Donald Trump’s longtime lawyer and ‘fixer’ Michael Cohen delivered a scathing tell-all interview today where he said his former boss directed him to negotiate hush payments in order to benefit Trump and his campaign – implicating his ex-boss in a crime.
Cohen told ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos on ‘Good Morning America’ that ‘of course’ the President knew it was wrong to pay off two women, and said he had only an advisory role in the $150,000 that went to former Playboy model Karen McDougal as part of a plan prosecutors say was hatched by Trump, Cohen, and National Enquirer boss David Pecker.
Cohen’s disclosures came as Trump was in increasing legal peril over the $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, which Cohen made through an LLC he had set up for the purpose, and the payoff to McDougal in exchange for the ‘life rights’ to her story of an affair.
Both women claim they had affairs with Trump.
Donald Trump and adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2005.
Cohen and Pecker have both admitted to the scheme happening and admitted it was a crime – Pecker through a non-prosecution deal and Cohen in his guilty plea.
Cohen, who had an office just twenty feet away from Trump’s for years, also provided new details on his role regarding a $150,000 payment that National Enquirer publisher American Media Inc. made to bury McDougal’s story, and put it in the context of Trump’s furious effort to capture the White House.
‘Of course’ Trump knew what he was doing was wrong, said Cohen, who regretted his ‘blind loyalty’ to his longtime employer.
‘And he was doing that to help his election?’ asked Stephanopoulos.
‘You have to remember at what point in time that this matter came about – two weeks or so before the election. Post the Billy Bush [“p**** tape”] comments, so, yes, he was very concerned about how this would affect the election,’ Cohen replied.
‘To help his campaign?’ the host inquired.
‘To help him and the campaign,’ Cohen responded.
Trump has spent weeks blasting Cohen on Twitter.
“I never directed him to do anything wrong,” Trump said yesterday. “Whatever he did he did on his own. I never directed him to do anything incorrect or wrong.”
Cohen told Stephanopoulos that he doesn’t think anybody believes Trump’s defense.
“First of all, nothing at the Trump Organization was ever done unless it was run through Mr. Trump,” Cohen said. “He directed me to make the payments, he directed me to become involved in these matters.”
“He knows the truth. I know the truth. Others know the truth,” he continued. “And here is the truth: People of the United States of America, people of the world, don’t believe what he is saying. The man doesn’t tell the truth. And it is sad that I should take responsibility for his dirty deeds.”
Cohen told ABC News that he also knew what he was doing was wrong.
“I stood up before the world and I accepted the responsibility for my actions,” he said of his sentencing.
In a court document released this week, the National Enquirer publisher, American Media Inc., admitted to coordinating a hush-money payment with Trump’s 2016 campaign, reversing two years of denials.
Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano said the American public “learned” this week that federal prosecutors have evidence Trump committed a crime.
“The felony is paying Michael Cohen to commit a felony. It’s pretty basic,” Napolitano said. “You pay someone to commit a crime, they commit the crime. You are liable, criminally liable for the commission of that crime. That’s what the prosecutors told the federal judge.”
In addition, Napolitano asserted that the agreement prosecutors reached with American Media Inc. (AMI), the parent company of the National Enquirer, “ties a bow on all of this.”