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As it happenedended1535106173

Trump news latest updates: President picks fight with attorney general Jeff Sessions after Michael Cohen's guilty plea

Chris Riotta,Andrew Griffin,Emily Shugerman
Thursday 23 August 2018 17:57 EDT
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Sarah Sanders: It is a "ridiculous accusation" to say Trump has ever lied

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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 tweet below is from Peter Striss, who represented model Karen McDougal in the dispute with American Media Inc, which bought and buried her story about an alleged affair with Mr Trump.

Kristin Hugo23 August 2018 22:00
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Rudy Giuliani, one of Mr Trump's lawyers, says the American people would "revolt" if the president was impeached.

Asked whether it was "inevitable" that Mr Trump would be impeached after Tuesday's developments, Mr Giuliani said: "Hardly. I think it’s inevitable that he won’t. President Trump is completely cleared.”

More from reporter Chris Riotta here:

Kristin Hugo23 August 2018 22:15
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Amidst all the legal drama at home, Stormy Daniels – the first women to speak publicly about being paid off by Cohen – is in the UK. According to her Instagram, she visited Stonehenge today.

Kristin Hugo23 August 2018 22:30
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Congressman Elijah Cummings says the House Oversight Committee would like Cohen to tell them "what the president knew [and] when he knew it."

"He’s just accused the president of the United State of crimes – two, as a matter of act .. So, in fairness to the president and in fairness to the American people, we want to bring him in," said Mr Cummings, the top Democrat on the committee.

The congressman told MSNBC he'd like to bring the president's former attorney before the panel "sooner rather than later".

Kristin Hugo23 August 2018 22:44
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A new Reuters poll shows Mr Trump's popularity took a hit among Republicans in the wake of the Cohen and Manafort convictions. 

The president's approval rating fell 3 per cent among Republicans compared to a poll taken on Monday, the day before the convictions were announced. His approval rating among Democrats dropped by 4 per cent, to just 11 per cent total.

Only 37 per cent of all Americans said they approved of the president at the end of the week – down from 43 per cent on Monday.

Kristin Hugo23 August 2018 23:00

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