New York Times: Cohen Implicates President Trump. What Do Prosecutors Do Now?

WASHINGTON — When a lawyer tells prosecutors that his client directed him to commit a crime and pleads guilty to related crimes himself, an indictment of the client is very likely to follow.

The nation is about to find out whether there is an exception to that general rule when the client is the president of the United States. …

“We’re talking potential years of jail time if he’s not the sitting president but was instead a civilian candidate,” said Paul S. Ryan, the vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause, which filed campaign finance complaints based on the payments made to the women connected to Mr. Trump.

Mr. Edwards was not convicted — the jury acquitted him on one of the counts and could not come to a decision on the rest of them. But, Mr. Ryan said, prosecutors in New York “have a much stronger case for a variety of reasons against Team Trump.”