TOPLINE
President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen released the foreword to his forthcoming tell-all about the president, which makes unflattering allegations about Trump’s personal life and presidential campaign, including that he participated in “golden showers in a sex club in Vegas,” engaged in tax fraud and “cheated in the election, with Russian connivance.”
KEY FACTS
In the foreword for Disloyal, Cohen says, “From golden showers in a sex club in Vegas, to tax fraud, to deals with corrupt officials from the former Soviet Union, to catch and kill conspiracies to silence Trump’s clandestine lovers, I wasn’t just a witness to the president’s rise—I was an active and eager participant.”
Cohen claims that Trump “colluded with the Russians, but not in the sophisticated ways imagined by his detractors,” adding the Mueller investigation “was not a witch-hunt” because Trump “had cheated in the election, with Russian connivance.”
The foreword also says that Cohen lied to Trump’s wife, Melania, to hide affairs and that Trump “has no true friends because he “lived his entire life avoiding and evading taking responsibility for his actions.”
Trump’s attorney’s have tried to stop the book’s publication, and a judge ruled last month Cohen was retaliated against by the Justice Department over the book’s publication.
There is no official release date, but Cohen has said he wants the book to come out before the November election.
CRUCIAL QUOTE
“Both sides were wrong. I knew that the reality was much more complicated and dangerous. Trump had colluded with the Russians, but not in the sophisticated ways imagined by his detractors. I also knew that the Mueller investigation was not a witch-hunt. Trump had cheated in the election, with Russian connivance, as you will discover in these pages, because doing anything—and I mean anything—to ‘win’ has always been his business model and way of life.”
KEY BACKGROUND
Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison in 2018 for campaign-finance violations stemming from payoffs to adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, as well as lying to Congress about discussions surrounding a proposed Trump Tower in Moscow during the 2016 presidential campaign. Cohen is serving the remainder of his sentence at his New York City home as federal prisons have sought to clear out low-level offenders to reduce the risk of coronavirus outbreaks. He was disbarred in New York State in 2019.
