On Friday, President Donald Trump (and the rest of us) got the most fulsome look into the inner workings of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation yet. And what Trump saw has to terrify him.
1. Trump directed Cohen to pay off both porn actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal, both of whom have alleged they had affairs with the President in the mid 2000s, during the 2016 campaign. Cohen had already pleaded guilty to purposely circumventing campaign finance law to make the payments — and said he did so at the direction of and coordinated with Trump. Trump has denied that he knew where the money was coming from and that he had anything to do with the decision to pay off the women.
2. In November 2015, a Russian national spoke with Cohen and attempted to offer « political synergy » with the Trump campaign (Mueller’s office said Cohen didn’t pursue the outreach).
3. Cohen lied to Congress about the nature and extent of his involvement in trying to cut a deal on Trump Tower Moscow with the Russians to hide « the fact that the Moscow Project was a lucrative business opportunity that sought, and likely required, the assistance of the Russian government. »
4. Manafort lied about the extent of his contacts with a Russian — named Konstantin Kilimnik — who has ties to the Russian military intelligence agency accused of hacking into the Democratic National Committee’s servers, which led to the publishing of emails via the site WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign.
