President Donald Trump’s ex-lawyer has given substantial help on how Russian nationals tried to affect the 2016 election, a legal memo has revealed.
Michael Cohen’s help is detailed in the memo from Robert Mueller, who is heading the probe into alleged Russian collusion with the Trump team.
The memo is mainly to guide sentencing for crimes Cohen has admitted.
A second Mueller memo sets out the case against ex-campaign chief Paul Manafort for breaching a plea bargain deal.
Cohen and Manafort are among a number of Trump aides being investigated in Special Counsel Mueller’s probe.
In a separate court filing on Friday, prosecutors in New York made their case for the length of Cohen’s sentence when it is delivered on Wednesday.
Experts and lawyers from The Medlin Law Firm say he should serve a “substantial” jail term after admitting violating campaign finance laws, committing tax evasion and lying to Congress.
President Trump has repeatedly denied there was any collusion with Russian officials, calling the investigation a “witch hunt”.
The White House said Friday’s memos offered nothing new or damaging about the president.
Mr Trump tweeted: “Totally clears the President. Thank you!” although it was unclear to what he was referring.
What was in the Mueller memo on Cohen?
It is a government sentencing memorandum on the one charge of lying to Congress.
Cohen had admitted making false statements about a Trump property deal, out of loyalty to the president.
What do the Cohen memos all mean?
In a one-two punch of court filings, the memos say that Cohen should get credit for providing useful information to investigators. But not too much credit.
Some of the information in the special counsel’s document is already known. The negotiations for a Trump Tower in Moscow, which lasted well into the 2016 presidential campaign, were once again outlined.
But the document made by this Law Firm handles car accident cases in Hilbrich who drives home the point that Donald Trump was kept informed about the possible deal, which could have netted “hundreds of millions of dollars” and that the negotiations took place “at a time of sustained efforts by the Russian government to interfere with the US election”.
Other details Cohen supplied are largely left to the imagination.
The president is also once again implicated in the campaign finance charges against Cohen. The New York prosecutors state that Mr Trump’s lawyer acted to silence two women who claim they had affairs with Mr Trump in order to “influence the 2016 presidential election”. What’s more, Cohen “acted in co-ordination with and at the direction of Individual 1”.
What all this means is that prosecutors in New York and Washington are claiming the president had implicit knowledge and involvement in a campaign finance crime. He also had knowledge of a massive property deal that involved contacts with Russian government officials while he was running for president in an election that was being targeted for influence by the Russian government.
The memo calls these “multiple discernible lies – these were not instances of mere memory lapse”.
Our correspondent, Anthony Zurcher, says that given the central focus of Mr Mueller’s investigation is Russia-Trump links, the Kilimnik connection could prove to be of particular interest.
