>> i'm guilty, really, of not standing my ground and knowing that this was a bad idea, that's what i'm guilty of, of not really putting my sensible hat on. you know this is a bad idea, don't do it. michael cohen pled guilty under eight counts today. >> michael cohen of the president's fixer. >> if anybody else in his mind was going after his boss, he was going to fight back. >> and the keeper of his secrets. >> of all the individuals in trump's organization who knew where the bodies were buried, if you will, michael cohen was at the top of the list. >> swearing to do anything to protect the president. >> he told me he'd take a bullet for the president. >> an fbi changed everything. >> i just heard they broke into

the office of one of my personal attorneys, frankly, a real disgrace. >> investigators seized e-mails, tax documents, and business records. >> and then another bomb shell, a taped conversation with the president leaked to the media. >> we'll have to pay him something. >> it is credible to believe that this was absolutely about hush money. >> now instead of being the president's problem solver, he's one of the president's biggest problems. >> good or bad? michael cohen would be bought of american history. >> when my call cohen arrived outside of federal court in manhattan on august 21st, 2018, observers took note of the greeting he gave to fbi agents

on hand. cohen did not have the demeanor of a man about to plead guilty to violating several federal laws. >> donald trump's former private lawyer, michael cohen, accepted his own fate in a deal with prosecutors. >> michael cohen case that's shaking the political and legal worlds tonight. >> michael cohen devoted more than a decade of his professional life to being the president's attorney and go-to fixer. he once said he'd take a bullet for donald trump. >> last august, i sat with michael cohen for the first time in an interview, and he told me he could barely walk by trump tower because it made him so sad to look at the place where they spent a decade together working side by side. >> reporter: less than two years into the president's term, their once close relationship turned to mutual hostility. >> things have completely shifted. i think he probably couldn't walk by trump tower now because he'd get so seethingly angry. >> reporter: cohen's plea deal followed months of controversy. the media reported on hush money

payments to a porn star and a playboy model whose claims of affairs with donald trump might have tor pe torpedoed his presi campaign. >> it was said he took care of 100 women or so in the campaign. >> others denied the allegations. >> the president addressed these directly, and made very well clear that none of these allegations are true. >> reporter: a conversation with donald trump secretly recorded by cohen in september 2016 and later released by cnn seemed to prove the allegations that the president knew about the hush money payments for at least one of the women. >> i need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that information regarding our friend, david, you know, so that -- i'm going to do that right away, and i've spoken to allen weisselberg how to set it up. >> so what are we going to pay

for this? >> yes. >> michael cohen says he's going to confer with allen weisselberg, the trump organization's cfo, but he's actually this legacy employee for the trump family, he was fred trump's accountant, donald donald's father's accountant, with the family since the 1970s. >> he saeemed to take aim at th president p. >> when he went into court to plead guilty, he merely needed to say, i paid money in order to conceal information that would be bad for candidate i was working for in order to influence the election. he went a step further and he said he did that at the direction of the president, which was an unnecessary statement by him in that proceeding. so it is interesting that michael cohen is taking the opportunity under oath in court to implicate the president when

that was neither something the prosecutors alleged or something he had to do. >> it coincided to the hour of a conviction of the president's inner circle in and entire different federal court. >> paul manafort was convicted of eight felonies today including filing false income tax returns, failing to report foreign bank accounts, and another foreign bank fraud charge. >> the day after that double bomb shell, the president offered support to paul manafort on twitter, but not to michael cohen. >> i feel very badly for paul manafort and his wonderful family. unlikely michael cohen, he refused to break, make up stories in order to get a deal. he went further and took a sarcastic tone regarding the once lawyer supporter. >> if anyone wants a good lawyer, i strongly suggest you do not retain services of michael cohen. >> in the end, his arc, which was on a very upward trajectory are donald trump was undone by

the person who gave him that lifeline, donald trump, himself. >> few people who knew michael cohen as a young man would have predicted he'd one day be embroiled in a presidential crisis. by all accounts, cohen had an upper middle class childhood in long island, attended american university in the 1980s, just as a brash real estate developer from new york was becoming a nationally known celebrity. donald trump's first book, "the part of the deal," was a best seller, and that inspired cohen to strive for an equally glamorous future. >> he said as a teenager, he admired donald trump. >> not just for the real estate acumen, but his personality, the brashness approach to life. michael was drawn to him. >> after graduating in 1988, cohen dabbled in politics, volunteers on the presidential campaign of democratic, michael

