Washington Post: After fast turn against Trump, Michael Cohen threatens to leverage secrets against the president

Washington Post: Trump's claims about Cohen's campaign-finance admissions make no sense, experts say

“You have to follow the money and figure out who was in on the decisions and who wasn’t in on the decisions," said Stephen Spaulding, chief of strategy for the watchdog group Common Cause. "We don’t have the answers to that. “It sounds like it wasn’t just Donald Trump and Michael Cohen sitting in a room together.”

Michael Cohen was a man in a bind.

For years, the longtime lawyer for Donald Trump had been taking out larger and larger loans, using his taxicab business as collateral even as it dropped in value — at least once using one loan to pay off another.

At the same time, he was pocketing money from various financial deals, such as sales of a property in Florida and a luxury Birkin handbag, and hiding the income from the IRS.

Federal prosecutors had collected more than a million documents about his financial dealings and his efforts to suppress negative stories about Trump and were threatening to charge him with crimes that could result in a decade or more in prison. …

Stephen Spaulding, chief of strategy for the watchdog group Common Cause, said the invoices could pose legal jeopardy for the company and the executives involved.

“You have to follow the money and figure out who was in on the decisions and who wasn’t in on the decisions. We don’t have the answers to that,” he said. “It sounds like it wasn’t just Donald Trump and Michael Cohen sitting in a room together.”