Michael Cohen committed a LOT of crimes, according to the Southern District of New York. Many. Some of those crimes were designed, according to SDNY, to help "Individual-1" aka Donald J. Trump, and some of those were committed WITH Individual-1, aka Donald J. Trump.
There was all the Russian contacts, and then there was Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, and the effort to cover up Trump's affairs with them in order to influence the 2016 election, a crime which was coordinated with and approved by Donald Trump himself.
In one passage, prosecutors make this abundantly clear. "While many Americans who desired a particular outcome to the election knocked on doors, toiled at phone banks, or found any number of other legal ways to make their voices heard, Cohen sought to influence the election from the shadows," they wrote.
They went on to say Cohen "did so by orchestrating secret and illegal payments to silence two women who otherwise would have made public their alleged extramarital affairs with Individual-1," who we know to be Donald Trump.
They go on to allege that Cohen did what he did, in concert with Trump, to influence the outcome of the 2016 election and in the process, they're arguing that Michael Cohen and Donald Trump did real harm to the democratic process through their deception.
This is the heart of why SDNY is not looking to be very lenient toward Michael Cohen.
"The motive for Cohen's criminal conduct as MJ said in the campaign contributions case and here in the false statement case, is to help Donald Trump get and stay elected President of the United States," Jeffrey Toobin observed on CNN.
"These crimes are about helping Donald Trump in his political career. That's very significant."
"Especially when the crimes...the illegal campaign contributions, at least according to Cohen, were committed with Donald Trump," Toobin emphasized. "In no uncertain terms, the prosecutors in the Southern District say that Cohen committed those crimes with Donald Trump."
Toobin went on to observe that it's a "pretty extraordinary thing to say."
"Today, the United States Department of Justice, through this filing, said the President of the United States committed crimes," he added.
CRIMES. And not just Cohen. Cohen and Trump, in concert with one another, committed CRIMES.
Read the whole document:
