Life under a legal microscope

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Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN
Updated 8:28 AM ET, Sat December 15, 2018

... His business -- the Trump Organization -- and his defunct charity -- The Trump Foundation are also under investigation (the charity investigation is a civil one). His college -- Trump University -- has already been deemed a fraud.

The President himself has been indirectly fingered by New York prosecutors overseen by his own Justice Department of directing criminal attempts to subvert campaign finance laws.

... a civil lawsuit .. claims that .. he is using his position to profit from deals in his hotel chain that contravene the Constitution ...

His former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is in jail. His former attorney and "fixer" Michael Cohen is headed behind bars next year. His deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates is now a confessed felon. George Papadopoulos, a former member of his foreign policy advisory board, just got out of jail after flipping. His former national security adviser Michael Flynn may only avoid prison after turning on his former boss ...

... even if all the investigations stopped now and he was cleared of all wrongdoing, Trump would still be remembered for presiding over one of the most scandal-ridden presidencies of modern history ...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/15/politics/donald-trump-robert-mueller-investigations-russia/index.html

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1. Legal woes worsen

BY JORDAN FABIAN AND MORGAN CHALFANT - 12/15/18 06:00 AM EST

... the sentencing of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen and revelation that the parent company of the National Enquirer has turned state’s evidence establish clear links between the president and illegal actions his former allies say he directed ...

“It’s just another domino falling,” said Elie Honig, former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. “If he wasn’t president, he’d be expecting an indictment any day.”

While the payments to Daniels and McDougal appear to pose the most danger to Trump, new prongs of the investigation begun by special counsel Robert Mueller are sprouting up and moving closer to the besieged president.

Federal investigators are said to be probing the Trump Organization’s role in the payments, and they could acquire a valuable witness in Allen Weisselberg, its chief financial officer. He has worked for Trump for decades and was deeply involved in the president’s business practices ...

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/421491-trumps-legal-woes-worsen

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2. Is the net closing in?

Tom McCarthy in New York
Sat 15 Dec 2018 05.00 EST

... Also present for the Cohen hearing was a member of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, the prosecutor Jeannie Rhee, who described how much help Cohen had been to the investigation into alleged collusion between the campaign and Moscow.

“He has provided our office with credible information” about “core Russia issues”, Rhee told the court. “Mr Cohen has sought to tell us the truth, and that is of utmost value to us.

“There’s only so much that we can say about the particulars at this time” ...

Lisa Griffin, a law professor at Duke University, said ... “I think the recent developments have revealed clearly that this is not a one-front situation, that the southern district of New York is going to play a very significant role in the future of this presidency” ...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/15/trump-turbulent-week-cohen-crisies

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3. Dirty deeds a presidential problem?

Updated / Saturday, 15 Dec 2018 11:13
By Brian O'Donovan
Washington Correspondent

... At his sentencing hearing, Cohen pleaded for leniency and said Donald Trump had caused him to "follow a path of darkness rather than light".

He claimed his "weakness was a blind loyalty to Donald Trump" and that he felt it was his duty to cover up Mr Trump’s "dirty deeds".

In a follow-up interview with ABC News, Cohen said Mr Trump had instructed him to make hush money payments, adding that the then Republican candidate for the US presidency knew it was wrong and that it was done to help his campaign.

This is potentially a big problem for President Trump ...

https://www.rte.ie/news/us/2018/1215/1017279-trump-cohen/