President Donald Trump's former fixer and personal attorney, Michael Cohen told CNN that he is staking a claim to Trump’s $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund, and he doesn’t care that Trump hates him.
By filing papers, Cohen is joining the ranks of Trump ally Michael Caputo and January 6, 2021 rioters who are also looking for a taxpayer-funded payout for what they consider the weaponization of the justice system, despite outcry from critics.
“The first time [I was wronged] … an IRS agent out of San Francisco downloaded my information, put it on a thumb drive, improperly used the finance system, and then gave that thumb drive to Michael Avenatti, who gave it to Ronan Farrow and then reported on it,” Cohen told CNN anchor Jake Tapper. The second incident, Cohen said, involved an individual who stole Donald Trump's tax documents, to leak to the press also stole Cohen’s.
Tapper delivered some pushback, asking if Ronan Farrow's article resulted “in your being prosecuted?”
“What I'm suggesting is that it's improper for my tax documents to be released,” Cohen answered. “However, what ultimately led to it with people like James Comey, people like Andrew Weissman, people like Geoffrey Berman … who turned around and were on some sort of a mission within which to use me in order to damage and to harm Trump. And it all started with the fake dossier, the Steele dossier.”
Cohen, who was Trump's longtime personal attorney, pleaded guilty in 2018 to a host of charges tied to tax evasion, as well as for lying to Congress in its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and for his role in funneling hush money to two women who alleged that they had had affairs with Trump.
“But you didn't go to prison because of the Steele dossier,” Tapper said. “You went to prison for other reasons.”
“Well, I — eventually yes. But it all started with the Steele dossier,” Cohen insisted.
Since leaving prison, Cohen has been an avid critic of the president who left him to take the fall for cleaning up after him. So, Tapper had to point out that Trump’s personal lawyer Todd Blanche will be overseeing the fund.
“Basically trump is going to get to decide who gets it. Do you really think Donald Trump's going to want you to have any money?” Tapper asked.
“Probably not. But wouldn't that be something if he actually decided to do it?” answered Cohen.
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