Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano said the American public “learned” yesterday that federal prosecutors have evidence President Trump committed a crime.
His comments came just hours after Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for a series of crimes he committed while serving as Trump’s personal attorney and fixer.
“Career prosecutors here in New York have evidence that the president of the United States committed a felony by ordering and paying Michael Cohen to break the law,” Napolitano said while speaking on Fox News. “How do we know that? They told that to the federal judge. Under the rules, they can’t tell that to the federal judge unless they actually have that hardcore evidence. Under the rules, they can’t tell that to the federal judge unless they intend to do something with that evidence.”
Cohen’s sentence stems from eight federal charges he pleaded guilty to in August.
Among them, Cohen admitted to violating campaign finance law by paying off two women who alleged to have had affairs with Trump more than a decade ago.
Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have said that Trump directed Cohen to make the payments.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos stated in court Wednesday that Cohen “eroded faith in the electoral process” by committing the crimes.
“The felony is paying Michael Cohen to commit a felony. It’s pretty basic,” Napolitano said. “You pay someone to commit a crime, they commit the crime. You are liable, criminally liable for the commission of that crime. That’s what the prosecutors told the federal judge.”
In addition, Napolitano asserted that the agreement prosecutors reached with American Media Inc. (AMI), the parent company of the National Enquirer, “ties a bow on all of this.”
AMI on Wednesday admitted to paying $150,000 to a woman “in concert with” Trump’s presidential campaign “in order to ensure that the woman did not publicize damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election.”