this is "nightline." >> tonight, double trouble. a guilty verdict and a guilty plea for two men once close to the president. >> michael, what's your message to the president? >> former personal attorney michael cohen implicating president trump in a stunning courthouse admission. and in the first verdict in the mueller probe, former campaign chairman paul manafort convicted of fraud. but the president defiant tonight. >> they're still looking for collusion. where is the collusion? heartbreak in the heartland. the body of the missing college student mollie tib >> she was found in a cornfield, corn stalks placed over her. >> an undocumented immigrant facing charges.

>> she took off running, he chased her down. >> ending a five-week search. and gift rap. >> i'm in the children's hospital in chicago because i have heart failure. >> a little girl gets her birthday wish when a surprise guest accepts her cheeky challenge. ♪ >> but first the "nightline 5." >> you've tried moisturizer after moisturizer. but there's one that blows them all out of the water. hydro boost water gel from neutrogena. it goes beneath the surface to plump skin cells from within and lock in hydration, leaving skin so supple it actually bounces back. the results will blow you away. hydro boost and exfoliating cleanser from

good evening. we begin here with the stunning headlines involving two men who were once both close to president donald trump. one his long-time fixer and personal attorney. the other the former chairman of his campaign. both of them tonight guilty of felonies in two separate cases. the latest plot twists in a presidency that even hollywood couldn't invent. tonight at a rally in west virginia, the president took on the russia investigation with gusto. >> fake news and the russian witch hunt. we got a whole big combination. where is the collusion? >> reporter: but he declined to address the two huge headlines that emerged today out of robert mueller's probe. his one-time personal attorney, michael cohen, and his former campaign chairman, paul

manafort, both becoming felons. the announcements breaking within the same hour. >> there may never have been an hour like this in the history of the presidency, to have two former associates close to the president, both of them ending with the word "guilty" in a federal court. >> reporter: it began shortly after 4:00. michael cohen, the president's long-time personal lawyer and fixer, a man who once said he'd take a bullet for donald trump, walked out of a federal court after pleading guilty to illegally paying hush money to wiheent. hat' yresident? >> reporter: cohen told the judge today he was working quote in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office. >> mr. cohen pled guilty to two campaign finance charges, one for causing an unlawful corporate contribution, a second one for personally making an excessive personal contribution,

both for the purpose of influencing the 2016 election -- >> reporter: just 11 days before the election, he paid off the porn star, stormy daniels, who claimed she had a one-night stand with trump. the president initially said he knew nothing about it. >> did you know about the $130,000 payment to stormy daniels? >> no. >> then why did michael cohen make it if there was no -- >> you'll have to ask michael cohen. michael's my attorney and you'll have to ask michael. >> reporter: months later, a very different story from the president's new personal attorney, rudy giuliani. >> it's not campaign money. no campaign finance violation. they funneled it through a law firm and the president repaid it. >> reporter: prosecutors say cohen was reimbursed by the trump organization. >> mr. cohen sought reimbursement for that money by submitting invoices to the candidate's company which were

untrue and false and was simply a means to obtain reimbursement for the unlawful campaign contribution. >> reporter: cohen was also involved in the payoff to karen mcdougal, former playboy playmate who on cnn claimed she once had a year-long affair with mr. trump. >> so did i see him quite a few times, quite a bit? absolutely, we spent a lot of time together. >> reporter: just before the election mcdougal sold her story to the publisher of "the national enquirer." they bought it and buried it, a practice known as catch and kill. trump denied knowing about that payment too, but cohen secretly recorded a 2016 conversation where the two men seemed to discuss buying the rights to mcdougal's story from the publisher of "the enquirer." >> when it comes time for the financing, which will be -- >> what financing? >> we'll have to pay -- >> pay cash. >> no, no, no, no. i got -- no, no, no. >> reporter: michael cohen worked for donald trump for more than a decade. >> i'll do anything to protect mr. trump. i'm obviously very loyal and

very dedicated to mr. trump. >> reporter: back in april when his home, office, and hotel were raided by the fbi, president president was outraged. >> it's a disgrace. real disgraced. it's an attack on our country in a true sense, an attack on what we stand for. >> reporter: trump was confident cohen wa not turn on him but the pressure only grew. it was clear he was looking to cut a deal saying "my wife, my daughter, and my son have my first loyalty and always will. i put my family and country first." >> the president's relationship with michael cohen may have once been close, but it got nasty, it devolved into a very ugly public fight. the president feels like he was stabbed in the back by someone who had been a loyal, close aide to him. >> reporter: today just hours after cohen stood up in court and implied that donald trump ordered him to make those hush money payments during the

