MICHAEL COHEN/NEW YORK/ROBERT MUELLER/RUSSIA INVESTIGATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Federal prosecutors said for the first time Friday [12-7-18] that Michael Cohen acted at the direction of Donald Trump when the former fixer committed two election-related crimes during the 2016 presidential campaign, as special counsel Robert Mueller outlined a previously undisclosed set of overtures and contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian nationals. Those revelations came in a set of court filings in which federal prosecutors in New York said Cohen should receive a ‘substantial’ prison sentence of roughly four years for tax fraud and campaign-finance crimes, and as Mueller’s office accused the President’s former attorney of lying to them about his contacts with Russia. Mueller’s disclosures also exposed deeper entanglements than previously known between Trump, his campaign apparatus and the Russian government, including that a Russian national who claimed to be well-connected in Moscow spoke with Cohen in 2015 and offered ‘political synergy’ with the Trump campaign.”
–Erica Orden and Marshall Cohen, “Prosecutors: Michael Cohen acted at Trump’s direction when he broke the law,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, December 7, 2018 10:18 am