Trump news latest updates: President picks fight with attorney general Jeff Sessions after Michael Cohen's guilty plea
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Donald Trump's day of disaster is rapidly becoming one of the worst weeks of his presidency.
The White House is insisting the president has done nothing wrong in connection with the legal woes of his former personal attorney and says the leader is not the subject of criminal charges.
Mr Trump has accused Michael Cohen of lying under pressure of prosecution and says the hush money paid to two women who allege sexual encounters with the him years ago is not a campaign violation because the money did not come from campaign funds.
Instead, Mr Trump claimed he personally had made the payments, in an apparent effort to stem the crisis.
That argument stands in contrast to Mr Cohen's guilty plea to campaign finance violations that he says he carried out in coordination with Mr Trump.
Mr Cohen says he used shell companies to make payments for silencing former Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult-film actress Stormy Daniels for the purpose of influencing the 2016 election.
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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a conversation with his father was one of the main reasons Cohen decided to flip on the president.
Cohen's father, a Holocaust survivor, reportedly encouraged his son not to protect Mr Trump, saying he didn't survive the war to have his reputation ruined by the president.
Cohen later tweeted his criticism of Mr Trump's "zero tolerance" immigration policy, saying that "as the son of a Polish holocaust survivor, the images and sounds of this family separation policy [are] heart wrenching".
Democrats are continuing to use Tuesday's developments to cast doubt on Mr Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.
Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has already called for Mr Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing to be postponed, and at least one Democratic senator has cancelled a meeting with the nominee.
This morning, Senator Richard Blumenthal said he had no plans to meet with Mr Kavanaugh before the Cohen and Manafort convictions, and that he "certainly will not meet with him now".
"This meeting would be an empty, deceptive charade after his evasive and meaningless answers to my colleagues," Mr Blumenthal added.
An attorney for one of the women Cohen admitted to paying off says he wants to depose both the president and his lawyer.
"The American people deserve to know the truth about the conduct of Trump and his cover-up. And we intend on disclosing it," tweeted Michael Avenatti, an attorney for adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Mr Avenatti said he would be "moving quickly" to have the court rule on a pending motion to depose Mr Trump and Cohen.
A good explainer from Joe Sommerlad on how presidential pardons work. Cohen has said he won't accept a pardon from Mr Trump, and Democrats have warned Mr Trump not try pardoning Mr Manafort.
But if 2018 has taught us anything, it's to expect the unexpected...
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times reports that White House staffers are getting frustrated about the "lack of a plan or guidance" around response a to the Cohen plea. Chief of Staff John Kelly has reportedly distanced himself from the situation, Ms Haberman said in a tweet.
Adding insult to injury, the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission has demanded Cohen give up the 10 taxi medallions he owns, Politico reports.
Commission rules allow the group to strip medallions from anyone with a felony conviction. Cohen can attempt to sell them, though he's unlikely to get a good price: The value of taxi medallions has fallen significantly since the spread of apps like Uber and Lyft.
"He's certainly having to sell them at the lowest price in decades," David Yassky, the city's former taxi commissioner, said.
Federal prosecutors have granted immunity to David Pecker, the CEO of American Media Inc, in the Cohen case, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Cohen confessed on Tuesday to working with AMI to buy and bury the story of at least one woman who claimed to have had an affair with Mr Trump. Mr Pecker has reportedly met with prosecutors to discuss the president's involvement in the deal.
Prosecutors also reportedly indicated that Dylan Howard, chief content officer of AMI, will not be charged in the case.
The Senate judiciary committee has contacted Cohen's attorney about what information the president's long-time fixer could provide to the panel.
Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley told Bloomberg News the committee had reached out to Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis, but had not heard back.
Members of the committee have mixed feelings about opening an investigation into Cohen's claims about Mr Trump. Senator Lindsey Graham, for instance, said he didn't support the idea because he didn't want to "cross paths with ongoing criminal investigations".
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has responded to Mr Trump's latest attacks, saying that his office "will not be improperly influenced by political considerations".
Mr Trump lashed out at the attorney general in a Fox and Friends interview aired Thursday morning, saying Mr Sessions had failed to "take control" of the Justice Department and had erred in recusing himself from the Russian investigation.
In a statement issued Thursday afternoon, Mr Sessions said: "I took control of the Department of Justice the day I was sworn in, which is why we have had unprecedented success at effectuating the President's agenda."
See Mr Sessions' full response below.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has been in touch with an attorney for Cohen about testifying in front of the panel, Bloomberg News reports.
Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said he had reached out to the attorney, Lanny Davis, about what kind of information Cohen could provide.
"When some lawyer says that somebody’s willing to testify, well, what do they have to tell us? I want some idea that they’ve got something of substance to tell us," Mr Grassley told Bloomberg.
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