campaign, rudy giuliani issued a statement saying, there's no allegation of any wrongdoing against the president in the government's charges against mr. cohen. it is clearecpror d,r.ons reflt lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time." but michael cohen's attorney made clear he thinks the president of the united states may now be in legal jeopardy himself. saying in a statement, quote, if those payments were a crime for michael cohen, then why wouldn't they be a crime for donald trump? >> today was very damning for the president. it doesn't mean the president necessarily committed a crime. he could have been doing it to save his marriage or prevent embarrassment or any number of reasons. >> reporter: there is also tonight this looming question, will michael cohen be cooperating with robert mueller in the russia probe? here's what his attorney said on msnbc tonight. >> but i can tell you that mr. cohen has knowledge on certain

subjects that should be of interest to the special counsel and is more than happy to tell the special counsel all that he knows. >> reporter: during a normal news cycle, if there is such a thing anymore, the michael cohen story would be blotting out the sun. just minutes after michael cohen pled guilty in that courtroom in manhattan, another bombshell. >> in a day of bombshell developments in the legal situation facing president trump -- >> reporter: reporters racing out of a courthouse in virginia to deliver the news. after four days of deliberations, the jury rendering a verdict in the case against paul manafort who once ran donald trump's campaign for president. guilty on five counts of tax evasion, one count of failing to report a foreign bank account, two counts of bank fraud. the jury was unable to reach a verdict on ten other counts and the judge declared a mistrial on those ten counts. manafort stone-faced as the verdict was read, his lawyer

later addressing reporters saying manafort got a fair trial. >> mr. manafort is disappointed of not getting acquittals all the way through or a complete hung jury on all counts -- >> reporter: this trial the first big test for the special counsel, robert mueller, and an extraordinary fall for manafort who just two years ago was running the donald trump campaign for president. >> paul manafort has done an amazing job. >> reporter: soon manafort was pushed out amid a swirl of stories about his work for ukrainian officials with ties to moscow. last summer a dozen armed fbi agents raided his apartment, seizing a trove of documents. last week, even as the jury deliberated, president trump was still rooting for his former campaign chairman. >> he happens to be a very good person. >> reporter: trump refused to rule out a pardon. and tonight the president sounded displayed by the verdict. >> it couldn't involve me but i feel it's a very sad thing that

happened. this is a witch hunt and it's a disgrace. >> manafort faces a maximum of 80 years this prison. the judge won't likely give him all that time, but he's likely looking at a decade or more of incarceration. >> reporter: manafort has one more trial to go in another case brought by miller, charged with obstruction of justice, conspiracy, and foreign lobbying violations. >> one of the big questions is, was this all an attempt to pleasure paul manafort to give information on president trump? >> i think if he hasn't cooperated at this point, he's probably not going to. that could mean one of two things. either he doesn't care to cooperate, or he's got nothing to cooperate with. >> we have no idea if cohen is cooperating with the prosecutors in manhattan or the mueller team. the plea agreement we saw today doesn't include a cooperation agreement. but that doesn't mean he's not cooperating. >> this suggests we're closer to the beginning of the story than the end when it comes to president trump. >> this air around trump and the people close to him, it looks like a culture of corruption.

>> reporter: today was undenny a tough day for the president of the united states. tonight, to all those clearing supporters who came out to see him in west virginia, to them he is still a winner. >> we stand on the shoulders of generations of american patriots who knew how to fight, and they knew how to win. we're winning again. we're winning again. next here, a very different kind of story. a tragic ending to a weeks-long search for the missing college student mollie tibbets. the keys to the police investigation that cracked the case. s it smells fine, but his mom smells this... luckily for all your hard-to-wash fabrics... ...there's febreze fabric refresher. febreze doesn't just mask, it eliminates odors you've... ...gone noseblind to. and try febreze unstopables for fabric. with up to twice the fresh scent power, you'll want to try it...

