Posted August 23, 2018 00:38:38

US President Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen would not accept a presidential pardon, his lawyer says, a day after Mr Cohen pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges and said he acted at the direction of Mr Trump.

In a round of television interviews, Mr Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis, said his client wanted no part in what he saw as the president's abuse of his clemency power.

Mr Cohen also questioned Mr Trump's loyalty to the United States and saw him as unfit to hold office, Mr Davis added.

"He will not, and does not want anything from Donald Trump," Mr Davis told MSNBC.

In dramatic testimony on Tuesday, Mr Cohen told a federal court in Manhattan that Mr Trump had directed him to arrange payments ahead of the 2016 presidential election to silence two women who said they had affairs with Mr Trump.

He pleaded guilty to charges of tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations.

His plea came as former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was found guilty on eight charges in his financial fraud trial stemming from the federal investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election and possible coordination with the Trump campaign.

The two findings of guilt ratchet up the political pressure for Mr Trump and fellow Republicans ahead of November's congressional elections in which Democrats are seeking to regain control of Congress.

It also increases pressure on Mr Trump personally.

Representatives for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Mr Trump would consider pardoning Mr Cohen, but Mr Trump himself dismissed his former longtime lawyer in a post on Twitter on Wednesday.

Two of Trump's inner circle are now convicted felons and the hounds are getting closer to the gates, writes Sandeep Gopalan.

"If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don't retain the services of Michael Cohen!" Mr Trump wrote.

Trump counsel Rudy Giuliani has said there is no allegation of wrongdoing in the charges against Mr Cohen.

While Mr Cohen did not name Mr Trump in court on Tuesday, Mr Davis again on Wednesday accused the President of being directly involved.

Mr Davis has said he believes Mr Cohen had information that would be of interest to Mr Mueller, and in his interview with MSNBC on Wednesday suggested that it was directly tied to Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 election.

Moscow has denied findings from the US intelligence community that Russia interfered with the election with the aim of boosting Mr Trump and hampering his Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton.

Mr Trump has also denied any collusion with his campaign.

Mr Cohen had "information … regarding both knowledge of a conspiracy to corrupt American democracy by the Russians and the failure to report that knowledge to the FBI", Mr Davis told MSNBC.

He added, on CNN, that Mr "Cohen has knowledge that would be of interest to the Special Counsel about whether Donald Trump knew ahead of time about the hacking of emails".

A US grand jury has indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers on charges of hacking the computer networks of Ms Clinton's campaign and the Democratic Party.

Reuters

Topics: crime, fraud-and-corporate-crime, law-crime-and-justice, prisons-and-punishment, world-politics, donald-trump, us-elections, united-states