and if that s not enough, cnn also broke this story today. you may remember that up of the cute little nicknames sdny has for president trump is, quote, individual 1. when the president s first personal lawyer michael cohen was sent to federal prison, that was in part for campaign finance felonies that federal prosecutors said had been committed not only to benefit president trump s re-election campaign, but those felonies had been directed by president trump. according to federal prosecutors in the cohen case, it was president trump who directed the commission of the felonies for which cohen was convicted. cohen is one of the people who carried out that criminal scheme after being told to do so by the president. that s why he went to jail. the president, himself, was not criminally charged. presumably because under justice department policy, a president can t be criminally charged. but that case is still alive. whether or not it s still alive is a matter of federal prosecutiproces pro
weird posthumous pardon to jack johnson and then pardoned scooter libby. he definitely made public overtures that seemed to send the signal that, hey, he liked giving pardons and he was amenable to granting pardons, even not in the ordinary course. so i don t think it s that odd. gloria, when cohen was reassured by his attorney that everything was, quote, very, very positive, you are loved, saying, sleep well tonight, you have friends in high places, what do you make of the fact that cohen ultimately decided to cooperate with prosecutors anyway? well, the joint defense agreement was dissolved in june of 2018 and i recall very distinctly that by july 2nd, michael cohen had declared his independence and he told abc news, if you ll recall, that he s not going to be villain in this case. and, you know, moved away. i think the real question here is whether this was just about dangling a pardon, which cohen s
pardon? and that s the big question. let me ask our legal analysts how they interpret it. jennifer, friends in high places? does this sound like a pardon dangle to you or just somebody trying to keep the relationship strong or even repairing a relationship that may not be as strong? well, you know, it s hard to tell, obviously, it s very vague. but here is a time when the feds have gone in and seized, pursuant to court order, a bunch of materials. a lot of that communications between trump and cohen and cohen s work for trump. so they re kind of all in this universe of what s out there, what do they have? what are we facing now? let s kind of stick together. you know, remember, there was a joint defense agreement around this time period when the federal officials were going through all of the seized materials and trying to determine what was privileged, what could they look at, what could they use in a potential prosecution? so the notion of communication between the two of them, a
fixer. cnn s gloria borger has the exclusive reporting here. also back with us are caroline polisi and jennifer rogers. gloria, tell us more about these e-mails. we have obtained two e-mails that have been given to congressional committees and they contain communications that were done in april of 2018. and remember, that is after michael cohen s office was raided by the feds. and they re between michael cohen and an attorney named bob costello, who has a long-standing close relationship with rudy giuliani. they focus mainly on cohen s relationship with the white house at that particular time, which costello described in these e-mails, in glowing terms. he said, it was very, very positive. you are loved. and it ends, this e-mail ends, sleep well tonight, you have friends in high places. so, the interpretation, however,
last dual sovereignty doctrine, which states basically that a state can, it s its prerogative, prosecute for the same underlying conduct if there s a different state crime, but in new york, it has heightened double jeopardy laws which give you more protection than the constitution does. and there was some rumblings, i don t know if you remember a while back, congress was trying to amend those laws for this very instance so they could continue to prosecute under that lower standard. it never went through, but it looks like this conduct is wholly separate and apart from a lot of the conduct that was charged in the previous case. it so looks like they re very much well aware of the double jeopardy issue. ladies, stick around. there s more to discuss today. it is a big news day with a lot of legal discussion. breaking moments ago, cnn obtaining new e-mails revealing a back channel between trump s lawyer and michael cohen. an attorney telling cohen he could, quote, sleep well after spea