President claims his former attorney wrote ‘love letter’ for his book
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has claimed his former attorney Michael Cohen wrote a “love letter to Trump” manuscript for a book he was hoping to write after working for the president during his rise to prominence and, eventually, the White House.
“Wow, just revealed that Michael Cohen wrote a ‘love letter to Trump’ manuscript for a new book that he was pushing,” the president tweeted yesterday morning. “Written and submitted long after Charlottesville and Helsinki, his phony reasons for going rogue.
“Book is exact opposite of his fake testimony,” he added, “which now is a lie!”
Mr Cohen revealed in an explosive public testimony on Wednesday that he had intentions to write a book at some point about his experiences working for Mr Trump.
The president’s former lawyer had said in his testimony on Wednesday that he was seemingly appalled by Mr Trump’s actions surrounding the Charlottesville white nationalist protests that led to the death of activist Heather Heyer, as well as his performance on the national stage during a controversial summit in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Mr Trump’s claims yesterday appeared to allege that Mr Cohen was writing a book that was favourable towards the president despite the personal stances he shared towards these issues with the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.
“Congress must demand the transcript of Michael Cohen’s new book, given to publishers a short time ago,” Mr Trump continued in a follow-up tweet.
“Your heads will spin when you see the lies, misrepresentations and contradictions against his Thursday testimony. Like a different person! He is totally discredited!” the president wrote.
The allegations Mr Cohen’s book proposals featured positive descriptions of the president appeared to come from Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, who made the claims on the Thursday night episode of his show.
Mr Carlson claimed: “Cohen wrote the book proposal long after Charlottesville and Helsinki.”
The Fox News host appeared to be citing a ‘Daily Mail’ report, reporter Matthew Gertz noted on Twitter.
The headline for that story read: “Exclusive: ‘Crazy, Dumb, Paranoid, Liar’ – these things have been said about my boss...None of it is true!’ Inside Michael Cohen’s ‘$750,000’ book deal and how he pitched the proposal praising Trump just weeks before the FBI raided his office.”
The outlet claimed to have reviewed a copy of the manuscript, writing: “At the time he had nothing but good things to say about his boss who had entered the White House a little more than a year earlier.”
The president continued angrily tweeting throughout the morning, writing, “Oh I see! Now that the two year Russian collusion case has fallen apart, there was no collusion except by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats,
‘Your heads will spin when you see the lies’
they say, ‘gee, I have an idea, let’s look at Trump’s finances and every deal he has ever done’.
“‘Let’s follow discredited Michael Cohen and the fraudulent and dishonest statements he made on Wednesday’.
“No way,” he added. “It’s time to stop this corrupt and illegally brought witch hunt. Time to start looking at the other side where real crimes were committed.
“Republicans have been abused long enough. Must end now!”
Mr Trump wrote later in the morning about Mr Cohen’s supposed book, saying: “Michael Cohen’s book manuscript shows that he committed perjury on a scale not seen before. He must have forgotten about his book when he testified.
“What does Hillary Clinton’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, say about this one?
“Is he being paid by Crooked Hillary? Using her lawyer?” he wrote.
For more than a decade, Mr Cohen had been a loyal Trump aide.
He spoke to the press on Mr Trump’s behalf, wrangled business deals, threatened detractors and occasionally helped suppress unfavourable news stories for him.
Mr Cohen broke with Mr Trump last year and pleaded guilty to charges including that he lied to Congress about a Trump real-estate project in Russia and made prohibited campaign contributions in the form of payments to two women who say they had affairs with Mr Trump.
Mr Cohen spoke to the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday and is scheduled for another closed-door session on March 6.
He is due to start a threeyear prison sentence in May. (© Independent News Service)