Loyalty led me to take path of darkness says Trump lawyer as he is jailed
DONALD Trump’s former lawyer launched a blistering attack on his former boss last night as he was sentenced to three years in prison for multiple crimes.
Michael Cohen, who arranged for ‘hush money’ payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and another woman during the 2016 presidential election campaign, told the judge it was his job to cover up Mr Trump’s ‘dirty deeds’.
As he pleaded for leniency, Cohen said of Mr Trump: ‘It was my blind loyalty to this man that led me to take a path of darkness instead of light. It was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds.’
Cohen, pictured yesterday, said he was taking responsibility for his crimes ‘ including those implicating the President of the United States of America’. The 52-year-old once vowed he would ‘take a bullet’ for his boss. But the President has since dismissed him as a liar.
Cohen’s lawyers had asked US District Judge William H Pauley III not to hand down a jail term after he pleaded guilty to tax evasion related to his personal businesses, making false statements to a financial institution, illegal campaign contributions, and making false statements to Congress.
The payments were made in the waning days of the 2016 election to Miss Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, both of whom said they had sexual encounters with Trump.
Judge Pauley sentenced Cohen to three years in jail. The judge said: ‘Somewhere along the way Mr Cohen appears to have lost his moral compass. As a lawyer, Mr Cohen should have known better.’
Cohen will serve his term concurrently with a two-month sentence he was given for lying to Congress about a possible Trump Tower project in Moscow, a charge levelled by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The judge gave Cohen until March 6 to report to prison.
He was also ordered to forfeit nearly $2million (£1.6million).
Mr Trump has sought to minimise the importance of the hush money payments saying they were a ‘simple private transaction’ and not campaign contributions.