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there's heartbreak in iowa tonight after the five-week search for mollie tib bits ended with the discovery of her body in a cornfield. the chilling admission from the man charged with her murder, and here's alex perez with the story. >> reporter: the search for missing mollie tibbetts has come to a tragic end today. >> the body was discovered early this morning in a farm field southeast of brooklyn, iowa. we believe it to be the body of mollie tibbetts. she was found in a cornfield, and there were corn stalks placed over the top of her. >> reporter: tonight a suspect in custody, 24-year-old cristhian rivera. police say rivera led them to her body and confessed to the murder. the case will be prosecuted by the iowa attorney general's area prosecution division and first degree murder carries a penalty of life without the possibility of parole. >> reporter: according to

authorities, rivera encountered mollie tibbetts near the intersection of boundary and middle streets in eastern brooklyn when she was out jogging. >> he actually tells us he ran alongside of her or behind her. and then at one point he tells us that mollie grabbed ahold of her phone and said, you need to leave me alone, i'm going to call the police. and then she took off running. he in turn chased her down. >> reporter: according to authorities, rivera then panicked and got mad. >> he tells us at some point in time he blacks out and then he comes to near an intersection -- >> reporter: rivera told police he drove to a cornfield in guernsey when are he dragged tibbetts on foot for 20 meters and left her face-up and covered in corn leaves. >> no one has said this was a sexually-driven crime. but it certainly fits the pattern of dozens and dozens of sexual predator attack-type crimes. >> reporter: authorities say an autopsy is being done and have not yet released a cause of

death. rivera has been charged with first degree murder. a sophomore at university of iowa, mollie was beloved by family and friends. with a bubbly personality and a sparkle in her eye. seen here in videos shared with abc news. the 20-year-old university of virginia student missing since july 18th when she went out for an evening jog and vanished. her boyfriend saying his last communication with her was a snapchat he opened around 10:00 p.m. >> i look back at the messages, she hadn't opened or read a single one of them. i started throwing red flags and started calling everybody to see if they'd got in contact with her. everybody would come up blank. >> reporter: when mollie did not show up to work the next day, her absence raised alarm. >> one of her work friends called me. and said she didn't come in today, she didn't call in. i was like, that's not like her. >> reporter: her parents and boyfriend growing desperate to bring her home.

>> we miss you. we're looking for you. and we will never stop. >> reporter: her disappearance shocking the quiet, tight-knit community of brooklyn, iowa. a record-breaking nearly $400,000 reward for information leading to her safe return. >> in a community like brooklyn, everyone knows everyone, everybody sees everything. someone knows what's happened. >> we believe that mollie is still alive, and if someone has abducted her, we are pleading with you to please release her. >> i just want her home. >> reporter: community members combing through cornfields, searching for mollie. mollie's family allowing us to accompany them to a state fair where they were handing out flyers. >> bless you. thank you very much. >>orr: investigators received more than 4,000 tips since mid-july and had between 30 to 40 officers working on mollie's case, including help from the fbi. >> we have not slowed down at

all the investigative process. >> reporter: ultimately we now know it was surveillance video from eastern brooklyn that police say led them to a chevy linked to rivera. >> the video was critical, put that it way. >> reporter: according to law enforcement, rivera had been working locally in the area for several years. officials say he was an undocumented immigrant, a detail that iowa governor kim reynolds quickly tweeted about, saying in part, we are angry that a broken immigration system allowed a predator like this to live in our community. tonight at a rally in west virginia, president trump talking about rivera's arrest and his immigration status. >> you heard about today with the illegal alien coming in, very sadly, from mexico. and you saw what happened to that incredible, beautiful young woman. should have never happened. >> reporter: but according to a 2018 cato institute study, undocumented immigrants are 25% less likely to be convicted of

homicide than native-born americans. legal immigrants were 87% less likely. >> this gentleman's behavior had nothing to do with his immigration status. it had to do with his own urges and desires and fantasies. >> reporter: tonight the university of iowa where mollie was studying psychology issuing this statement. we are deeply saddened that we've lost a member of the university of iowa community. our thoughts are with mollie tibbetts' family, friends, and classmates. mollie would have been a rising junior. local residents echoing their sorry. >> we had hope. we had hope that somebody was just holding her and that something just went wrong and they would come to their senses and bring her home. we just -- we had hope. >> reporter: for "nightline," i'm alex perez in brooklyn, iowa. >> our thanks to alex perez for that reporting. next on "nightline," something entirely different to end the show. it just might be the greatest kiki challenge of the summer.

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finally here tonight, a heart warming surprise for a special little girl. >> hi, my name's sophie yeah i'm 10 years old. i have heart failure. >> it was a heartfelt plea from a little girl waiting on a heart. >> and i love your music. >> and then the surprise of a lifetime. >> oh my god! >> you asked me to come, i'm here. >> drake stopping by laurie's children's hospital in chicago to complete sofia's kiki challenge. >> i'm in the laurie children's hospital and look who came to surprise me. >> just for you, my dear. >> drake! >> the rapper get income all our feelings with one little girl's dream come true. a great move.

our best wishes to him and to her. thank you for watching "nightline"to 24/7 on our "nightline" facebook page. thank you again for watching and good night. thank you again for watching and good night.

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