President Donald Trump finally responded to the 36-month sentence imposed on his longtime attorney Michael Cohen, who implicated him in a felony conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws.
The president stayed quiet on Twitter and refused to answer questions about Cohen until Thursday morning, when he issued a carefully worded denial his former attorney's allegations.
"I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law," Trump tweeted. "He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law. It is called 'advice of counsel,' and a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made. That is why they get paid."
Trump then insisted his former attorney had not broken the laws he admitted to breaking.
"Despite that many campaign finance lawyers have strongly stated that I did nothing wrong with respect to campaign finance laws, if they even apply, because this was not campaign finance," Trump tweeted. "Cohen was guilty on many charges unrelated to me, but he plead to two campaign charges which were not criminal and of which he probably was not guilty even on a civil bases."
"Those charges were just agreed to by him in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence," Trump added, "which he did-including the fact that his family was temporarily let off the hook. As a lawyer, Michael has great liability to me!"