Sources from New York stated that US President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty in New York on Tuesday to campaign finance violations and other charges, saying he made payments to influence the 2016 election at the direction of a candidate for federal office. Meanwhile the guilty pleas came in the same hour that a federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia, convicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort of eight charges of tax and bank fraud and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts.
Accordingly Cohen, 51, appearing in federal court in Manhattan, pleaded guilty to one count of willfully causing an unlawful corporate campaign contribution and one count of making an excessive campaign contribution. Moreover Cohen, one of Trump's closest associates for more than a decade, said he arranged to make payments "for (the) principal purpose of influencing (the) election" at the direction of a candidate for federal office.
Moreover in addition, Cohen recorded a conversation
with Trump two months before the election in which they discussed buying the
rights to a story by former Playboy model Karen Mc Dougal, who said she had an
affair with Trump, lawyer Rudy Giuliani said last month. Hence under U.S.
election law, campaign contributions, defined as things of value given to a
campaign in order to influence an election, must be disclosed.