dukakis. >> we're coming on strong all across this country. >> and attended law school in michigan. >> michael could handle stress. he was a bright guy, and he had a good sense of humor, and i liked that. >> he talked to a lot of people, he was very personable. >> i would say he was very motivated. he had his eye on the fall. there was no question about that. >> he was a talker, and he was going to be a lawyer and go back and do big deals, and basically go to the city. >> his law career began in new york city working for a personal injury lawyer. in 19d84 he married his child sweet heart. this marriage opened doors for cohen. >> michael got involved in business and personal dealings with people who the family associated with. >> some skirted and broke the law including his own father-in-law. >> he was convicted of tax fraud

in the early '90s, and he got probation. >> following in his father-in-law's footsteps, cohen got involved in the taxi industry. >> he was affiliated with a fleet of 200 cabs in new york city and also owned some medallions in chicago. in about 2012, he was reporting about $ 90,000 a month in income from his taxi business. >> two of his business associates and taxing medalli s medallions, simon and pete, were convicted of multiple crimes. >> this is one of the vulnerabilities he created for himself by being in business with someone who got on the wrong side of the law. >> gene freeman and simon has a checkered an unusual history. this year he pled guilty to tax fraud. >> all the charges are unrelated to michael cohen, but the company he keeps is noticeable.

>> after running for new york city counsel in 2003 and losing in a landslide, cohen turned his attention to real estate. he used his earliest deals to attract the attention of a man whose brash persona and glamorous lifestyle made him a reality tv star. >> you're fired. >> donald j. trump was enjoying fame on his hit show, "the apprentice." >> trump building and later a $5 million property in another building, where ivanka trump lived. >> after becoming treasurer of trump world tower, he proved value to donald trump for the first time. >> donald trump is impressed by the effort that michael cohen helped lead to pose a tennis movement in the trump building to reorganize the building. >> he took trump's side against the others in the building, and trump was grateful. >> cohen's ambition was rewarded in 2006 when he became a lawyer

for donald trump and shortly after, executive vice president of the trump organization. michael cohen had found it. >> it was alluring to be in trump tower. this is a man who idolized him for years before he ended up working there. it was a dream come true. coming up -- >> michael cohen was a thug. he was an absolute street thug in the way he defended donald trump and tried to intimidate people that they perceived to be crossing donald trump. crossing donald trump. we saved hundreds

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in the summer of 2015, donald trump descended an escalator in trump tower and set the nation on an unexpected course. >> i am officially running for president of the united states,

and we are going to make america great again. >> the donald had flirted with presidential runs before. >> welcome to new hampshire. >> in 2011, he tested the waters with a full support and encouragement of the trump organization's most loyal aides, chief among them, attorney michael cohen. for cohen, it was the perfect way to merge his political ambitions with his business affairs. >> i think before the election, michael cohen was perhaps more political than donald trump was, and this is someone who encouraged donald trump to run for president, had been involved in campaigns before. >> cohen flew to iowa in trump's private plane to meet republican operatives. >> michael cohen was the one who set up this website, should trump run. >> trump mentioned the site in a campaign video that ran on aol. >> recently, a group formed a, a

very independent group, formed, shouldtrumprun.com. >> perhaps foreshadowing events to come, that website triggered an investigation by the federal elections commission. >> a complaint alleged that michael cohen couldn't be independent of donald trump because he worked for donald trump, even though he said should trump run was independent of donald trump. >> there 2011, they ruled in cohen's favor, a win, another way of proving his loyalty. >> the way he initially described it to me was a father-son relationship, and when i asked him, why he has blind loyalty, he always threw the question back to me, would you do this for your father? >> at the end of the day, only people donald trump really considered family, anyone who considers themself to be almost a trump family member should

really think about it. >> he fought for his boss by aggressively attacking donald trump's enemies, real or perceived. >> a war of words between a beauty queen and organizers of the miss usa pageant. rigged. just after the 2012 miss usa pageant, they claimed finalists were predetermined. >> i want the truth to be made known. >> he spoke with cohen's about his daughter's claims, and he said cohen is belligerent. >> it's absolutely terrifying to get you on the phone and intimidate you, but part of what a lawyer in that position is supposed to do is intimidating people, to keep them away from the case. >> for allegations not proven, and donald trump won a judgment

