Tag: Trump an unindicted co-conspirator

FBI warrants show Trump’s close involvement in hush money effort

Washington (CNN) — Federal search warrants released Thursday detail how Donald Trump and his allies scrambled in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign to arrange a hush-money deal to hide his alleged affair and contain the fallout from related stories in the press.

The internal chaos consumed Trump, then-attorney Michael Cohen, campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks and even reached campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, according to the documents unsealed by a federal court in New York.
The documents are the first time that the US authorities have identified Trump by name and allege his involvement at key steps in the campaign finance scheme. Authorities had previously referred to Trump in court filings as “Individual 1,” the person who directed Cohen to make the payments. Trump has publicly denied making the payments. Cohen pleaded guilty to two campaign finance crimes, among others, and is serving a three year prison sentence.

View the complete July 18 article by Kara Scannell and Marshall Cohen on the CNN website here.

Schiff: Court Papers Show Trump Could Have Been Charged

New evidence emerged Thursday related to the campaign finance crime that helped put former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen in prison. A judge unsealed court documents in the case, indicating that the investigation has concluded and revealing extensive communications between Cohen, then-candidate Donald Trump, and campaign spokesperson Hope Hicks.

According to House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, the new materials show that were Trump not the president, “he would be criminally charged as Cohen’s co-conspirator.”

“The documents unsealed in the SDNY case against Michael Cohen demonstrate that Donald Trump was intimately involved in devising and executing a corrupt scheme to prevent his affair with Stormy Daniels from being revealed in the final weeks of the 2016 election,” Schiff said. “They show that contrary to his public statements for months afterwards seeking to distance himself from the payments that were made to Daniels, and another woman, Karen McDougal, he authorized the illegal payment of hush money, and coordinated doing so with his attorney, Cohen, and his Press Secretary, Hope Hicks.”

View the complete July 18 article by Cody Fenwick from AlterNet on the National memo website here.