Donald Trump screws up and confesses to felony, accidentally waives attorney-client privilege

| 9:10 pm EST December 11, 2018
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Donald Trump’s new interview with Reuters is turning out to be the gift that keeps on giving. The deeper we read into it tonight, the more it becomes clear just how much damage Trump has done to himself here. The most stunning of all: he just flat out confessed to one of the felonies he’s just been formally accused of. In the process he’s also accidentally waived attorney-client privilege.

Here is Trump’s exact quote about his felony campaign finance violations during the election: “Number one, it wasn’t a campaign contribution. If it were, it’s only civil, and even if it’s only civil, there was no violation based on what we did. OK?” In this quote, Trump is flat out admitting that he and Cohen did conspire to make the payoffs in question. Yes, he’s arguing that the payoffs weren’t a crime, but that carries no legal weight; what matters here is that he’s confessing to the criminal action in question.

Why does this matter? The first reason is obvious: if the SDNY does end up putting him on criminal trial for this felony down the road, the jury will have to all but automatically find Donald Trump guilty, based on the fact that he has confessed.

The second reason could end up being relevant sooner. Trump just admitted to having conspired with his former attorney Michael Cohen to commit a felony. This means that attorney-client privilege is out the window. We know that Cohen gave prosecutors a lot of dirt on Trump. But there were likely at least a few matters in which Cohen couldn’t give Trump up, because they fell within the narrow parameters of Cohen’s actions as Trump’s pseudo-attorney. But now Cohen can dish on it after all.