and he started to make the plea. dan goldman, is that a fair assumption? yes, that is right. and judge pauley made a point to emphasize that. and michael cohen did not address his own fraud charges tax evasion, an bad bank fraud statements, but he called it a personal incarceration while he was working for trump, and he said that today is his date of freedom from his own personal and mental incarceration. but to another point, with the message that judge pauley was saying, judge pauley made a point of saying that michael cohen committed the campaign finance fraud in coordination with and at the direction of individual one which is not relevant to michael cohen s sentencing other than he was are recognized that he was direct ed to do it. but it seemed to be a slight dig at president trump for, an
sentenced to 36 months? yes. and, tom is apparently having trouble hearing us, so we will go back to danny cevallos, and danny, very quickly, we have a few seconds and then we are going to be getting to tom. what is the mood out there at the courthouse? there is definitely a buzz and you can tell that something is about to happen, because people have started to take notice, and so whether or not some of the parties, the government attorneys or someone may be exiting the courthouse. he was seen breaking down several times speaking to judge pauley speaking about the family. he said that today is the first day of his are freedom, afreedo been incarcerated since the
again, and as to the fine, he levied a fine of $50,000 on each case and is a total of $100,000, and he emphasized that the guideline range for lying to congress does not adequately represent the harm of doing so. judge pauley was trying to send a message to other people that if you lie to congress, there is going to be consequences. danny cevallos, as a former defense lawyer, you have followed these kinds of cases. the other piece of this is that in his admissions before, he indicated they had circulated his lies before to the people in the white house. we don t even know whom, and how close this got to the president or others around him. and so with what about that? michael cohen i think that the question is how close this got to the president, and is that right? exactly. exactly. yeah. so we saw in the filings that
take away from what the judge said following up on what mimi rocah just said. yes, mimi is absolutely right. i think that judge pauley made a point of not only emphasizing the campaign finance and false statements to congress which do rel relate to the president, but was also particularly moved by michael cohen s commission of the crime for his own personal b benefit. referencing the fact that he had committed the tax fraud and the bank fraud. michael cohen spoke for a while in court and longer than most defendants do. and he emphasized the fact that he committed many of these crimes from what he called blind loyalty to the president. in the end, the judge, judge pauley recognized that only two of the groups of crimes really did relate to the president, and he sentenced him quite harshly in large part he found that cohen s criminal activity
implication that judge pauley believes that president trump, individual one, did direct michael cohen to commit that campaign finance fraud. so we are unpacking a lot of what happen ed in the courthous, andrea, and it was over an hour-long hearing, but it certa certainly, president trump s presence, although he was not there was very much felt. and to ken delainian, again, the whole effort by the president to distance himself from everybody around him, manafort, flynn, cohen, and these people were closely connected to him both politically and legally. how sustainable is that effort going forward from what you can tell from the tea leaves of where the special prosecutor is going? well, is it is not sustainable in the sense that they all appear to be except for in the case of manafort providing the special counsel with damaging evidence on donald trump.