well, they could very well the southern district of new york could rip up the non-prosecution deal and they could be prosecuted. campaign finance charge against cohen for which he is going to jail for three years is a felony because the donation exceeds $25,000. so they could be on the hook for that. and then know this. here is what happens in criminal cases. they re not very often one and done. like your average bear doesn t commit one felony and never commits a felony again, right. so here is what we have already in this case. we have ami with the campaign finance felony that they re right now not being prosecuted for but they may be prosecuted. we have an allegation of the extortion with bezos. now there is an allegation out there that they did the same thing with ronan farrow and now the daily beast as well. so it is cascading and the problems are getting bigger and bigger every day and when the southern district of new york opens up the investigation, they ll look at everythin
guidelines to begin with are only 0-6 months, plus cooperation that s the kind of rare defendant in the federal system who can get a straight probation sentence because of the sentencing guidelines for a relatively lower level crime and his pure cooperation. when you see how a case is being built against the president for campaign finance violations, you look at michael cohen and what he has done, you look at the ami announcement yesterday, is there an argument to be made from a legal perspective that both of these are building up to a possible campaign finance charge against the president? yes. the first indicator was this summer when michael cohen stood up in court and said, i committed a campaign finance law violation. then last week the federal government for the first time in their papers said that, yes, this is our position, that he committed a campaign finance law violation and it was corrected by individual one, who is the president. now you have ami and the
law professor allen dershowitz this morning. well, jill, it s interesting. let me play a little bit more of what allen dershowitz had to say. because while he backed up donald trump on the campaign finance charge, this is what he said about the other investigation, the one that s taking place in the southern district of new york. take a listen. well, i said that right from the beginning because i think he has constitutional defenses to the investigation being conducted by mueller. but there are no constitutional defenses to what the southern district is investigating, so i think the southern district is the is the greatest threat. look, it would be good for the american public if president trump sat down and said everything he knows, but it wouldn t be good for president trump. wouldn t be good for trump. your thoughts on that, jill-wine banks.
i think this is really going to be something to listen to because the judge is going to say to cohen i want to hear in your own words what crime you committed. in that allocution, how detailed does cohen get as it relates to campaign finance charges? does he say he did it at the direction of anyone? is that person the president? does he say that more vaguely and does the judge accept it? the judge could say i want to know that what you did was a crime and i want to hear in your words every step you took that was an element of that crime. i think that s going to be the wild card. what does cohen say about the campaign finance charge. who told him to do it? did he do it on his own? i think we ll learn a lot from that which may help understand is he going to cooperate in some way. our reporting is this deal is not including that. i think an element of that is also the justice department says you can t indict a sitting president and the u.s. attorney s office follows those guidelines. so
first of all to underline, you said that when michael cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance laws violations, he was referring to stormy daniels and he said he did it, quote, in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office and specifically could only be president trump. that is stunning news. you said something else about a different campaign finance charge before that. can you repeat that? well, one of those also had to do with the payment that was made to karen mcdougall saying that he worked with the media company which we know is american media, the publisher of the national enquirer, to craft this deal and mentioned at the direction and with coordination of the candidate for office who could only be donald trump. so both of those, the karen mcdougall one, he mentioned the media company and they have not been charged with anything and neither has the president. but in both instances the first