UPDATE: In an exclusive interview with Reuters on Tuesday, the president said he is not worried about repercussions for his alleged role in directing Michael Cohen to pay off women with whom he had had affairs.
“Michael Cohen is a lawyer. I assume he would know what he’s doing,” Trump said when asked if he had discussed campaign finance laws with Cohen.
Trump defends hush money as Cohen faces prison
“Number one, it wasn’t a campaign contribution. If it were, it’s only civil, and even if it’s only civil, there was no violation based on what we did. OK?”
Trump also spoke briefly about the Russia probe.
Asked about prosecutors’ assertions that a number of people who had worked for him met or had business dealings with Russians before and during his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump said: “The stuff you’re talking about is peanut stuff.”
Exclusive: Trump says he is not concerned about being impeached, defends payments to women (Reuters)
Michael Cohen, the president's longtime personal lawyer and fixer, will find out at 11am ET Wednesday what kind of prison time he'll serve and whether he'll get any credit for the information he provided Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
CNBC:
Cohen pleaded guilty in August to campaign-finance charges brought by [New York federal] prosecutors; in late November, he returned to the same federal courthouse in New York to admit to a charge of lying to Congress brought by Mueller.
Defense lawyers had asked Judge William Pauley not to send him to jail. They argued that Cohen's cooperation with investigators demonstrated his decision to change his life for the sake of his country and family.
But that argument received a blistering rebuke from federal prosecutors in their sentencing memo Friday. They called for the judge to impose a "substantial term of imprisonment," citing guidelines of 51 to 63 months in prison.
Cohen's crimes, specifically his involvement in payments made in 2016 to two women who claim they had affairs with Trump, were intended "to influence the election from the shadows," prosecutors said.
(...)
The special counsel's office took a softer tone in its sentencing document filed minutes later. It said Cohen, 52, had given the special counsel "relevant and useful information" about contacts with people connected to the White House. The special counsel team also said Cohen gave Mueller "information about attempts by other Russian nationals" to contact the Trump campaign as far back as November 2015.
Cohen could have his sentence revisited if he strikes a deal with prosecutors in which he provides additional cooperation within a year of his sentence, said Michael J. Stern, a former federal prosecutor in Detroit and Los Angeles.
“Few things spark a defendant’s renewed interest in cooperating faster than trading in a pair of custom Italian trousers for an off-the-rack orange jump suit,” he said.
Annemarie McAvoy, a former federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, said prosecutors appear to be angry at Cohen for limiting his cooperation.
“It could be a tactic to try to break him like they’ve tried to do with (Paul) Manafort,” McAvoy said, referring to Trump’s former campaign chairman. “It kind of shows they’re putting the screws to him. If they’re not mad at him, he didn’t give them what they wanted.”
Moment of reckoning looms for ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen (AP)
More Mueller developments are coming this week in the Manafort, Cohen and Flynn cases (CNBC)
Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen to be sentenced in New York (AJC)