Michael Cohen, a former personal counsel to US President Donald Trump, is in the spotlight. A New York court could sentence him to jail for up to five years unless he eased his term because of his cooperation with the investigation linked to Russia's intervention in the 2016 election.
Cohen, 52, is a member of the Trump campaign team charged with breaking the law, but he is the only one from the nearby Trump circle. For 12 years, he served as vice president of the Trump organization, which includes real estate businesses associated with TRMP, where the lawyer is one of his closest associates.
Cohen was accompanied by Trump on his political journey that encouraged him to run before a sudden turnaround.
Last August, Cohen admitted that he had hidden from the tax authorities $ 4 million in revenues from his taxi companies.
He also admitted that he had paid a total of $ 280,000 to former playboy Playboy, Karen McDougall, and porn actress Sturmie Daniels for their silence after threatening to expose the relations they claimed to have established with Trump during the election campaign. Cohen also admitted last month that he lied to Congress about his contacts With Russia on the construction of the "Trump Tower" in Moscow.
First enemy
Cohen made these confessions from a close friend of Trump's first enemy, who is trying to question the credibility of the investigation by Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller on possible cooperation between the president's campaign and Russia.
While Cohen confirmed that Trump had asked to pay the two, the president described the accusations as "lies" and said that Cohen was seeking to push Judge William Bowley - who will preside over the verdict - to address his case less rigorously.
As Democrats prepare to dominate the House of Representatives in January - and Trump's opponents are looking for ways to neutralize or shorten his term - Cohen turns into an extraordinary hero.
All his views and statements are of great importance, and the courtroom in Manhattan is expected to be crowded with the audience, where he will most likely regret it, but his sentence is not guaranteed. His confessions are not accompanied by a plea bargain with the plaintiffs, which usually contributes to commutation of power in the United States.
In their recommendations to the judge, New York prosecutors who investigated the tax evasion cases and payments to Daniels and McDougall said that Cohen had not cooperated adequately with them either as a lawyer or a businessman, and that would prevent him from benefiting from a much lower sentence than that usually They are prosecuted for crimes of this kind and are between 4 and 5 years in prison.
According to the plaintiffs, Cohen refused to be "questioned about other criminal conduct of which he has not been charged in the past, if any." They also said he had refused to meet them on "other matters that might be of interest to investigations."
They added that Cohen played down the seriousness of his crimes, which he described as "a pattern of deception".
They said that paying money to silence Daniels and McDougall, who were openly talking about their supposed relationship with Trump, "was a blow to one of the goals of the federal campaign finance laws - transparency." As a result, they considered that "Cohen deceived the electorate in this context by concealing information that I think might have a significant impact on the elections."
Although Cohen cooperated with Muller to provide him with information about contacts between Trump's campaign team and Russia, he did so only "when he realized that he was facing imminent danger of being charged" in Washington, according to New York prosecutors.
useful information
But Muller said Cohen, a father of two, had taken "important steps" to soften his lies to Congress, including that he had given "useful and honest information" to the core of the inquiry into Russian intervention, raising questions about whether a member of the Trump family, The older Jr. or his son-in-law Jared Kouchner.
The 66-year-old judge, known for his independence as President Bill Clinton 20 years ago, will have to decide whether there is any room to help Cohen, who has asked for the lightest possible sentence to "start his life again."
Trump, who did not hide his opinion on this issue, expressed his hope at the beginning of this month to issue a "full judgment" right of his betrayal.