Russian To Judgment, Con't

As long expected, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen has cut a deal with federal prosecutors.

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former longtime personal attorney, has tentatively reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, ABC News has learned.

Given Cohen’s proximity to Trump during the past decade, including throughout his meteoric rise from mogul and reality television star to the White House, observers consider him one of most potent legal thorns to confront Trump’s presidency since he took office.

“The guy who knows where all the bodies are buried,” said Seth Hettena, an author and veteran journalist who has chronicled Trump’s business career.

The investigation into Cohen was referred to New York’s Southern District by special counsel Robert Mueller, and if Cohen agrees to cooperate, the information he provides could benefit the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. But it remains unclear if he has committed to cooperate.

Cohen’s relationship with Trump dates to the mid-2000’s after Cohen, who owned condominiums in multiple Trump buildings in New York, took Trump’s side in a legal dispute with the condo board at Trump World Tower on Manhattan’s East Side. Cohen eventually went to work for the Trump Organization, where he held the positions of executive vice president and special counsel to Donald J. Trump.

The deal itself, according to ABC News, involves Cohen pleading guilty and receiving jail time (four years is what I'm hearing) on bank fraud, tax evasion, and campaign finance violations.  It's that last part, the two campaign finance law counts, that involve Donald Trump.  Cohen has a hearing this afternoon to finalize the deal, and the NY Times is backing up ABC's story.

Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, on Tuesday reached a plea agreement with prosecutors investigating payments he made to women for Mr. Trump but the deal does not include cooperation, two people familiar with the matter said.

Prosecutors in New York had been scrutinizing Mr. Cohen for bank and tax fraud, as well as for his role in helping to arrange financial deals to secure the silence of women who said they had affairs with Mr. Trump.

The United States attorney’s office announced that there would be a “proceeding of interest” in a case against a defendant identified only as John Doe, language that almost always indicates a guilty plea. One person with knowledge of the matter said the proceeding would be the guilty plea by Mr. Cohen.

Even though Mr. Cohen is not cooperating with prosecutors, his decision to plead guilty is a political blow to Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen had been the president’s longtime fixer, handling his most sensitive business and personal matters. He once said he would take a bullet for Mr. Trump.

The investigation of Mr. Cohen has focused in part on his role helping to arrange financial deals to secure the silence of women who said they had affairs with Mr. Trump, including Stephanie Clifford, an adult film actress better known as Stormy Daniels. Federal authorities have also been investigating whether Mr. Cohen committed bank and tax fraud.

The charges against Mr. Cohen were not a surprise, but he had signaled recently he might be willing to cooperate with investigators who for months have been conducting an extensive investigation of his business dealings. That bid to negotiate a plea deal under which he would exchange information in return for a lesser sentence appears to have broken down.

As I said yesterday:

The fact that Cohen has basically been off the radar over the month of August makes me think "the matter" is "being finalized" as we speak.  The article makes it clear there's two scenarios: Cohen gets charged before Labor Day, or he cooperates (and the Mueller team has bonus "we can't comment on this" plausible deniability due to the Justice Department guidelines on political cases before an election.)

We'll see which one Cohen chooses.  It's possible at this point in the game, he doesn't have anything novel to offer Mueller, and he gets crushed before the month is out, too.

My gut says he cooperates.

Seems Cohen isn't cooperating after all, but he still may decide that he will.  Still, the hammer fell, and the "John Doe" indication means that there's still more people to be possibly charged down the road.

We'll see.