{"id":12326,"date":"2018-08-21T23:25:32","date_gmt":"2018-08-21T23:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=12326"},"modified":"2018-08-21T23:25:32","modified_gmt":"2018-08-21T23:25:32","slug":"ex-trump-lawyer-cohen-pleads-guilty-to-charges-over-hush-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=12326","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Trump lawyer Cohen pleads guilty to charges over hush money"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"body-200771816342556199\" readability=\"108\">\n<p class=\"speakable\">Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney of US President Donald Trump, has pleaded guilty to campaign-finance violations and other charges, saying he made payments to influence the 2016 election at the direction of a candidate for federal office.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Cohen, 51, appearing in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday, pleaded guilty to one count of willfully causing an unlawful corporate campaign contribution and one count of making an excessive campaign contribution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">He said he arranged to make payments &#8220;for (the) principal purpose of influencing (the) election&#8221; at the direction of a candidate for federal office but did not give the candidate&#8217;s name.<\/p>\n<p>Cohen, who agreed to a plea bargain with federal prosecutors earlier in the day, also pleaded guilty to five counts of tax fraud and one count of making false statements to a financial institution.<\/p>\n<p>Federal prosecutors in New York began investigating Cohen after a referral from US Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who has been investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible coordination with the Trump campaign.<\/p>\n<h2>Investigating for months<\/h2>\n<p>The FBI raided his hotel room, home and office on April 9, seizing more than 4 million items.<\/p>\n<p>The search of Cohen&#8217;s files sought bank records, communications with the Trump campaign and information on money payments made in 2016 to two women: former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who received $150,000, and the adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who received $130,000.<\/p>\n<p>The New York Times reported earlier this week, based on anonymous sources, that prosecutors have been focusing on more than $20m in loans obtained by taxi businesses that Cohen and his family own.<\/p>\n<p>Cohen had gained notoriety as Trump&#8217;s loyal &#8220;fixer&#8221; before the FBI raid. And Trump branded it &#8220;a witch hunt,&#8221; an assault on attorney-client privilege and a politically motivated attack by enemies within the FBI.<\/p>\n<p>But the president&#8217;s initial support for Cohen has since degenerated into a public feud.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div readability=\"32\">\n<p>\n            SOURCE: <span>Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney of US President Donald Trump, has pleaded guilty to campaign-finance violations and other charges, saying he made payments to influence the 2016 election at the direction of a candidate for federal office.\u00a0 Cohen, 51, appearing in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday, pleaded guilty to one count of willfully&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":12327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}