President Trump is taking charge of his own legal defense as threats mount and former allies cooperate in secrecy with federal prosecutors. Over Twitter and in interviews on Fox News, the president is laying the groundwork for a defense he might one day make to prosecutors investigating his campaign. On Thursday, the president made the case that election year payments made by his former attorney Michael Cohen to bury stories about alleged affairs do not constitute campaign finance violations. 
© Twitter
© Twitter
© Twitter
"I never directed [Cohen] to do anything wrong…Whatever he did, he did on his own. …What he did was all unrelated to me except for the two campaign finance charges that are not criminal and shouldn't have been on there. They put that on to embarrass me." — Trump Read Trump's full Fox News interview HERE. While special counsel Robert Mueller's probe has received the bulk of the attention for the past year, prosecutors at the Southern District of New York, where the Trump Organization is based, have become increasingly aggressive in investigating the president's campaign. Late Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the federal prosecutors in Manhattan launched an investigation into whether Trump's inaugural committee misspent some of the record $107 million in donations it raised, including allegations the committee traded access for money. The New York Times is reporting that investigators are also scrutinizing foreign donations to a pro-Trump super PAC. "That doesn't have anything to do with the president or first lady." — White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders The news comes a day after Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for a range of financial crimes and one felony campaign finance violation. Some of those crimes were discovered by Mueller but passed off to the Southern District of New York for prosecution. Cohen will be making the rounds for media interviews before he reports to prison in March. This morning he'll be interviewed by George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "Good Morning America." 
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Cohen has admitted to making an election year payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels to stay quiet about an affair she says she had with the president years ago. He also has admitted to paying the company that owns the National Enquirer for the rights to a story from Karen McDougal, the former Playboy model who also claims to have had an affair with Trump. Cohen says Trump ordered him to make the payments, which prosecutors have argued were an effort to influence the 2016 election and therefore amount to campaign finance violations. The president has denied the affairs and initially denied knowing about the payments. Now, he's publicly making the case that the payments were not illegal because they were private transactions meant to shield him from embarrassing allegations, not to influence the election. And he's putting the blame for the payments squarely on Cohen, even as Cohen has testified that Trump directed him to write the checks. There are two other wild cards here. Trump's friend David Pecker, the chairman of American Media Inc., which owns the National Enquirer, has an immunity deal with prosecutors investigating the McDougal payment. The payments came from the Trump Organization, and Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg is also cooperating with prosecutors under the protection of an immunity deal. Multiple media outlets are reporting that Trump was in the room when Cohen and Pecker negotiated the McDougal payment. The debate raging in Washington is whether the Manhattan prosecutors would be able to convince a jury that the payments are tantamount to campaign finance violations and whether a sitting president can be indicted. "I think the Justice Department needs to re-examine that OLC opinion, Office of Legal Counsel opinion, that you cannot indict a sitting president under circumstances in which the failure to do so may mean that person escapes justice. If it were the case that it was now or never ... that if you wait until after the president leaves office they can no longer be brought to justice, that ought to create certainly an exception to that OLC rule." — Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), likely the next chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Schiff just days ago said Trump faces the "real prospect of jail time" after he leaves office (CBS News). The OLC memo is HERE. Perspectives and Analysis The Hill: Intel panel expects to refer more cases of suspected lying to Mueller. The Washington Post: Mueller's treatment of cooperating witnesses suggests end of Russia probe may be near. Andrew Napolitano: Payments may doom Trump's presidency. Hans A. von Spakovsky: Neither Trump nor Cohen violated campaign finance laws. Renato Mariotti: Did Trump just move a step closer to unindicted co-conspirator? James Freeman: News outlets had a different view of campaign finance law when the law was applied to others. | 
