Did Trump Just Move a Step Closer to Unindicted Co-conspirator? - By Renatto Mariotti

Cohen’s sentencing is not the end of the investigation into the campaign finance crimes. And we can expect further indictments against those close to the president.

By RENATO MARIOTTI December 12, 2018

ichael Cohen got three years in prison Wednesday for his role in what the judge called “a smorgasbord” of crimes, including hush money payments that violated campaign finance rules. But the most consequential development from the hearing had to do with a person who was not even in the courtroom: Donald Trump.

In sentencing the president’s former fixer, federal judge William H. Pauley III said in open court that Trump had directed his then-lawyer to commit a federal felony. This was in some respects a formality, a confirmation of a conclusion that prosecutors and the United States Probation Office had reached last week. But while it might have been a formality, it was important. No one in that courtroom, including the judge, disagreed that Trump directed Cohen to commit crimes.

Trump has downplayed his role, calling the payments a “simple private transaction” and, “only a CIVIL CASE” that would result in liability for Cohen and not him. But he and his Republican supporters do not appreciate what legal analysts do: that the president is in serious legal jeopardy and it is mounting.

No competent lawyer would tell a client who was publicly implicated in a crime by federal prosecutors that the client was not at very serious risk of being indicted. Even Republicans like frequent Trump defender Andrew McCarthy concluded that Trump is likely to be indicted.

I am less convinced that we can be confident a direct indictment of Trump is coming. The conclusion reached by Judge Pauley, federal prosecutors and U.S. Probation was based on a “preponderance of the evidence” standard, meaning that they concluded it is more likely than not that Trump directed Cohen to commit a crime. That is well below the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard in a criminal trial.

Nevertheless, news reports make clear that their investigation of the crimes Cohen was convicted of are not over. That means others in the Trump Organization are still vulnerable to indictment and therefore it is entirely possible Trump himself would be formally named as an unindicted co-conspirator. (Numerous Trump critics have used the Cohen sentencing memo to contend that Trump already is one, but an unindicted co-conspirator can be named only in a charging document.) So let’s look at why that might happen for real.

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https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/12/12/cohen-sentencing-donald-trump-co-conspirator-222938