Michael Cohen, former longtime personal lawyer for President Trump, has shown up to a New York courthouse where he will be sentenced on Wednesday for a laundry list of crimes – some of which implicate Trump in possible wrongdoing, but most of which have nothing to do with the president.
Michael Cohen has arrived to the Federal Courthouse in Lower Manhattan. Sentencing day for the former personal attorney for @realDonaldTrump Legal experts expect judge to sentence him to 4 years in prison #NBC4NY #BREAKING pic.twitter.com/iRS5ZmIOpV
— Katherine Creag (@katcreag4NY) December 12, 2018
Michael Cohen arrives at court ahead of his sentencing. He has asked for no prison time. pic.twitter.com/UmlDZ6X7SG
— Kirsty Johansen (@KirstyJohansen) December 12, 2018
Michael Cohen is reported to have arrived.
Michael Avenatti is also said to be in attendance.
— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) December 12, 2018
Cohen, who went from claiming he would “take a bullet” for President Trump to stabbing his former boss in the back, faces sentencing on nine federal charges, including campaign finance violations based on a hush-money scheme to pay off two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump, as well as making false statements to special counsel Robert Mueller.
New York prosecutors have recommended that Judge William Pauley impose “a substantial term of imprisonment” on Cohen – which may be around five years. Cohen’s attorneys, meanwhile, have asked Pauley for a sentence which avoids prison time – citing his cooperation with the Mueller probe and other investigations which began prior to his guilty plea last summer. Mueller said that Cohen had “gone to significant lengths to assist the Special Counsel’s investigation,” having met with Mueller’s team seven times where he reportedly provided information useful to the Russia investigation. The special counsel’s office has recommended that any sentence Cohen receives for lying to Congress should run concurrently with the charges brought by the Manhattan federal prosecutors.
President Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen is set to be sentenced today. https://t.co/RNg1hnGqLz
— Circa (@Circa) December 12, 2018
Cohen, 52, pleaded guilty in August to tax evasion, lying to banks and violating campaign finance laws – charges filed by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
The campaign finance charges relate to his facilitation of two hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal shortly before the 2016 presidential election. Both women say they had sex with Trump in the prior decade. The White House has denied Trump had sex with either woman.
Prosecutors say the payments were made “in coordination with and at the direction of” Trump, who is called “Individual-1” in a sentencing recommendation filed last week.
Cohen’s crimes were intended “to influence the election from the shadows,” prosecutors wrote. -CNBC
In November Cohen also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the Trump Organization’s ill-fated plans to develop a Trump Tower in Moscow – a project floated by Cohen and longtime FBI asset who had been in Trump’s orbit for years, Felix Sater. Cohen claims he understated Trump’s knowledge of the project. He also lied to Congress when he said that the Moscow project talks ended in early 2016, when in fact he and the Trump Organization had continued to pursue it as late as June 2016.
On Wednesday, Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti – who is in attendance at Cohen’s sentencing, said in a Wednesday tweet that Cohen “thought we would just go away and he/Trump would get away with it. He thought he was smart and tough. He was neither. Today will prove that in spades.”
Michael Cohen thought he could intimidate a “porn star.” He thought he could humiliate and “out play” us after we filed suit. He thought we would just go away and he/Trump would get away with it. He thought he was smart and tough. He was neither. Today will prove that in spades.
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) December 12, 2018
We wonder how much Avenatti will pick up of the $293,000 in legal fees Stormy Daniels was ordered to pay Trump?
