White House dismisses as ‘fiction’ claims made by Trump’s disgraced ex-fixer that president would ‘start a war’ to stay in office
The former “fixer” to Donald Trump, the jailed Michael Cohen, has released a tell-all book in which he admits he lied, cheated and bullied people when he worked for the President.
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The White House has dismissed as “fiction” claims made by US President Donald Trump’s disgraced ex-fixer that the president would “start a war” to stay in office.
Disbarred former personal Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who is promoting a tell-all book to be published this week, claimed his former boss would “do anything and everything” to stay in the White House.
In excerpts published over the weekend of his upcoming tell-all, Disloyal, Cohen branded Mr Trump “a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a conman”.
Cohen is currently serving a three-year sentence for fraud and describes himself as Mr Trump’s longtime “designated thug” in the book.
He admits in the book that he was “more than willing to lie, cheat, and bully” to help his boss.
Mr Trump has previously distanced himself from Cohen, who co-operated with prosecutors, saying he was “lying in order to reduce his prison time”.
“Michael Cohen was one of many lawyers who represented me (unfortunately). He had other clients also. He was just disbarred by the State Supreme Court for lying & fraud. He did bad things unrelated to Trump,” he previously tweeted.
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany released a statement on Sunday, local time, dismissing Cohen’s claims after several media outlets published sensational excerpts of Disloyal, which is to be published on Tuesday.
“Michael Cohen is a disgraced felon and disbarred lawyer, who lied to Congress. He has lost all credibility, and it’s unsurprising to see his latest attempt to profit off of lies,” McEnany said.
Another White House spokesman described the book, in which Cohen claims that he still feels “a lot of affection” for Mr Trump, as “fan fiction”.
Cohen was found guilty of fraud for facilitating hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in the lead up to the 2016 election, as well as tax fraud and lying to congress. He is currently serving his federal prison term in home detention due to COVID-19.
Cohen claims his book reveals decades of dodgy business practices by the Trump Organization and makes a number of sordid allegations.
He alleges Mr Trump made racist comments about his predecessor, Barack Obama, for whom he felt “hatred and contempt”, as well as disparaging black and Hispanic voters.
“I will never get the Hispanic vote. Like the blacks, they’re too stupid to vote for Trump. They’re not my people,” Cohen claims Trump said in response to his lagging polling with minorities.
Cohen quotes Mr Trump saying: “Tell me one country run by a black person that isn’t a s—hole. They are all complete f—king toilets”.
Cohen also writes that the three adult Trump children, Ivanka, Eric and Don Jr, had asked Cohen to persuade their father to quit his presidential campaign in 2015 because it was bad for business.
“MC, you’ve got to get dad to stop the campaign. It’s killing the company,” Cohen claims Ivanka said to him.
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Cohen also claims Mr Trump, for whom he worked from 2006 to 2018, knew about the payment he facilitated to women who claimed they had affairs with then-candidate Trump.
He admits that he used his money to commit what was found to be a breach of campaign finance laws to pay off Daniels and another woman, but he says Mr Trump was fully aware of the deal and reimbursed him with “fake legal fees”.
“It never pays to settle these things, but many, many friends have advised me to pay,” Cohen claims Mr 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.”
And he reveals personal details about Mr Trump’s notorious hairdo, describing it as a “three step” comb-over that he uses to cover unsightly scars from a botched hair transplant operation.
Originally published as White House dismisses as ‘fiction’ claims made by Trump’s disgraced ex-fixer that president would ‘start a war’ to stay in office