Prosecutors Could Charge Cohen as Early as This Month
SAHIL KAPUR, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, BLOOMBERG: Well, bigger picture wise, I'll say, you know, the politics of this are unpleasant. There's a whiff of swampiness here that there's no -- not nice for the president's party going into a midterm election with the Cohen charges potentially percolating, the Paul Manafort trial and jury deliberation phase, and the president consumed with the special counsel investigation. It's a tough moment for the drain the swamp president when all this is happening. And it's understandable why he's so angry about it all.</s>JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Without a doubt. And one of the key questions here as we know these taxi medallion companies that Cohen owns and apparently was using to make the cases on the loans. If it's all about that, it's embarrassing to the president because this is somebody he hired, somebody had very close in, somebody who's with him for years, someone who is involved in his efforts whether it's Karen McDougal or Stormy Daniels. That's embarrassing for the president. But there also the New York Times report, they're also looking into whether there are any campaign violations -- campaign finance violations in the case of these McDougal and Stormy Daniels. But that would make it more than embarrassing to the president. That would bring it into the president.</s>MARGARET TALEV, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG: I think if -- and again, this is -- yet again one of these cases where we don't really know what they know. But what is true in Michael Cohen's case is that there are his dealings with the president in the context of the campaign here, and there also his dealings in terms of representing the president and all of his business, you know, interests dating back quite a long time. And, you know, a lot of times in these sort of federal -- special counsel or special investigator type of investigations, there's the core thing that you begin looking at, Russian interference in elections. And then there's whatever comes out of it. And so we've seen Mr. Manafort's case, now Mr. Cohen's case that the sorts of tentacles have spread to them. And I think the question for the president is not just in politics but in his entire previous life in business. Does Michael Cohen have information that he wishes to share with those investigators that could alleviate the burden on him that could be dangerous to Mr. Trump's business empire?</s>KING: And to that point, this is how they put it in the New York Times article. "It is still possible Mr. Cohen may plead guilty rather than face an indictment. He has hinted publicly and has stated explicitly in private that he is eager to tell prosecutor what he knows in exchange for leniency. A cooperation agreement would likely include a provision that Mr. Cohen also provide information to the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller who is investigating possible involvement by the Trump campaign in Russia's meddling." So this is the southern district of New York case, not a Mueller case. But if he becomes a cooperating witness in exchange for leniency, the feds writ large have access to him.</s>SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. When you're cooperating with the feds, you're cooperating with the feds. And that means that you're cooperating in the various ongoing investigations and certainly if he knew anything that would be relevant to Mueller's investigation, he would be required to share that, I would think, as part of this agreement. We still don't know if, you know, prosecutors in southern district of New York or if anyone on Mueller's team actually even want to -- want this guy to be a cooperating witness. We don't have an indication of whether they actually need anything from him, whether they think he knows anything relevant that they don't already know. I think there's still, you know -- there's a question when you get in the case of people like Michael Cohen, is this a credible witness? Is this someone that you can really use going forward in any case you want to make anyway?</s>KING: And to the point we talked earlier, sometimes Rudy Giuliani when he speaks for the president is trying to make a legal argument. Sometimes he's definitely making a political argument. Michael Cohen is also playing this game a little bit too. He's brought Lanny Davis who helped spin in the Clinton White House back during the Lewinsky investigation. Lanny Davis is now a legal adviser but more a political adviser to Michael Cohen, who says this in Politico today. "I reached out to my old friend John Dean because of what he went through with Watergate. And I saw some parallels to what Michael Cohen is experiencing. I wanted to gain from John's wisdom. I certainly didn't want to raise expectations that Mr. Cohen has anything like the level of deep involvement and detail</s>KING: That is Lanny Davis messing with the president's head.</s>OLIVIER KNOX, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, SIRIUSXM: I'm totally not making this case that I'm making. But I think people like lower tier of gas lighting. I want to grab something that Margaret said. You talked about representing Donald Trump. And one of the interesting things here is, when was he acting as a lawyer which might entail some protections, and when was he acting just as a fixer? And that's something that we have to watch really closely because right now his argument that he was acting as a lawyer has not held up well in New York. And so let's see what comes out. We also know he taped the president.</s>KAPUR: This is the $20 million question with the plea deal as well. I mean, that's a lot of money to be potentially looking at in terms of financial fraud for his, you know, taxi companies. And does Michael Cohen have enough information to be able to skate on charges that could be this serious if he is indicted? And that's where to Margaret's point, the Trump Organization comes in. There are people who have studied that company very closely and believe they would be legally vulnerable with the southern district of New York if some of this information were to get out there. Michael Cohen is clearly in full cooperation mode. There's no love left to be lost between him and the president.</s>KING: We'll watch this one play out. Again, often when these things hit the newspapers, it's often a signal from prosecutors, if you're going to cooperate, clock's ticking. Let's see what we do.</s>TALEV: On board.</s>KING: Let's see what happens in a day or two ahead. Up next for us here, former CIA chief gaining support as he feuds with the president. But at least one backer of John Brennan's says he does go too far at times.