President Donald Trump has insisted he "never directed" his former lawyer Michael Cohen to break the law.
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Trump's comments come a day after Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for crimes including arranging hush money payments to conceal Trump's alleged affairs.
Cohen and federal prosecutors have said the payments were made at Trump's direction to influence the 2016 election.
Trump has denied the affairs and argued the payments to the two women - Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult-film star Stormy Daniels - were not campaign contributions.
In a series of early morning tweets on Thursday, Trump said Cohen only pleaded guilty "in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence, which he did."
"I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law," he said.
"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.
"Cohen was guilty on many charges unrelated to me," Trump said.
Trump asserted that "this was not campaign finance".
The president has gone from denying knowledge of the payments to saying they would have been private transactions that were not illegal.
Prosecutors have implicated Trump in a crime but have not directly accused him of one.
Australian Associated Press