(WTXL) - New York investigators have issued a subpoena to Michael Cohen.
This comes as part of their criminal probe into the Trump Foundation.
It was issued after Cohen's attorney said Cohen had information that would interest prosecutors.
State investigators are looking into whether Trump or his charity broke state law or lied about their tax liability.
Anyone charged with a state crime can not be pardoned by the President.
Could the news about Manafort and Cohen have any impact on our local elections? We asked that question to one of our political contributors, Dr. Richard Murgo.
Dr. Murgo said Michael Cohen's case has a direct effect on the presidency.
He said this is the first time we're hearing of any illegal action.
In Paul Manafort's case, he could face up to 80 years in prison.
That's basically a life sentence, but Dr. Murgo said it's possible President Trump could pardon Manafort.
Wednesday, the White House said the president hadn't been thinking about that at all.
Dr. Murgo notes neither conviction deals with any sort of collusion of Russia and that there are no charges against the president.
He said as we head towards November, voters across the country may or may not care enough to change their choices on the ballot.
"Mr. Trump is a very viable part of our local elections. So, certainly, that's going to affect the strength if he's weakened, that's going to change the perspective of a lot of our local candidates," said Dr. Murgo. "On a national level, obviously when you start talking about impeachment, we're talking very, very severe consequences. Towards the mid-term elections, this can change everything, or it could have absolutely no effect."
Dr. Murgo said whatever comes out of the Cohen case is wide open.
Congress would need to act on it, if at all.
