M-S-S-W Media.

On Wednesday morning,

former Trump attorney Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison.

During the sentencing hearing, everyone in the courtroom, including the federal judge,

concluded that Donald Trump directed him to commit crimes.

On the same day, federal prosecutors in New York announced an agreement with the company that owns the National Inquirer.

As part of that deal, the company agreed that the hush money payments that it facilitated were

primarily designed to influence the election.

One day earlier, Russian spy Maria Bhutina agreed to plead guilty and

cooperate with all state and federal investigations,

including the investigation headed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

What do these latest revelations mean for the Trump presidency? Let's get on topic. Welcome to On Topic, a weekly in-depth look at a topic that helps us understand the week's news.

My name is Renato Mariati.

I'm a former federal prosecutor, a practicing lawyer, and a CNN legal analyst.

And I'm joined by my friend Patty Vasquez,

a WGM radio host who will join us regularly on this podcast.

All right, so Patty, ever since last Friday, when the prosecutors in New York filed a statement saying that Michael

Cohen had been directed by Donald Trump to commit these campaign

finance violations, I've been you know trying to think about what this means in a

broader context. I mean obviously you know it certainly has some significant impact.

I talked about it. We discussed it with Neil Kotziel over the weekend. But the question

I think has been in my mind, what, where does this lead us from here?

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