Donald Trump bleeds as courts rip off his band-aides

(From left) Michael Cohen, former personal lawyer for US President Donald Trump, Trump and his former campaign manager Paul Manafort. Pic/AFP

Donald Trump has suffered a double blow after his former campaign chief Paul Manafort was found guilty of fraud and his ex lawyer Michael Cohen admitted to paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 US election.

In a stunning admission that implicates Trump, Cohen pleaded guilty to buying the silence of two women about their alleged affairs with Trump. Cohen, 51, pleaded guilty in the Southern District of New York to charges of tax evasion, making false statements to a federally-insured bank, and campaign finance violations.

The most-stunning admission he made in court was that in 2016, Cohen had made payments of $2,80,000 to silence two women, who otherwise planned to speak publicly about their alleged affairs with a presidential candidate, thereby "intending to influence the 2016 presidential election". Trump has not been named by federal prosecutors in the charges against Cohen but has been identified as "Individual 1".

The extraordinary admission came minutes after Trump's former campaign chairman Manafort was convicted of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account.

'Where's the collusion?'
Continuing his tirade against special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation on alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, Trump hit out at the former, saying "where is the collusion". Addressing a rally, he said, "Fake news and the Russian witch hunt. We've got a whole big combination. Where is the collusion? You know they're still looking for collusion. Where is the collusion? Find us some collusion. We want to find the collusion."

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