Legal & cash woes may spur Trump lawyer to talk
MICHAEL COHEN’S world is crumbling and he may have no other choice than to cooperate with the federal investigators probing his finances, according to a detailed report Saturday.
President Trump’s longtime “fixer” and personal attorney owns a taxi business that’s deeply in debt and losing money daily, his commercial real estate is earning only a modest income and his legal and consulting work remains on hold while he’s under investigation, Bloomberg News reported.
FBI agents raided Cohen’s office, home and hotel room earlier this month seeking records about a nondisclousre agreement the lawyer had porn star Stormy Daniels sign in the days before the 2016 presidential election.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has said she had an affair with Trump in 2006 and has sued Cohen, alleging defamation, and is seeking to dissolve the confidentiality agreement.
A judge Friday delayed the civil suit against Cohen, who has invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, citing the criminal investigation he’s facing.
The 51-year-old, who drives a white Rolls-Royce, sports a $50,000 watch and often wears $5,000 sports coats, has tried to project nonchalance by smoking cigars with pals and maintaining his lavish lunch routines.
But Cohen’s public show of playing it cool may mask a more tenuous financial picture.
Cohen and his wife, Laura, own 32 New York City taxi licenses — known as medallions. The couple have taken out at least 16 loans based on their once-soaring value, Bloomberg noted.
The Daily News has previously reported that the Cohens owe $53,836 in unpaid taxi taxes, according to the state’s Department of Taxation and Finance.
The couple’s bank said in a November public filing that it had loans out to three taxi borrowers, and all were at high risk of default.
Unpaid taxes and fines have piled up at the Cohen taxi companies, triggering a suspension of about half of the medallions, city records show.
The taxi business isn’t Cohen’s only problem.
Cohen said he borrowed from his home-equity credit line to make a $130,000 payment in October 2016 to Daniels.
Trump answered questions about Daniels for the first time earlier this month and said he had no knowledge of the payment and didn’t know where Cohen (photo) had gotten the money.
The White House has repeatedly said Trump denies the affair. Trump said Thursday on “Fox & Friends” that Cohen handles very little of his legal work, but did represent him in the “crazy Stormy Daniels deal.”
Cohen has denied any wrongdoing.
Cohen, facing possible charges for bank fraud and violating campaign-finance laws, does have millions tied up in real estate holdings across the city, Bloomberg notes.
Cohen is linked to companies that own two investment properties purchased in 2015.
The larger one, with 92 units on New York’s Upper East Side, is 38% owned by Cohen’s companies and a downtown building with 20 units.
Together they likely generate less than $1 million in annual net income after accounting for partner interests, expenses and financing costs, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Last October, the Cohens sold a unit at Trump World Tower, near the United Nations, for $3.3 million.
Cohen previously owned four buildings in need of repairs in Lower Manhattan, rehabilitated them and sold them for $32 million in 2014, more than doubling his initial investment, according to Bloomberg.
But his decade at Trump’s side as his lawyer and enforcer could yield information he might trade to investigators looking into the Trump campaign and Russia’s interference in the U.S. election.
Trump has bristled at the prospect of his longtime lawyer flipping and cooperating with prosecutors.
“Most people will flip if the Government lets them out of trouble,” even if “it means lying or making up stories,” the President tweeted last weekend from his West Palm Beach, Fla., golf club. “Sorry, I don’t see Michael doing that despite the horrible Witch Hunt and the dishonest media!”