for defamation. cohen was an attack dog against what would be donald trump's most hated adversarieadversarie press. the news website, the daily beast, felt cohen's wrath. >> they wrote a story about a deposition that trump's first wife had given in a case, and in that deposition, she said that she had been raped by trump. >> she later withdrew the claims saying she did not mean it literally or in a criminal sense, but in 2015 when a daily beast reporter contacted the trump campaign for comment, michael cohen, increasingly assertive in the role as fixer, responded viciously. npr released the audio. >> i'm warning you, tread very [ bleep ] lightly because what i'm going to do to you is [ bleep ] disgusting, do you understand? >> michael cohen was a thug. he was an absolute street thug in the way he went about defending donald trump in trying to intimidate people that they

perceived to be crossing donald trump. >> i'm going to go after you, take you down. that's what people do. >> this is not the way that most attorneys operate, but this is why he became a valued member of the trump organization. >> over the next few years, cohen would take his loyalty to a whole new level. >> he's someone who never shies away from a fight, someone who never hesitates to defend donald trump and the trump family. >> and we will make america great again. >> michael cohen was not just helping with politics. while donald trump's 2016 presidential campaign gained momentum, cohen sought reali estate deals for his boss. after several efforts for a trump meg tower in moscow, he turned to one who had tied to russian organized crime. >> michael cohen and he jointly

tried to make the construction of a new trump tower in moscow through the presidential campaign, and donald trump was aware of that effort. >> it would be an alleged trip to meet with russian officials that earned him a chapter in the dossier. >> the famous report put together by the former british agent who was paid for by the hillary clinton campaign. there's a lot of allegations in it that had to do with the trump campaign colluding with russia. there's an unsub stanuated allegation that michael cohen was in prague and met with russians for attacking democrats. >> he continues to emphatically deny the allegations that were made concerning him in the dossier. >> cohen's efforts to fulfill trump's dream for a trump megatower that would have been the tallest building in russia never came through, but cohen continued to fight hard for his boss, showing his teeth after the first republican debate on fox news in 2016 referring in

which megyn kelly challenged then candidate trump. >> you call women you don't like "fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals." >> only rosie o'donald. >> striking back on twitter -- >> tweeted about megyn kelly, who trump was critical of in the campaign, and she was upset, understandably so. very simple. if megyn kelly was going after his boss in his mind, he was going to fight back. it's the lawyer that trump would want. >> during the campaign, cohen continually took on the media and one target in particular, cnn. >> you guys are down, and it's -- >> says who? >> polls. >> says who? >> most of them. all of them? >> says who? >> while cohen's aggressive

stance surprised some, nothing was as surprising as election night. >> here is the first projection in the trump column of decision 2016. >> trump had a lot more support in a lot more states among a lot more people than the polls detected. >> i just received a call from secretary clinton. [ cheers and applause ] >> as trump filled out the role in the new administration, michael cohen reportedly hoped to become his chief of staff. the loyal attorney was overlooked. >> there were people around the president who were not big fans of michael's, and so they encouraged him to keep his distance, but at the same time, the russia investigation was heating up, and micah cohen was testifying in front of the house and congress, and so at the advice of counsel on both sides, they were not doing a lot of talking. >> michael cohen got a rude awaken, i think before trump got to the white house. he felt shunted aside, he was

not given the position in the white house that he wanted, and he was making his disappointment known about that, and i don't think trump or his family particularly cared. to a certain extent, he disappeared off their radar screen when trump went to washington. >> he'd soon reemerge and play a pivotal role in trump's presiden presidency. >> he had information about the president's financial dealings prior to the 2016 election, making him a particular dangerous person to the president. a particular dangerous person to the president. [ indistinct talking ] -deductible? -definitely speaking insurance. -additional interest on umbrella policy? -can you translate? -damage minimization of civil commotion. -when insurance needs translating, get answers in plain english at progressiveanswers.com. ♪ -he wants you to sign karen's birthday card. it's a high honor.

