2016 ELECTION/LEGAL/MICHAEL COHEN/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/WOMEN: “President Trump said on Thursday [12-13-18] that if there was anything illegal about the hush payments made to two women claiming to have had affairs with him, it was the fault of his former lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, part of a newly improvised attempt to combat the legal exposure the president may now have because of the payments…In a series of Twitter messages sent from the White House residence, Mr. Trump tried again to distance himself from Mr. Cohen, who federal prosecutors say was directed by his boss to make the hush payments to Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels at a time in the 2016 campaign when their claims could have been highly damaging. Mr. Cohen was sentenced on Wednesday [12-12-18] to three years in prison. That sentence had been decreased to reflect the information he shared with federal prosecutors, including details that implicated Mr. Trump in campaign finance violations for having authorized the payments. Mr. Cohen had faced a much lengthier sentence for his crimes of tax evasion, bank fraud, campaign finance violations and lying to Congress.”
–Maggie Haberman and Michael S. Schmidt, “Trump Improvises New Defense in Hush Money Payments,” The New York Times online, December 13, 2018