Prosecutors recommend "substantial" prison sentence for Michael Cohen

By Shannon Vara & Zachary Basu @ Axios.com, 2 hrs. ago

Prosecutors from New York’s Southern District are recommending a "substantial term of imprisonment" for President Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, for campaign finance and tax violations, as well as lying to Congress, despite his cooperation with the investigation.

The two big revelations from that memo and a separate sentencing filing released Friday by special counsel Robert Mueller and his team:

• Mueller's team disclosed that a Russian national reached out to Cohen in November 2015 and claimed they could offer the Trump campaign "synergy on a government level."
• The federal prosecutors revealed that Cohen paid off two women "in coordination with and at the direction of" then-candidate Donald Trump — described as "Individual 1" — to hide his extramarital affairs.

Mueller and his team are not taking a position on what amount of prison time Cohen should serve, but said "any sentence of incarceration" the court in New York recommends would be "appropriate."

Southern District of New York

Federal prosecutors noted that Cohen committed four "separate and serious" crimes over several years — "willful tax evasion, making false statements to a financial institution, illegal campaign contributions, and making false statements to Congress" — and recommended he serve 42 months in prison.

• Between 2012 and 2016, "Cohen evaded taxes by failing to report more than $4 million in income" to the IRS.
• In December 2015, Cohen applied for a home equity line and "made false statements about his net worth and monthly expenses" — the latest in a series of lies he told in credit applications.
• During the 2016 presidential campaign, Cohen paid off two women "in coordination with and at the direction of" then-candidate Donald Trump to suppress stories about affairs and prevent them from influencing the election.
• Cohen also made false statements to Congress, which have been outlined in his guilty plea in the Mueller investigation.

Mueller investigation

Mueller's filing notes that Cohen [....]

Washington Post evening analysis @ The Fix

5 big takeaways from the new Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort filings by Aaron Blake

In all three court filings that landed Friday night, the plot thickened for President Trump just a little bit.

here is Blake's summary of the 5 from his tweeted link to his story:

1) Cohen overstated his cooperation

2) "Individual 1" is back

3) Trump is implicated in crimes

4) Another Russia gov't contact

5) Mueller is pretty obviously interested in Trump's business w/ Russia

Analysis: The government implicates Trump and the Trump campaign in federal campaign finance violations by Philiip Bump

Late Friday, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York filed a document arguing that Michael Cohen, until last year President Trump’s personal attorney, should receive a substantial prison sentence for violations of federal law to which Cohen admitted guilt in August.

The document went further than simply articulating the punishment the government believes Cohen should receive. It also fleshed out two of those charges in particular, related to violations of campaign finance laws in 2016. For the first time, government prosecutors themselves directly implicated Trump in those violations — and added new alleged evidence to bolster Cohen’s culpability....

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(Edit to add more info. on Blake's story)

Lawfare just published their analysis:

For big picture, worth revisiting our news thread on Putin's Treasonous Poodle episode from July, just for a scroll through.

here we go, next head of House Judiciary sez on CNN:

the rest, measured:

2 new stories @ NYTimes this evening, headlined at the top of home page:

Done With Cohen, Federal Prosecutors Shift Focus to Trump Family Business

By Ben Protess, William K. Rashbaum & Maggie Haberman, 3h ago

• Prosecutors say President Trump organized illegal payments to two women during the presidential campaign.
• Now they want to know if he and Michael D. Cohen, his former lawyer, acted alone.

Michael Cohen Wanted to Cooperate in His Own Way. Prosecutors Had Other Ideas

By Benjamin Weiser, 30 min. ago