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michael cohen's role as a fixer for donald trump meant just that, fixing trump's problems >> of all the individuals in trump's orbit that knew where the bodies were buried, if you will, michael cohen was at the top of the list. >> just days before the election, the "wall street journal" reported ami, tcompany of the national inquirer, entered an agreement with karen mcdougal, claiming a long-term relationship with the mogul in 2006 and tweepted photos of them together. ami purchased rights to karen's

story. >> they paid karen $150,000 for her rights to the story, and the story was not published before the election. >> she said she was silenced with a well-known tab loit tactic, a claim the media giant denies. >> it's a process called catch and kill where basically they pay you for the rights to story, and then they kill it. >> if she told the story publicly, this would have been something that voters would have considered when they went to the polls. >> that michael cohen was somewhat a puppet master and was made aware of it, and it was involved in the negotiations in ensuring, in fact, the story was, a, purchased, and, b, killed. >> that same article referenced another alleged affair with an adult film star known as stormy daniels. she said she met donald trump at a july 2006 golf tournament in lake tahoe as shown in this photograph from daniel's my

space page. >> president trump repeatedly denied both relationships. >> but when the article was published, there was a lot of other news dominating the headlines. from the clinton e-mail scandal to the now infamous "access hollywood ta hollywood" tape. now with two refusing to comment, the 2016 article was buried. in january 2018, the same general reporters broke another story about the alleged affairs. this time, they revealed daniels was also silenced just before the election by michael cohen. she signed a nondisclosure agreement at about the exact same time the trump campaign was dealing with the fallout from that "access hollywood" tape. >> this company is consultant with the purpose to pay stormy daniels so she will not tell her story or go public.

>> without telling donald trump, she paid $150,000 to stormy not to speak about the story. >> alleging the parent company of "in-touch" offered her $15,000 for the story in 2011. >> our understanding is they reached out to mr. cohen for comment in advance of running the story, and mr. cohen was able to convince them or threaten them that if they ran the story, there would be serious consequences. they decided not to proceed with publishing the story. >> and then things took a darker turn. >> stormy daniels alleged she was in a parking lot going to a fitness class and someone approached her in the car with her daughter in the backseat saying, stop talking about donald trump, it would be a shame for your young daughter to grow up without her mother. this is something that terrified her. >> cohen denies that he played any role in the alleged threat. >> he unequivocally denied it. he said, i've never threatened

her. i've never spoken to her, never e-mailed, never texted her, never seen her in person, i don't have any knowledge of any threats being made to her, but, certainly, i was not the one to make those threats. >> stormy daniels kept quiet before the election, helping trump avoid a huge scandal in the home stretch of the campaign. >> thank you, god bless you. >> but after the election, the story made headlines, not just about the affair, but about the coverup. >> let me be clear about what we know and what's in the article. it does not allege non-consensual behavior, but alleges an effort to hide the behavior that allegedly occurred. >> armed with a new attorney, daniels wanted to take control of her own story, and she started talking and suing. they filed a lawsuit saying the nda signed was invalid because donald trump never signed it. >> so, for years, mr. cohen has

played by a different set of rules, or should we say, no rules at all. >> suddenly the actions of candidate trump were catching up to president trump. >> do you know where he got the money? >> no, i don't know. >> just four days later, cohen would face a crisis of his own. >> we have just this new report in, the fbi has reportedly raiding the office of president trump's long time personal lawyer. >> investigators seized e-mails, tax documents, and business records. >> bombs are dropping. >> if a link to michael cohen, woke up at 7:30, a dozen fbi agents knocked on the door, did

not break it down, and that's taking the cell phone from the hand and begun the raid of the hotel room. >> simultaneously, they searched his apartment and office at rockefeller center. >> the goal is to execute search warrants simultaneously for surprise and to make sure that nobody gets notified and the evidence disappears. >> there was a massive haul of information including documents, computer hard drives, phones, and other devices. they also seized some other crucial evidence. over 100 audio recordings. >> the president then addressed the media about it, and in very stark terms, really went after the justice department. >> president trump interrupted a critical national security meeting about looming military action against syria to denounce robert mueller, the fbi, and the raid on his lawyer's office. >> so i just heard as they broke into the office of one of my

personal attorneys. >> a good man, and it's a disgrace, frankly, a real disgrace. it's an attack on our country, attack on what we all stand for. >> hours later at 4:00 a.m., the president was clearly still engranged firing off tweets about the cohen raid including attorney-client privilege is dead. >> attorney-client privilege is not a magic wand. it's a carefully defined privilege, and anything you say to an attorney is not, by definition, privileged, and, certainly, not privileged if the attorney has had you commit a crime or conceal a crime. >> cohen was not charged with anything at the time, but the fbi's seizures already sparked a fire storm that is still burning from michael cohen and the president. he president.

