Don knew, duh!
Cohen: Honey money was ‘run through’ Trump
Convicted stooge Michael Cohen said “of course” President Trump was aware that hush-money payments to two women ahead of the 2016 election were wrong — and that the secret payments were arranged due to calm Trump's election fears.
“Nothing at the Trump Organization was ever done unless it was run through Mr. Trump,” Trump's former lawyer told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos in his first interview since being sentenced Wednesday for a range of crimes.
Cohen has admitted to arranging the payments to buy the silence of porn actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal in the run-up to the presidential election — and implicated the President in the process.
“He directed me to make the payments, he directed me to become involved in these matters,” he said Friday.
The 52-year-old “fixer” said his former mentor was “very concerned with how this would affect the election” if the alleged affairs came to light.
Cohen said he acted out of “blind loyalty” to Trump.
While prosecutors from the Southern District of New York have not charged Trump, they have made clear they believe Cohen's claims that he worked “in coordination and at the direction” of the President to pay off McDougal and Daniels, who both claimed to have had trysts with the former reality TV host a decade earlier.
Trump is apparently referred to in court documents as “Individual 1.”
Cohen, 52, was given a three-year prison sentence Wednesday for a “veritable smorgasbord of fraudulent conduct” that includes the hush-money payments as well as bank fraud, lying to Congress and tax evasion.
“I knew what I was doing was wrong,” Cohen told Stephanopoulos. “I stood up before the world and I accepted the responsibility for my actions.”
Trump — who initially claimed he didn't know about the payments and has denied the affairs — is now denying that they were campaign contributions and tweeted Thursday that he “never directed Michael Cohen to break the law.” Not true, said Cohen. “I don't think there's anybody that believes that. First of all, nothing at the Trump Organization was ever done unless it was run through Mr. Trump,” he said. “He directed me as I said in my allocution.”
The embattled barrister also said that special counsel Robert Mueller's team — investigating the Trump campaign and administration's Russia ties — possess a “substantial amount of information” that corroborates Cohen's statements.
Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about his work on a possible Trump real estate project in Moscow and said he did so to be consistent with Trump's "political messaging."
Those charges were brought by Mueller's office.
Investigators for the special counsel's office also found that Cohen was in contact with a Russian national during the lead up to the 2016 election who offered to establish “political synergy” with Trump's campaign.
The former fixer said he is continuing to cooperate with investigators.