August 22, 2018

Trump’s Tweet About Michael Cohen Is Completely Wrong

No, Obama did not do what Trump is accused of.

Bryan Smith/ZUMA

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On Wednesday, President Donald Trump broke his silence on Michael Cohen’s plea agreement—which involved extraordinary statements implicating the president in federal crimes—to assert that the two campaign violation charges against Cohen are not actually crimes.

Trump also appeared to downplay the charges against Cohen by comparing them to fines paid by former President Barack Obama’s campaign committee for campaign finance reporting violations stemming from the 2008 election. The two cases could not be more starkly different, as the Obama violations involved reporting errors and missing reports, and Cohen’s plea involves a criminal plot, allegedly directed by the president. 

Cohen on Tuesday pleaded guilty to a total of eight counts, including two counts involving illegal contributions intended to sway the election.

Observers noted that Trump likely picked up the talking point from Fox News.

The president on Wednesday also appeared to lay the groundwork for a possible pardon for his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who was found guilty Tuesday on eight charges of bank and tax fraud. Trump continued to express sympathy for Manafort, who he said did not “break” like Cohen had. “Such respect for a brave man!” the president wrote.

In a more humorous tweet, Trump said he would “strongly suggest” against hiring Cohen for legal representation. Cohen, of course, served as Trump’s personal attorney for more than a decade.

Listen to Mother Jones Washington, DC, bureau chief David Corn discuss the consequences of the Paul Manafort conviction and Michael Cohen guilty plea on this week’s episode of the Mother Jones Podcast:

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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