WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is in denial when it comes to the Russia investigation and other scandals besieging him.
The president insists he’s been fully vindicated by court filings released Friday that lay out the level of cooperation from two of his former top advisers, whom prosecutors have accused of lying to federal investigators or Congress. In fact, Trump’s Justice Department puts him in even greater legal jeopardy by directly implicating him in an illegal scheme involving hush money payments to a porn actress and a former Playboy model.
In comments over the weekend, Trump cites the filings in the cases involving his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and onetime campaign chairman Paul Manafort, as proof that no collusion had been found in the special counsel’s investigation. That’s also not true. That probe into contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election is still ongoing, so the filings do not yet render a judgment on collusion.
The statements capped a week in which Trump also claimed without evidence that Paris protesters were chanting support for him, made questionable assertions about China trade and tariffs and derided U.S. weapons spending as crazy, despite earlier boasts about increasing the military budget.
Meanwhile, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez skimmed over the facts when she suggested the Pentagon has a hidden pot of $21 trillion that could help pay for “Medicare for All.”
A look at the claims and the reality:
COHEN
TRUMP: “Totally clears the President. Thank you!” — tweet Friday.
THE FACTS: The court filings Friday are the first time that federal prosecutors directly connect Trump to a crime.
The violations stemmed from payments Cohen made to buy the silence of porn actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal during the 2016 presidential campaign. Both women alleged they had extramarital affairs with Trump, which the White House denies.
Prosecutors in New York, where Cohen pleaded guilty in August to campaign finance crimes in connection with those payments, said the lawyer “acted in coordination and at the direction” of Trump. Though Cohen had previously implicated Trump in the payments, the Justice Department is now linking Trump to the scheme and backing up Cohen’s allegations.
It’s unclear whether Trump will actually be charged with illegal activity, because Justice Department legal memos from 1973 and 2000 have suggested that a sitting president is immune from indictment and that criminal charges would undermine the commander in chief’s ability to do the job. But it is possible Congress could use prosecutors’ findings to start impeachment proceedings. There also would presumably be no bar against charging a president after he leaves the White House.
Federal law requires that any payments made “for the purposes of influencing” an election must be reported in campaign finance disclosures. Friday’s filings make clear the payments were made to benefit Trump politically.
