” case at the federal court in Manhattan at 9am this morning.
— Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) November 29, 2018
Less than a half hour later, several news organizations reported that Michael Cohen has pleaded guilty to a single charge of lying to Senate Select Committee concerning his involvement in the “Trump Tower Moscow” deal.
WaPo reports:
Michael Cohen, a former personal attorney to President Trump, pleaded guilty Thursday to lying to Congress about a Moscow real estate project Trump pursued during the months he was running for president, according to the Associated Press.
During the campaign, Cohen acted as Trump’s point person in an attempt to built a Trump-branded development in Moscow. He has said the project was in its early stages in the fall of 2015, as Trump’s presidential campaign heated up.
But he has said the project stalled in January 2016 prompting him to email a top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin to ask for help. Cohen previously has said he never received a response and the project was halted in January 2016.
Reporters for NBC News pointed out that the plea deal shows that discussions about the Trump Tower Moscow project continued into 2017.
The plea deal with Mueller’s team appears to be tied to multiple facets of Mueller’s probe, including financial (ahem) irregularities within Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, payments with women who carried on sexual dalliances with the very married real estate mogul turned politician, and conduct by the candidate and campaign tied to the above-cited Moscow real estate deal.
This is the second such plea deal into which Cohen has entered. Cohen’s first such arrangement, revealed in August, included guilty pleas to eight counts of violating federal laws governing tax fraud, banking fraud, and campaign finance violations sg fromt to his work for Trump. Cohen notably stated, in that plea deal, that “in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office,” he covered up information (i.e., extramarital sex with a porn star and a Playboy bunny) that, had it gone public, would have been harmful to Trump and his presidential campaign.
And there is this:
Michael Cohen has told the court he lied to Congress about his contact with “Individual 1” – Donald Trump – about the plans for a Trump property development in Moscow, per @vicbekiempis
— Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) November 29, 2018
Donald John Trump is for all intents and purposes named in the information spelling out the plea deal.
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