Cohen, Manafort and Trump: What’s Next?

On Tuesday, two major developments unfolded involving people close to President Donald Trump:

Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance laws and other charges, admitting that he arranged payments to two women “at the direction” of Trump to secure the women’s silence about affairs they said they had had with him.

Minutes later, Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was convicted in his financial fraud trial in Virginia. The special counsel had argued that Manafort hid millions of dollars in foreign accounts to evade taxes and lied to banks to obtain millions of dollars in loans.

Here’s what the big day in court means for Cohen, Manafort and Trump.

Manafort’s trial in Virginia, was the first of two criminal cases against him.

On Tuesday, a jury convicted him of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account. The judge declared a mistrial on the remaining 10 counts.

A mistrial makes no judgment on Manafort’s guilt. In this case, it simply means that jurors could not agree on a verdict on those charges.

Prosecutors have the option to bring the remaining charges against him again, until a verdict is reached.

Regardless, he will face sentencing on the charges he was convicted of Tuesday.

A sentencing date has not yet been set. The most serious charge of which he was convicted carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.

It’s possible Manafort could try to lessen his sentence by cooperating with the special counsel.

Manafort also faces a second criminal trial next month in Washington on other charges brought by the special counsel, including obstruction of justice, failure to register as a foreign agent and conspiracy to launder money. If convicted, he could face additional punishment.

Yes. Legally, the president has the power to pardon federal crimes.

But some legal experts say that such pardons, coupled with other actions, could increase Trump’s risk of prosecution for obstruction of justice. Abuse of the pardon power could also be grounds for impeachment.

For months, federal prosecutors in Manhattan had been examining Cohen’s personal business dealings and his role in helping to arrange financial deals with women connected to Trump.

On Tuesday, Cohen pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance laws, as well as multiple counts of tax evasion and bank fraud.

Cohen made the extraordinary admission that he had arranged payments to the two women: Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels; and Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model.

In both cases, Cohen said that he made payments at the behest of the president to shield him from politically damaging disclosures.

Cohen will be sentenced on Dec. 12 before Judge William H. Pauley III. Though he faces a total of up to 65 years on all eight counts, the plea agreement provides for a far more lenient sentence.

Since Cohen, like Manafort, was convicted of federal crimes, he also could be pardoned by Trump.

For months, Trump has been condemning the special counsel investigation as a witch hunt and has railed against investigation into his associates.

Manafort’s conviction was a win for the special counsel, Robert Mueller, if only in denying the president more ammunition for his campaign to discredit Mueller.

And even the president’s staunchest defenders acknowledged privately that the legal setbacks he suffered Tuesday could open fissures among Republicans on Capitol Hill and expose Trump to the possibility of impeachment.

In addition, both Manafort and Cohen could now have incentive to cooperate with prosecutors, said John P. Carlin, a former federal prosecutor who also served as chief of staff for Mueller when he was director of the FBI.

“Defendants have cooperated after conviction hoping to get a lesser sentence,” he said.

One collateral effect of Cohen’s plea agreement is that it may allow Michael Avenatti, Clifford’s lawyer, to proceed with a deposition of Trump in a lawsuit that Clifford filed accusing the president of breaking a nondisclosure agreement concerning their affair.

The lawsuit had been stayed by a judge pending the resolution of Cohen’s criminal case. Avenatti wrote on Twitter on Tuesday that he would now seek to force Trump to testify “under oath about what he knew, when he knew it and what he did about it.”

If Mueller believes he has enough evidence to charge Trump with a crime in federal court, the special counsel could ask a grand jury to indict him. But he would have to get permission from Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general overseeing the investigation.

An indictment, however, has grown increasingly unlikely. The office of the special counsel has told the president’s lawyers that it plans to abide by the Justice Department’s view that sitting presidents cannot be indicted no matter what the evidence shows.

If Mueller finds wrongdoing, he has a variety of options short of indictment, including writing a lengthy report. Congress could then use the findings and begin impeachment proceedings if it sees fit.

Separately, Trump could be indicted after he leaves office.

The Constitution says that a president can be removed for “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” which members of Congress can essentially define themselves.

The process would begin with House Judiciary Committee hearings, followed by a panel vote to move articles of impeachment to the House floor. How this would be handled would almost certainly depend on whether Democrats or Republicans control Congress in January, after November’s midterm elections.