The charging documents for Michael Cohen's guilty plea on eight criminal counts Tuesday lays out the so-called "catch-and-kill" agreement Cohen facilitated with the National Enquirer to cover up Donald Trump's affairs—at the direction of Trump himself.
The document notes the scheme to "suppress" two stories about Trump (Individual-1) and "prevent them from influencing the election" was hatched in August of 2015 between Cohen and the CEO of American Media Inc., which owns the National Enquirer, David Pecker (Chairman-1).
At Tuesday’s hearing in the Manhattan federal court, this was the moment where Cohen admitted to the judge that he had acted to cover up information that would have harmed Trump "in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office,” (i.e. Trump).
The charging document states:
In or about August 2015, the Chairman and Chief Executive of Corporation-1 ("Chairman-1"), in coordination with MICHAEL COHEN, the defendant, and one or more members of the campaign, offered to help deal with negative stories about Individual-1's relationship with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided. Chairman-1 agreed to keep COHEN apprised of any such negative stories.
That “Corporation,” says the document, informed Cohen of "negative stories" and then both Cohen and American Media arranged "for the purchase of two stories so as to suppress them and prevent them from influencing the election." The two stories clearly concerned Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
And in case you had any question, Cohen's guilty plea directly implicates Trump in a campaign finance violation.
It also shows how Trump, Cohen, and Pecker worked together to silence the voices of women and defraud American voters.