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 fundraiser we mentioned yesterday – the one set up to cover Cohen's legal bills – has now raised more than $130,000, Clark Mindock reports.
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An update on the current war of words between Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump: The attorney general reportedly just arrived at the White House to discuss criminal sentencing reform with the president and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
In an interview aired this morning, Mr Trump criticised Mr Sessions' job performance and asked: "What kind of man is this?" Mr Sessions responded with an uncharacteristically strong statement.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump thinks his presidency deserves full marks.
“I give myself an A+. I don't think any President has ever done what I have done,” he told Fox's Ainsley Earhardt.
“We haven’t even been two years. Biggest tax cuts in history. Soon to be two unbelievable Supreme Court justices, I’m sure that Justice Kavanaugh will be approved," he added.
Andy Buncombe has more from the interview:
Some more on that immunity deal for David Pecker, the CEO of American Media Inc, from the Wall Street Journal:
Apparently, Mr Pecker got immunity in the Cohen case for giving prosecutors information about they lawyer's hush-money payments to women who claimed to have had affairs with Mr Trump. He also told prosecutors exactly how much Mr Trump – a long-time friend – knew about the dealings.
According to the WSJ, Mr Pecker's testimony informed the charging documents against Cohen, which were made public on Tuesday. As a result, both he and his company will not face charges in the case.
Senator Lindsey Graham, who is in line to become the chairman of the Judiciary Committee has weighed in on the potential for the president to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and says he should wait until after the Midterm Elections.
The president's entitled to having an attorney general he has faith in, somebody that is qualified for the job and I think there will come a time sooner rather than later where it will be time to have a new face and a fresh voice at the Department of Justice. Clearly, Attorney General Sessions doesn't have the confidence of the President", Mr Graham said.
The president has frequently railed against Mr Sessions, who recused himself from matters related to the Russia investigation because he was a part of Mr Trump's 2016 campaign.
We've got some news on the trial of Paul Manafort, Mr Trump's former campaign manager who was also convicted on Tuesday.
A juror in the case said a lone holdout prevented the jury from finding Mr Manafort guilty on all 18 counts of tax and bank fraud. The group ultimately convicted him on eight counts, and the judge declared a mistrial on the other 10.
Juror Paula Duncan said another female juror was "hung up" on the concept of reasonable doubt and could not be convinced to convict.
"We all tried to convince her to look at the paper trail," Ms Duncan said. "We laid it out in front of her again and again, and she still said that she had a reasonable doubt."
The Washington Post is reporting that Mr Trump asked his lawyers weeks ago about the possibility of pardoning Paul Manafort.
Rudy Giuliani, one of Mr Trump's lawyers, said the president felt prosecutors were "beating up" on his former campaign manager during his trial. Mr Trump asked his attorneys' advice on a pardon, but they cautioned against making such a move before special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation came to a close.
Democrats have also cautioned Mr Trump against pardoning Mr Manafort, saying that doing so would "have Watergate written all over it".
Another Republican has said he would be open to replacing Jeff Sessions, as the war of words between Mr Trump and his attorney general intensifies.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley told Bloomberg News on Thursday that he would be able to make time for hearings for a new attorney general – something he has not previously been willing to do.
Senator Lindsey Graham said earlier today that he would not be surprised if Mr Sessions was replaced soon. His comment came after Mr Trump lambasted Mr Sessions in an interview with Fox and Friends.
We have a little more from Mr Giuliani, who told the Washington Post on Thursday afternoon that Mr Trump had discussed pardoning Mr Manafort with his lawyers.
Apparently, the president has been saying for weeks that he thought his former campaign manager was being treated unfairly by prosecutors.
“He feels Manafort has been mistreated," Mr Giuliani said of the president. "Nobody in a case like this get’s raided in the middle of the night, put in solitary confinement. They tried to crack him and it didn’t work."
Mr Giuliani said the president took his lawyer's advice, and will not be considering a pardon until at least the end of the Mueller probe.
Roughly 40 per cent of Americans are still unsure whether Cohen and Manafort did anything wrong, according to a new poll from the Huffington Post and YouGov.
Just over 50 per cent say of Americans Cohen did at least something wrong, while 55 per cent say the same for Manafort. Less than 40 per cent are willing to say either man's wrongdoings are reflective of a larger problem in the White House as a whole.
The results are largely split along partisan lines, with more than three quarters of Hillary Clinton voters saying the verdicts are indicative of a larger problem in the administration. Less than 5 per cent of Trump voters would agree.
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