Prosecutors grant Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg immunity in Cohen probe

“According to the state attorney general of New York”, Unger noted, “that was money laundering”.

The Trump Tower meeting, and the misleading statement he crafted for his son to explain it away, have been key episodes in Mueller’s investigation into possible conspiracy between the campaign and the Kremlin, along with possible obstruction of justice.

When our forefathers wrote the U.S. Constitution, they never intended for a sitting president to use his power in order to involve himself with investigations of political opponents. “But I think it would be a big mistake for the president to fire him now”.

The probe into Cohen was triggered in part by a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller, who separately is looking into possible Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election. “Witch Hunt!” – tweet Wednesday.

Cohen – who arranged hush-money payments shortly before the November 2016 USA presidential election to two women who said they had had sex with Trump in 2006 – on Tuesday pleaded guilty in NY to campaign finance violations and other criminal charges. Meanwhile, his former colleagues made the politically charged demand that Cohen accuse the president of criminal behavior in his own plea documents, illustrating how Cohen is a pawn and Trump is the real target.

Dershowitz said Sunday that “it would be great” to have Democrats in charge on Capitol Hill so that they can conduct investigations into Trump’s actions.

Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for the president, has said the payment to McDougal and a $130,000 payment to adult-film performer Stormy Daniels were a personal matter and were not subject to campaign finance law.

“So the only issue here is whether or not there was a failure to report the contribution”.

Trevor Potter is the president of the Campaign Legal Center and a Republican former chairman of the Federal Election Commission. Flake speculated that the firing of Sessions would be followed by the firing of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and special counsel Robert Mueller.

Derschowitz also repeated the right-wing talking point that speaking to special investigators would find Trump walking into a “perjury trap”.

In the days after Cohen’s guilty plea, two close associates – the magazine boss who helped him squash bad stories and the top financial man at the president’s business – have been granted immunity for their cooperation. “And if he listened to those four things, he’d be in less trouble than he is today”, Dershowitz said.

The US stock market was subdued after Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen and his former campaign manager Paul Manafort were convicted on Tuesday. Cohen was later reimbursed by Trump based on phony invoices for “legal services”.

“For the 2018 Democratic strategy, the Manafort and Cohen convictions represent a fool’s gold opportunity rather than a silver bullet solution”, Hart said, pointing to the upcoming midterm elections in November, according to the WSJ.