Cohen的坦白暗示川普的竞选胜利是非法的。

Michael Cohen pleads guilty to 8 counts

Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s former fixer, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to breaking campaign finance laws and other charges. He made the extraordinary statement that he arranged payments to two women “at the direction of the candidate,” referring to Mr. Trump, to secure their silence about affairs they said they had with Mr. Trump.

Mr. Cohen told a judge in United States District Court in Manhattan that the payments were “for the principal purpose of influencing the election” for president in 2016.

Mr. Cohen also pleaded guilty to multiple counts of tax evasion and bank fraud, bringing to a close a monthslong investigation by Manhattan federal prosecutors who examined his personal business dealings and his role in helping to arrange financial deals with women connected to Mr. Trump.

The plea came shortly before another blow to the president: his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was convicted in his financial fraud trial in Virginia. The special counsel had built a case that Mr. Manafort hid millions of dollars in foreign accounts to evade taxes and lied to banks to obtain $20 million in loans.

 

In Manhattan, Mr. Cohen made the admission about President Trump’s role in the payments to an adult film actress and a former Playboy playmate as he pleaded guilty to two campaign finance crimes.

[Read more about the verdict in the Paul Manafort fraud trial]

One of those charges stemmed from a $130,000 payment he made to the adult film actress, Stephanie Clifford, who is better known as Stormy Daniels, in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. The other concerned a complicated arrangement in which a tabloid bought the rights to the story about the former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, then killed it

The guilty plea and Mr. Cohen’s statements in court represent a pivotal moment in the investigation into the president: a once-loyal aide admitting that he made payments at the behest of the president to shield him from politically damaging disclosures.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers have, for months, said privately that they considered Mr. Cohen’s case to be potentially more problematic for the president than the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.