Michael Cohen book Disloyal : says he witnessed ‘golden showers, tax fraud, a secret back channel to Putin, and lying to Melania,’ and calling president ‘a racist, a predator and a con man who wants to be ‘leader for life’
Michael Cohen reveals his bombshell book about Donald Trump saying he witnessed ‘golden showers, tax fraud, a secret back channel to Putin, and lying to Melania,’ and calling president ‘a racist, a predator and a con man who wants to be ‘leader for life’
Michael Cohen published a first look at his book about Donald Trump on Thursday, revealing several bombshell claims, including that he witnessed a ‘golden showers’ incident.
In the peek at his memoir ‘Disloyal,’ Cohen reveals the ‘mob boss’ mentality of the president in his foreword, which he titled ‘THE REAL REAL DONALD TRUMP.’
‘Apart from his wife and children, I knew Trump better than anyone else did,’ Cohen wrote, claiming he was the one who pushed him to run for president in 2011 and 2015.
‘In some ways, I knew him better than even his family did because I bore witness to the real man, in strip clubs, shady business meetings, and in the unguarded moments when he revealed who he really was: a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man,’ he revealed.
In the first part of his book, which was published to DisloyalTheBook.com on Thursday afternoon, Cohen claimed that Trump has ‘no real friends.’
‘He has no one he trusts to keep his secrets,’ he continued. ‘For ten years, he certainly had me, and I was always there for him, and look what happened to me.’
The book also includes a flurry of admissions from Cohen, some of which he already pleaded guilty to and was given a three-year prison sentence for.
‘I stiffed contractors on his behalf, ripped off his business partners, lied to his wife Melania to hide his sexual infidelities, and bullied and screamed at anyone who threatened Trump’s path to power,’ Cohen admitted.
Michael Cohen released the forward of his upcoming book ‘Disloyal,’ about his longtime friendship with Donald Trump where he claimed he witnessed the ‘golden showers’ incident and helped Trump commit tax fraud, create a secret back channel to Vladimir Putin and lie to Melania
‘Coming Soon,’ the president’s former fixer and personal attorney wrote in a tweet along with an image of the cover
Cohen previewed the cover of his upcoming book ‘Disloyal’ on Twitter Thursday morning
COHEN ON….
What he knows:
I know where the skeletons are buried because I was the one who buried them.
How Trump works:
Trump’s theory of life, business and politics revolved around threats and the prospect of destruction—financial, electoral, personal, physical—as a weapon.
Who he was for Trump:
I was one of Trump’s bad guys. In his world, I was one hundred percent a made man.
What Trump made him:
An acolyte obsessed with Donald J. Trump, a demented follower willing to do anything for him, including, as I vowed once to a reporter, to take a bullet.
How Cohen knows what he writes:
I knew him better than even his family did because I bore witness to the real man, in strip clubs, shady business meetings, and in the unguarded moments when he revealed who he really was: a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man.
What Trump offers his fans:
…an intoxicating cocktail of power, strength, celebrity, and a complete disregard for the rules and realities that govern our lives.
The inner Donald Trump:
…he has a million acquaintances, pals and hangers on, but no real friends. He has no one he trusts to keep his secrets.
How Trump instructs his aides:
Like a mob boss, using language carefully calibrated to convey his desires and demands, while at the same time employing deliberate indirection to insulate himself and avoid actually ordering a hit.
What will happen to Trump:
I’m certain that Trump knows he will face prison time if he leaves office
Why Trump wants to be ‘leader for life’:
Whoever follows Trump into the White House, if the President doesn’t manage to make himself the leader for life, as he has started to joke about—and Trump never actually jokes- will discover a tangle of frauds and scams and lawlessness
‘From golden showers in a sex club in Vegas, to tax fraud, to deals with corrupt officials from the former Soviet Union, to catch and kill conspiracies to silence Trump’s clandestine lovers, I wasn’t just a witness to the president’s rise—I was an active and eager participant,’ he wrote.
