LEGAL/MICHAEL COHEN/ROBERT MUELLER/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/WOMEN: “Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court Tuesday [8-21-18] to eight criminal counts, admitting that ‘in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office’ he acted to keep information that would have been harmful to the candidate and the campaign from becoming public during the 2016 election cycle. The charges against Cohen, an attorney for Trump until earlier this year and a member of his inner circle throughout his presidential campaign, bring an end to a months-long investigation by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. And they expose, through the criminal information filed against Cohen in court, that he acted with Trump and his allies, including David Pecker, the CEO of the National Enquirer’s publisher, American Media Inc., to suppress potentially damaging claims against the now-President. Though Trump himself isn’t named, the court filing refers to an Individual-1, who by January 2017 had become president of the United States. The counts against Cohen included tax fraud, false statements to a bank and campaign finance violations tied to his work for Trump, including payments Cohen made or helped orchestrate that were designed to silence women who claimed affairs with the then-candidate.”
–Erica Orden, Mark Morales, Kara Scannell, Shimon Prokupecz and Laura Jarrett, “Michael Cohen pleads guilty, implicates Trump,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, August 21, 2018 8:16 pm