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more than 1700, and rescuers continue to search after an earthquake and tsunami hit the country, another 5,000 people are still missing. and taylor swift announcing her endorsement for the former tennessee governor, phil bredesen for governor. the running record in congress, appalls and terrifies me. now back to "headliners: michael cohen." >> after the surprise raids by the fbi in april, president trump said the operation showed the problems with the special counsel problem. >> i have this witch hunt constantly going on for over 12 months now. >> the search warrant did not come from mueller's office in the first place. it came from several prosecutors in new york. >> it sounds like in mueller's investigation, he uncovered some

evidence of wrong doing by michael cohen and referred it to the southern district of new york because it did not fall within the investigation of russian interference. >> the week after the raid, the federal inkwquiry broadened, an when ordered to disclose the roster of recent clients. besides president trump, it turned out there were only two more, fox host sean hannity, and a prominent trump donor and gop official named elliot brady. >> brady, a wealthy financier, and it was reported they helped arrange another hush money payment, in this case, to a playboy play mate who said she got pregnant by elliot brady. >> brady agreed to pay that model $1.56 million to stay silent about their affair. >> it's very similar to karen's

and daniel's cases, in which a payment was made to keep embarrassing information out of the public eye. >> cohen struck the deal with the model's attorney, keith davidson, that's the same davidson representing karen and stormy daniels. mcdoug jb al, daniels, and busshard all allege he was working in collusion with cohen and against their interests. davidson denies those claims. just weeks after the fbi raid on his home and office with a legal pressure on michael cohen building, he invoked his fifth amendment right in stormy's other lawsuit, the one against trump and michael cohen to invalidate her nda, and in a live call to "fox & friends" on april 26th, the president was still defending cohen, and himself, amid speculation that campaign funds were used to pay off daniels. >> he did absolutely nothing wrong. there was no campaigns going into -- >> why is he -- >> what's the problem? because he's got other things. he's got businesses.

but i'm not involved. >> this thatsivity litigation with daniels, cohen and trump would later fold, withdrawing their part of the suit saying they would not enforce the nda. as michael's problems multiplied, many wondered how long his self-professed loyalty to donald trump would even last. >> everybody flips. >> if he flips, you're in trouble. in the following weeks, president trump turned to rudy to defend him in the court of public opinion. but then he appeared to contradict the president's on statements claiming he knew nothing about payments to stormy daniels, and a may 2nd interview with sean hannity. >> i didn't know that he did. >> intentionally or not, rudy confirmed what many had alleged, michael cohen did pay hush money to stormy daniels and the president was fully aware of the

payment. >> the president's story and his television lawyer, has been shifting and it's no coincidence they started shifting after the fbi searched michael cohen, and now all the sudden they say, yes, the president knew, and he reimbursed him. >> as the story dominated the media universe, stormy daniels made a surprise appearance on saturday night live. >> stormy? this is michael cohen, are you alone? >> yes. >> what are you wearing? >> excuse me? >> three days later, daniels' lawyer dropped another bomb on cohen. this time, allegations about his consulting business and one client, a private equity firm, linked to a russian oligarch, who had close ties to putin. nbc news reviewed financial documents that appear to support his claim that the firm paid

cohen a half million dollar consultant fee, funneled through the exact same shell company used to pay off stormy daniels. as the summer wore on, the growing sense of legal jeopardy seemed to take its toll, cohen's already strained relationship with president trump further deteriorated. >> the relationship soured, i believe, first over money, over who was going to pay for the lawyers. >> there was another problem looming. the feds seized over 1 million pieces of potential evidence from cohen, including an audio tape of the president. >> once they started the document sharing process and seeing what cohen had including those tapes, there was a sense of, this guy could bring us down. >> cohen began complaining to friends he felt abandon by the man he worked so hard to defend. >> this is a man who is increasingly angry and upset and isolated. >> on june 20th, he resigned

from the post as deputy finance chairman at the republican national committee. and after years of putting his boss first, michael cohen sent a new message in the interview with abc news saying, quote, my wife, my daughter, and my son have my first loyalty and always will. i put family and country first. >> he did not want to be seen as the guy who was going to take a bullet for the president. he wanted to be seen as the guy who was perhaps taking the president down. >> coming up, a new strategy for cohen. >> cohen hired an attorney, l lanny davis. , l lanny davis. (burke) that's what we call a huge drag. seriously, that's what we call it. officially. and we covered it. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪

