Michael Cohen leaves Federal court in NYC on Tuesday, August 21, 2018 after pleading guilty to charges. (photo: Mary Altaffer/AP)
22 August 18
The president’s former attorney wanted to avoid a perp walk at all costs, according to people familiar with his thinking. But he did not hesitate to take Trump down with him.
hen Michael Cohen
entered the courtroom on the 20th floor in the federal courthouse in
the Southern District of New York at just after four P.M. on Tuesday,
his eyes darted to the small crowd that had gathered to watch the former
personal attorney to the president of the United States plead guilty to
eight counts of tax evasion, lying to a bank, and campaign finance
violations. He took a seat at a long table by himself, in a black suit
and gold tie—Trump colors. Four months earlier, more than three dozen
agents had executed search warrants for Cohen’s home, hotel room, and
office, carting off more than 3 million documents and beginning a formal
investigation of Cohen, who worked as Donald Trump’s fixer and a Trump Organization attorney, for criminal wrongdoing. In the ensuing months, Cohen went from a man who once told me
he would take a bullet for Trump to one aiming directly at his former
boss, making no secret of the fact that he felt he was being hung out to
dry by the president and those around him, that he was strapped for
cash, that he was willing to do whatever it took to protect his family.
On Tuesday, that meant turning himself in to agents at
the courthouse on Worth Street around two P.M., after several days of
conversations with the S.D.N.Y. Cohen was processed before he entered
the courtroom hours later, where, alongside his attorney, he signed the
agreement and handed it back over to the government. The plea agreement
doesn’t call for him to cooperate with federal prosecutors, as many had
expected, but it does leave open the possibility that he could provide
information to special counsel Robert Mueller in his investigation into the Trump campaign’s activities during the 2016 presidential election.
Whether Cohen would be able to surrender voluntarily
was a matter of concern for him, according to people familiar with his
thinking. He had wanted to avoid a perp walk, which his children, who
are around college-age, would inevitably have had to witness. Last week,
he made jokes about setting up a chair in front of the court house in
the middle of the night so as to allow agents to take him in
immediately, these people said.
Until earlier this month, investigators and Cohen’s
attorneys had little direct communication, according to the people
familiar with the situation. His lead attorney, Guy Petrillo,
had reached out, but until last week there were no detailed, formal
talks about cooperation or charges, these people said. In fact,
communication was so limited that although prosecutors filed a letter in
court noting that they couldn’t access one of Cohen’s Blackberry
devices, they didn’t even reach out to ask for the password.
While he waited to see what investigators might charge
him with or if he would, in fact, be able to serve as a cooperating
witness, Cohen had attempted to keep his life consistent, despite the
obvious holes: he no longer had a law office; Trump was no longer his
client, or his friend, or even his ally; he had resigned from his post
at the Republican National Committee; his consulting clients had long
taken their business elsewhere. So he filled his days by fuming to
lawyers and advisers over the coverage of his case. Earlier this month,
he moved out of the Regency Hotel, where he had been living since early
this year while his apartment underwent renovations after a flood, and
back into the fixed-up apartment in a Trump-owned building. In recent
weeks, he tweeted that the story in Omarosa Manigault Newman’s
new book, in which she wrote that after Cohen’s 2017 visit to the Oval
Office, she witnessed Trump chewing up a piece of paper, wasn’t true.
Early last week, he traveled to Florida for a family matter.
When he returned, his legal situation escalated.
Prosecutors reached out midweek, and people close to Cohen began to
believe that an arrest was imminent because the government was
approaching him with a tight timetable. By week’s end, just before
Petrillo and prosecutors began to talk, there was a sense that Cohen
could be arrested early this week. Cohen made plans to spend time with
family and friends over the weekend; there were talks amongst his
advisers about setting up a war room of sorts to handle the P.R. battle
should he, in fact, get arrested.
Talks continued over the weekend and earlier this
week, and those closest to Cohen went quiet—an indication that the
situation had intensified. Sources close to Cohen and from the Southern
District emphasized that the situation was “fluid”—that it could go in a
number of different directions, and that the timing could vary widely.
On Sunday evening, The New York Times reported
that investigators were looking at charges of bank and tax fraud, and
that the government would likely seek to bring these charges as far in
advance of the midterm elections as possible. The reaction was
immediate: the S.D.N.Y. had not gotten so many press inquiries in such a
short timespan since the day President Trump fired former U.S. Attorney
Preet Bharara.
An hour before Tuesday afternoon’s court hearing, the
line of reporters vying for a spot in the room snaked all the way down
from the 20th floor. The room was quiet as a federal judge ran through a
series of questions to ensure that Cohen was both sound of mind and
that he understood the agreement, with one of the only moments of levity
coming when Cohen answered that he had, in fact, had a glass of
Glenlivet on the rocks at dinner last night—an aberration from the
typically teetotaling soon-to-be 52-year-old. He was visibly shaken at
several points: when the judge asked him if he understood that he was
waiving his right to a trial; when he asked if Cohen understood that he
would not be able to vote, serve on a jury, or possess a firearm; and
when he asked Cohen if he wished to plead guilty because he was guilty.
In all, the president’s ex-fixer pled guilty to five counts of evasion
of income tax, one count of false statements to a bank, and one count
each of causing an unlawful corporate contribution and making an
excessive campaign contribution. All told, when Cohen is sentenced on
December 12, he could serve more than 60 years in prison, though he is
expected to be sentenced to far fewer.
The most remarkable moment came as the judge asked
Cohen to delineate his crimes as they related to each charge.
Referencing handwritten notes to “keep focus,” Cohen reached the final
two counts—the ones pertaining to payments he’d made to silence women
who alleged affairs with Trump. Under oath, Cohen told the court that
the payments had been made “in coordination and at the direction of a
candidate for federal office.” Trump was not named, but the inference
was unambiguous, and a statement released by Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis,
after the hearing made it even less so. “Today [Michael Cohen] stood up
and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a
crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of
influencing an election,” the statement read. “If those payments were a
crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn't they be a crime for Donald
Trump?”
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