President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to several charges on Tuesday, including a crime related to the 2016 election. He also claimed that “an unnamed candidate” knew about and involved himself in Cohen’s crime.
On the same day, Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was found guilty of tax fraud, bank fraud and failure to disclose a foreign bank account.
History of the Case
This comes 17 months into Trump’s presidency. It’s also 10 months after Stormy Daniels revealed her non-disclosure agreement concerning her affair with Trump.
The pornography actress claimed that Cohen paid her $130,000 to stay quiet about the affair. Knowledge of the affair would have hurt Trump’s chances of winning the election. The crime in question, however, was whether Trump and/or Cohen used campaign funds to pay Daniels and why Trump didn’t report the payment on his taxes.
Cohen’s plea is different from Manafort’s conviction in that it is the first conviction to specifically deal with the election.
