now federal prosecutors want michael cohen to face substantial jail time, as much as four years for tax fraud and campaign finance crimes, some of which they say cohen committed at the direction of trump himself. robert mueller says cohen not only lied about contacts with russia but one russian national offered cohen political synergy between the kremlin and crumb campaign. cohen pled guilty to 8 federal crimes this summer, charged with one count of lying to congress by mueller s office is scheduled to be sentenced next week. as the white house tries to down play the developments, president trump is hoping to dominate headlines in a different way by announcing some staff changes. here to discuss, brian robinson, strategist and former spokesperson for nathan deal, and a scott bolden from the washington democratic party. welcome back. good morning. let me start with the
president well before our own department of justice did, so while we look at what happened during the campaign, i think we also have to think about what impact it may have had on on-going russian policy when president trump got to the white house because again he knew that russia and vladimir putin was well aware of the lies which are a leverage point and bribery point well before our own government did. shan, the government supporters will say this didn t go anywhere because michael cohen didn t follow-up and there was no actual meeting with this person or someone else about the moscow project, building a tower there. the filing says that cohen didn t follow up on the meeting not because he thought it was wrong or called the fbi, he thought he already had an in somewhere else in the russian government and he was good. i think sam s point is very well taken. this is a huge national security problem, a huge vulnerability. the key there is exactly what
up in a federal court with a jury because he can argue that he had to protect his own personal character, his own reputation, and his own marriage in this particular case. it is not just about the campaign. these were not campaign funds. scott, before you respond to that, let me get an answer to the question. did these documents totally clear the president? me or brian? that was to brian. i want brian to answer that, and i ll let you respond to him. all right. i don t think this clears the president. i think it shows that michael cohen has been charged with a lot of things that don t necessarily touch the president in any way, but also where the president is accurate is that nothing directly attaches to him breaking a law in a very clear way. the russian collusion thing, there s no russian collusion proven by what we now know.
over $30 million, no collusion. this is the key phrase from cohen s sentencing memo released by prosecutors. let this sink in. cohen s commission of two finance crimes on the eve of the 2016 election for the president of the united states struck a blow to one of the core goals of the federal campaign finance laws, transparency. we are digging into the new findings. jeremy, take us through the memos. that s right, victor. this is one of the most reviewing looks we ve had to date in what mueller s investigation has. what s most significant is that federal prosecutors have for the first time publicly implicated, directly implicated the president when he directed cohen to commit crimes during the campaign of offering women not to tell their stories about the alleged affair.
we also learned about new contacts that mr. cohen had with russians in the early stages of the campaign, including one russian that claimed ties to moscow and said that he would offer political synergy to the trump campaign. those conversations were taking place as part of mr. cohen s work on the trump tower moscow project in 2015 and into 2016. what the mueller filing did is connected that business work to the question of russian election meddling, saying trump had substantial business interest to gain from the trump tower project and that discussions about it were going on at the same time that russia was actively meddling in the campaign. mr. cohen was the prosecutor said he should receive substantial sentence after his attorneys asked for no jail time. he is charged with crimes including tax fraud, campaign finance violations that are tied to the payments to women and lying to congress about the trump tower moscow project.