Trump ‘knew’ payments were wrong: Cohen

US President Donald Trump knew he was doing wrong when he directed hush money to be paid to two women during the 2016 election, his former lawyer and fixer has said.
“He directed me to make the payments. He directed me to become involved in these matters,” Michael Cohen, who was sentenced to three years in prison this week over crimes committed while working for Trump, told ABC News in an interview aired yesterday.
Trump acted because he “was very concerned about how this would affect the election”, Cohen said in an extensive interview on Good Morning America.
Asked whether Trump understood at the time that the payment was wrong, Cohen replied: “Of course.”
That understanding is significant because the campaign finance violations Cohen was convicted of require an understanding on the part of the alleged perpetrator that the act is criminal.
Trump appears to face legal jeopardy if he knowingly directed Cohen to break the law, as Cohen asserts, by arranging for payments to be made in October 2016 to the porn actor Stormy Daniels and the former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who have alleged affairs with the president.
Trump denies the allegations.
Trump claimed on Thursday that he never directed Cohen to break the law, in contradiction of an assertion in court by federal prosecutors last week.
Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani downplayed the campaign finance violations, which are federal felonies, telling the Daily Beast: “Nobody got killed, nobody got robbed … this was not a big crime.”
Cohen sat with ABC News shortly after his sentencing on Wednesday, at which a judge ordered him to report to prison by March 6.
Cohen said that he was “angry at himself” for his role in the deals, but that he did it out of “blind loyalty” to Trump.
“I gave loyalty to someone who, truthfully, does not deserve loyalty,” he said.
Trump and Cohen once backed each other up, but in recent months they have turned on each other.
Trump has blasted his former lawyer as “weak” and described him as someone who only did “low-level” work for his organisation.
The US president has denied directing his former lawyer and fixer to break the law, tweeting on Thursday: “I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law.”
He claimed in an interview with Fox News that he “did nothing wrong” and said that prosecutors had cooked up the charges to embarrass him.
“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.”
In response to Trump’s claim that he never directed Cohen to do anything wrong, he said: “I don’t think there is anybody that believes that.
“First of all, nothing at the Trump organisation 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.”
Cohen, 52, admitted in August that on the eve of the 2016 presidential election he made a $130,000 payment to porn actor Daniels and arranged for a $150,000 payment to former Playboy model McDougal.
He pleaded guilty to eight federal crimes, and later pleaded guilty to an additional count of lying to Congress.
Cohen is co-operating with authorities, and the special counsel Robert Mueller’s office has said he provided valuable information for their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and the possibility of collusion with members of Trump’s campaign.
Prosecutors in the Cohen case have said the payments are violations of campaign finance laws and were attempts to influence the 2016 election “from the shadows”.
Trump described the payments as “a simple private transaction” and not a campaign contribution.
Asked if he believed Trump was telling the truth about Russia’s meddling in the US election, Cohen said “no” – but declined to comment further.
“That sort of gets into the whole investigation right now between (the) special counsel’s office, the attorney general’s office, you also have the Southern District of New York – I don’t want to jeopardise any of their investigations,” he said.
There was no immediate response from Trump to the Cohen interview, but a White House spokesman dismissed Cohen’s comments as those of a “self-admitted liar”.
“And for him to say, ‘I’m going to ... stop lying starting now,’ is somewhat silly,” Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley told reporters.
In a separate development, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported that federal prosecutors have opened another line of election-related inquiry, investigating whether foreigners illegally funnelled donations to Trump’s inaugural committee and a pro-Trump super PAC (political action committee).
The Times cited people familiar with the inquiry as saying it focused on whether people from Middle East used straw donors to make donations in hopes of buying influence over US policy.
Federal prosecutors are also investigating whether Trump’s inaugural committee misspent some of the $107mn it raised from donors, the Wall Street Journal and the Times reported on Thursday.
On another front, a New York state judge last month rejected Trump’s request to dismiss a lawsuit in which New York’s attorney general accused him of misusing his namesake foundation to advance his 2016 campaign and his businesses.
As Trump’s problems have grown, some members of Congress and legal experts have raised questions about whether a sitting president can be indicted.
More investigations are expected after Democrats take over the US House of Representatives next month, and some top members of the party have said Trump could face impeachment and prison.