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in early july 2018, that all changed. >> i think when michael cohen says donald trump's personal attorney from his resume and from the plaque on his door and from his business cards, he is saying i'm on my own now, and buyer beware. >> it was a moment where michael cohen was trying to reshape his image from this loyal fixer to a guy who was ready to tell the truth. >> cohen hired a new attorney to defend him in court, and another to defend him in the media. >> nbc tonight confirms a report from the "new york times" that cohen hired attorney lanny davis, a democratic operative, a close lincoln ally. >> lanny davis represented harvey weinstein and bill clinton's white house. >> he's known for being friendly with the clinton's, trump's arch nemesis, trump, we all know, is

obsessed with hillary clinton, so to pick lanny davis is really a way of sticking it to trump in a very public way. >> but what he's also doing is hiring a guy who's really comfortable on tv who is as much a press agent as he is a lawyer. he's out there doing all the shows, talking about how michael cohen really is not such a bad guy. >> davis made his debut of cohen's lawyer with a simple pledge about the new client tweeting, michael cohen said it's time for him to speak the truth and put family and country first. i am glad to help him. but just days after taking that high road, davis attacked the president and rudy on twitter writing, "trump-rudy next to the word "truth" equals oxy moron." >> there was a number of surrogates for president trump trying to shape a narrative about cohen that was damaging to his reputation and perhaps his

credibility. >> cohen tried to reset his public image by meeting twice with a dedicated image of president trump, the reverend al sharpton. >> he said to me, reverend al, would you pray with me? we took hands and prayed there at the table, and i said, you going to be all right? he said, yeah, i'm going to do all right for my kids. i think it's fair to say somewhere between very committed to trying to find a way to repair something for his family and very much wanting to salvage some kind of reputation to the country. and very much wants donald trump to understand he's not going to get away with just humiliating him. >> while cohen sought redemption in the public eye, his lawyer, lanny davis, was ready for a fight. he turned to cnn for a stunning revelation. >> welcome to prime time, we have one of the michael cohen

tapes. >> and donald trump heard one of the most alarming sounds a president could ever hear. his own voice in a secretly recorded conversation. >> and i've spoken to allen weisselberg how to set it up. >> that recording appears to confirm that donald trump was in the loop about that september 2016 plan to use ami to pay off karen. >> so i'm all over that. i spoke to allen about it. when it comes time to the finan financing. >> only michael cohen and donald trump know the entire substance of what they are talking about, but it's credible to believe this was absolutely about hush money. and if it was not anything other than that, they wouldn't be so concerned about how they were going to pay it and the vehicles they were going to use to pay

it. >> lanny davis appeared on cnn's soon after the tape's release arguing donald trump wanted to use cash to argue his tracks. >> everybody heard just now donald trump say the words "cash, cash" after michael cohen people who use cash are drug dealers and mobsters. >> no longer able to deny the payments in the face of that tape, rudy giuliani instead tried to claim the tape proved the president did nothing wrong. >> giuliani was out there saying, well, they paid it by check and not by cash. that doesn't matter. it doesn't matter whether it's paid directly by cohen handing a bag of money to karen mcdougal or paid through ami. but once the money is paid, the money is paid. >> many critics saw the recordings as eerily reminiscent of a another presidency in crisis.

