LEGAL/MICHAEL COHEN/ROBERT MUELLER/RUSSIA INVESTIGATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “After 19 tumultuous months in office, President Trump is being squeezed by legal assaults on two fronts, each of which could imperil his White House tenure. How those cases intersect is at the heart of the high-stakes legal threat, and the answer may rely on one man — Michael Cohen, who was Trump’s longtime personal lawyer and confidante in New York. A day after Cohen pleaded guilty to eight federal charges and directly implicated Trump in campaign finance law violations, his lawyer raised the stakes Wednesday [8-22-18] by hinting that Cohen will talk with prosecutors about Trump’s knowledge of Russian hacking of Democratic party computers during the 2016 campaign…Last month, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III indicted 12 officers in the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service, who are accused of orchestrating the theft and subsequent release of thousands of private emails from the Democratic National Committee and senior members of Hillary Clinton’s campaign. It’s not clear how much Cohen can or will help Mueller’s investigation into the Kremlin-backed effort to interfere in the election and whether Trump or his aides conspired with the Russians.”
–Chris Megerian and David Willman, “Trump now facing legal assault on two fronts as prosecutors in New York and Washington take aim,” The Los Angeles Times, August 22, 2018 10:25 am