US President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, has pleaded guilty in a New York court to violating campaign finance laws.
He said he had done so at the direction of “the candidate”, for the “principal purpose of influencing (the) election”.
The admission was related to hush money paid to Mr. Trump’s alleged mistresses.
Mr. Trump has not commented. In May, he admitted reimbursing Cohen for paying one of the women, having earlier denied any knowledge of it.
Mr. Cohen, 51, admitted eight counts, including tax and bank fraud in a plea deal with prosecutors.
“If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn’t they be a crime for Donald Trump?” Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, asked after Tuesday’s proceedings.
However, Mr. Trump is unlikely to face criminal charges as long as he remains president, legal experts say.
What is conceivable is that he could be sacked by Congress under the US constitution’s provision for impeaching a president over “high crimes and misdemeanours”.
For that to happen, Mr. Trump’s opponents in the Democratic Party would have to win control of both houses.
Even if they did well in the mid-term elections in November, they would almost certainly need to persuade members of Mr Trump’s Republicans to change sides over the issue.
No US president has ever been removed from office on the basis of impeachment.
Cohen said he had been directed by “a candidate for federal office” – presumed to be Mr Trump himself – to break federal election laws.
The indictment against Cohen carries up to 65 years in prison but his plea deal includes a much more lenient custodial sentence of up to five years and three months, said Judge William Pauley.
Cohen pleaded guilty to:
- Five counts of tax evasion
- One count of making false statements to a financial institution
- One count of wilfully causing an unlawful corporate contribution
- One count of making an excessive campaign contribution at the request of a candidate or campaign
His sentencing was set for 12 December and he was released after posting bail of $500,000 (£390,000).
Cohen worked at the Trump Organization for more than a decade and continued to serve as Mr Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer after the election.
The FBI seized a number of files in April from Cohen’s office and a hotel room used by him in New York.
They conducted the raid reportedly following a tip-off from Robert Mueller’s team.
Mr. Mueller is investigating whether Trump campaign aides colluded with alleged Russian attempts to sway the 2016 presidential election his way.
The FBI swoop outraged Mr. Trump, who complained that it was an “inconceivable” violation of attorney-client privilege.
The president has distanced himself from Cohen since he left his post as his personal lawyer in May.