>> there's a lot of parallels here. there are secretly recorded conversations. what we don't know yet is there going to be a tape as important in the trump-russia probe as there was in watergate, which helps end nixon's presidency. >> looking back at statements nixon made during watergate he tried the same tactics that trump is using now. >> i have never heard or seen such outrageous, vicious reporting. >> the dishonest, the most dishonest people. >> because when you don't have the facts or the law on your side, which nixon didn't, is that what you do, you attack the investigators and try to discredit the investigation so that people won't believe what's being put before them. >> and the tape michael cohen released may just be the

beginning. >> it raises the specter that he has a lot more on trump and a lot more than can just be easily proven. when you have the tapes, you have the tapes. >> coming up -- >> that bombshell plea deal means the man that used to fix donald trump's problems has now become one for the president. donald trump's problems has now become one for the president all. with drones to assess home damage sooner. and if a flying object damages your car, you can snap a photo and get your claim processed in hours, not days. plus, allstate can pay your claim in minutes. now that you know the truth... are you in good hands? with all the shrimp you want, any way you want them. try new crunchy fiesta shrimp, tortilla chip crusted and topped with a creamy blend of three cheeses. favorites like garlic shrimp scampi are back, too. so hurry in before endless shrimp ends!

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michael cohen's personal journey has many elements of a shakespearian drama. it's a story of questionable morality, burning ambition, loyalty and betrayal. and in the end retribution. the same man who told fox news this about donald trump. >> well, i'm going to do whatever it is that i can do to ensure that they leave him alone. he's a good man. >> would say this to abc news less than two years later. >> i will not be a punching bag as part of anyone's defense strategy. i am not a villain in any story

and won't allow them to depict me in that way. >> rudy giuliani's the president's attorney had previously described cohen in glowing terms on abc. >> the man is an honest, honorable lawyer. >> but after the secret tape leaked giuliani began singing a different tune about cohen on cnn. >> back against the wall who lied like crazy because he's lied all his life. >> the dog days brought the most dramatic events in the saga of michael cohen so far. that day he glad handed his way into the courthouse in manhattan not as a lawyer but admitting his guilt. >> accepting his own fate in a deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty to serious crimes including paying hush money to stoo stormy daniels to keep her quiet before the election. >> the president himself of course is described as the

person who directed cohen's crimes, and that continues to be the most important fallout from yesterday's guilty pleas. >> cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts of financial crimes including tax fraud, bank fraud and campaign finance crimes. some of these crimes are connected to the stormy daniels hush money payments. and just days after cohen's guilty pleas one of donald trump's most loyalty supporters cut a deal of his own with federal prosecutors. >> another of president trump's long time allies has turned against him. national enquirer chairman david pecker has been granted immunity. >> it was a major development from a man who'd been close friends with donald trump for years and used the national enquirer to keep his secrets. >> so david pecker as the head of ami is referenced in the information as someone who coordinated the concealment of the affair that donald trump allegedly had with karen mcdougal. now, there are any number of different reasons that the

prosecutors may have decided that it was not worth prosecuting david pecker. and it is still to be determined what information david pecker has beyond what we can read in the michael cohen criminal information. >> cohen's rev laelations quick claimed intertrump associate. >> allen eiselsberg, chief financial officer for the trump organization was granted immunity to help prosecutors in their case against the president's former lawyer. >> one wonders not only whattee knows about hushy money payments related to the campaign but what other misconduct may be out there related to the president or the trump organization. and when you go testify in a grand jury under oath, you have no choice but to tell the truth. that is an avenue that could be disastrous for the president and his children because there has

been reporting for years about some shady dealings that the trump organization has involved itself in. we don't know the details, but if anyone does know that, it's allen weisselberg. >> cohen's plea in court was a devastating blow to a president already beset with political and legal problems and signaled cohen had given up his last best hope of escaping his fate, a presidential pardon from donald trump. >> even if he were to pardon michael cohen, i don't think that would make the problems go away. it might make the problems get worse. this is starting to look like a problem that can't be solved. >> i will tell you from my reporting that michael cohen does not expect to get a pardon. >> he just kind of matter of factually said i pled guilty, i can do time. >> in some ways michael cohen surpassed the ambition of his college years but not in the way he would have wanted.

his name is forever tied to donald trump. >> no matter what happens, michael cohen is going to be part of american history because of his association with the 45th president of the united states. >> and his words and deeds, past, present or future could still change the course of an american presidency. and jared is a great young man, went to harvard. >> he's the quiet power behind the brash president. >> got right in front of trump and said this is what we're going to do and we're going to win this thing. >> but jared kushner has drawn criticism of his own. >> it's raised a whole host of questions about his business deals, and his ties with russia. >> i had no improper contact. >> when you h