A former close personal friend and associate of US President Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, has become crucial to the case against him and any potential prosecution. Cohen once served as Trump’s personal attorney and was a senior official in the latter’s real estate company. He has appeared before the Manhattan grand jury twice to testify. Trump is the first US president, living or dead, to find himself in such a situation after the grand jury decides to charge him last week. Trump is under fire for allegedly paying actress Stormy Daniels hush money.
According to Cohen, Trump requested that he give Daniels USD 130,000 in exchange for her to remain quiet regarding an alleged sexual encounter she had with him in 2006. Cohen can be a crucial witness if the case against Trump gets to trial. Trump has disputed giving Cohen the order to compensate Daniels. He also said he had no relationship with her.
Cohen claimed that he was recruited after orchestrating the resignation of the board of directors
Cohen has made conflicting claims about Trump. In 2017, the formerly devoted Trump ally said on Fox News that he would “do anything to protect Mr Trump.” By 2019, Cohen’s perspective had shifted. He testified in front of the US Congress that year and confessed, “I am ashamed because I know what Mr Trump is. He’s a bigot. He’s a scam artist. He is a con man. In 2007, Cohen was appointed as the special attorney and executive vice president of the Trump Organization. Before that, the Long Island local and Holocaust survivor’s son practised legal malpractice and ran a company that operated a fleet of yellow taxis.
In an interview with Reuters, Cohen claimed that he was recruited after orchestrating the resignation of the board of directors of a condominium complex where he owned an apartment and which was attempting to erase Trump’s name from the building’s exterior. Though he had no official position at the White House, Cohen subsequently provided advice to Trump’s 2016 campaign and remained close to the president-elect as his personal attorney.
2018 saw the disclosure of the Daniels’ hush money payout
2018 saw the disclosure of the Daniels’ hush money payout. Cohen had previously asserted that he had used his funds to pay the prostitute. He subsequently admitted to breaking a federal campaign finance law by paying Daniels, and he later testified before Congress that Trump had instructed him to do so. He demonstrated a duplicate of a $35,000 check from Trump’s personal bank account and claimed that he was paid in instalments.
For making illegally large campaign contributions as well as other offences like filing his taxes fraudulently and lying under oath to Congress about when the Trump Organization ceased working on a proposed building project in Russia, Cohen was given a three-year prison sentence. Before being let go, Cohen spent more than a year.