WHAT’S THE STORY?
PRESIDENT Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, the man often acknowledged as long the chief fixer for The Donald, will publish a book tomorrow containing genuinely explosive revelations of Trump’s actions before and during his presidency.
The main allegation made by Cohen in the book Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J Trump, is that Trump is “guilty of the same crimes” that landed Cohen in a federal prison.
The Washington Post and Associated Press managed to secure a copy of the book and printed sensational allegations from it, and the American press has begun a feeding frenzy on its contents, especially the ones which, were he not president, could have seen Trump charged with criminal offences.
This book could not have been published in the UK as the law bans criminals from making money for their crimes. There’s no such law in the US where Cohen, who pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and other crimes, including lying to Congress, is still serving his time for his admitted crimes, though he is now under house arrest rather than in prison.
WHO IS COHEN?
A NEW York lawyer who worked for Trump for years and admits in the book that he encouraged The Donald to run for President, Cohen now says in his book that he was “one of Trump’s bad guys,” fixing things for Trump at almost every level of his activities and defending him in court and in public. Now he says Trump was “a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a conman.”
A huge turnaround, but then Cohen was trashed by Trump and his entourage, so what did they expect?
WHAT’S HE SAYING?
AMONG other things Cohen says that Trump had a “low opinion of all black folks” which included the President allegedly saying: “Tell me one country run by a black person that isn’t a s***hole. They are all complete f***ing toilets.” That corroborates earlier stories of Trump’s denigration of places such as Haiti.
According to Cohen, Trump didn’t think Nelson Mandela “was a real leader – not the kind he respected”.
Cohen also claims that Trump said “Mandela f***ed the whole country up. Now it’s a s***hole. F*** Mandela. He was no leader.”
Trump also said that Barack Obama only got into Columbia University and Harvard Law School because of “f***ing affirmative action” while he also hired a faux-Obama for a video ridiculing the former president.
WHAT IS THE MOST DAMAGING ALLEGATION?
COHEN’S account of Trump’s alleged role in a hush money scandal involving porn actress Stormy Daniels was the most vexing of all his “fixes” and the one that led to him going to jail for lying to Congress.
Stormy Daniels made claims of an extramarital affair with Trump, who, despite his later protestations, approved the $130,000 (£98,000) payment to silence Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. Cohen wrote the reasoning was not so much to do with the election, which Trump didn’t think he could win, but the fact he would “have to pay” his wife Melania a far greater sum – probably in the tens of millions – if the affair became public.
Cohen said the president later reimbursed him with “fake legal fees”, and adds that Trump said: “It never pays to settle these things, but many, many friends have advised me to pay.”
Cohen writes that Trump said: “If it comes out, I’m not sure how it would play with my supporters. But I bet they’d think it’s cool that I slept with a porn star.”
Further sexual allegations include Trump taking part in an extremely sleazy visit to a Las Vegas strip joint with some Russian acquaintances. The allegation is that Trump delighted in the same sort of “wet” sexual activity that was alleged to have involved him in Russia a few years ago.
SHOULD COHEN BE BELIEVED?
THE US has libel laws and no publishing house would print material of this calibre if it was not sure of at least a great deal of the material.
Cohen also puts himself in the dock. He compares Trump an “organised crime don” and “master manipulator”, but writes that he saw much of himself in a man he once considered a father figure.
He writes: “I thought Trump was a visionary with a no-nonsense attitude and the charisma to attract all kinds of voters,” but added he really wanted Trump in the White House because he “wanted the power that he would bring to me”.
WHAT’S TRUMP SAYING?
WHITE House spokesman Brian Morgenstern said Cohen “readily admits to lying routinely but expects people to believe him now so that he can make money from book sales.”
COULD TRUMP EVER BE PROSECUTED?
COHEN calls himself the “star witness” of a hush-money conspiracy that still could culminate in charges for Trump after he leaves office.
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