The mention of him witnessing golden showers brings a reminder to the Steele Dossier, which claims Russian President Vladimir Putin has blackmail on Trump from the time he was in Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant in 2013 and allegedly watched prostitutes urinate on a bed because it had been slept in by the Obama. Trump has denied the claim repeatedly.
However Cohen says the golden showers incident was in Las Vegas – suggesting he might be referring to a trip with Trump to a club there called The Act whose repertoire included stimulated urination by performers on stage. Trump did a deal at the club to take his Miss Universe competition to Moscow, a previous book by investigative journalists revealed.
Cohen, 53, previewed earlier in the day the cover image and title of his upcoming memoir ‘Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump,’ along with a teaser, ‘Coming Soon’ in the text of the tweet.
The foreword, however, hints at a series of bombshell in the book.
Cohen says: ‘Trump had colluded with the Russians, but not in the sophisticated ways imagined by his detractors.
‘I also knew that the [Robert] Mueller investigation was not a witch-hunt. Trump had cheated in the election, with Russian connivance, as you will discover in these pages, because doing anything -and I mean anything – to “win” has always been his business model and way of life.’
He says Trump tried to ‘insinuate’ himself into Putin’s world and his ‘coterie of corrupt billionaire oligarchs.’
‘I know because I personally ran that deal and kept Trump and his children closely informed of all updates, even as the candidate blatantly lied to the American people saying, “there’s no Russian collusion, I have no dealings with Russia… there’s no Russia.’
Cohen makes clear that he speaks from a position of knowledge saying that for 10 years, he was Trump’s last call at night and first in the morning, and he was ‘in and out’ of Trump’s office ’50 times a day.’
‘Our cell phones had the same address books, our contacts so entwined, overlapping and intimate that part of my job was to deal with the endless queries and requests, however large or small, from Trump’s countless rich and famous acquaintances,’ he writes.
‘I called any and all of the people he spoke to, most often on his behalf as his attorney and emissary, and everyone knew that when I spoke to them, it was as good as if they were talking directly to Trump.’
Ominously, he writes: ‘I know where the skeletons are buried because I was the one who buried them.’
He describes himself as having been ‘at the center of Trump’s innermost circle’ and that his ‘boss’ had come to his son’s bar mitzvah and told him: ‘You’re family.’
‘I f***ing believed him,’ he writes.
Cohen tells how he feared he would be killed by Trump’s supporters when he gave evidence to Congress after flipping and co-operating with Mueller.
‘The President of the United States wanted me dead,’ he writes – saying that he knew that Trump was like a ‘mob boss’ who would never directly order a hit but instead spoke in a way ‘carefully calibrated to convey his desires and demands.’
‘I knew how he worked because I had frequently been the one screaming threats on his behalf as Trump’s fixer and designated thug.
‘The President called me a rat and tweeted angry accusations at me, as well as my family.’
He says he received ‘hundreds’ of death threats on his cell phone, his email and even in the mail.
‘I was exactly the person Trump was talking about when he said he could shoot and kill someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it,’ he writes.
Cohen makes clear he wrote the foreword while in prison, putting at the end of it ‘Otisville, New York..
But he says he is convinced that Trump knows he will follow him to prison, calling it ‘the inevitable cold Karma to the notorious chants of “Lock Her Up!”‘
In fact, he says, he believes Trump wants to avoid jail by becoming leader for life, saying he has ‘joked about it’ and adding: ‘Trump never jokes.’
Cohen hints at a semi-sympathetic view of a tortured inner Trump, lost, alone, and without the people he really needs: another Roy Cohn, the pitbull Mafia lawyer of his youth, or, Cohen says – with no self-effacement – Cohen himself.
‘Watching Trump on the evening news in the prison rec room, I almost feel sorry for him,’ he writes.
‘I know him so well and I know his facial tics and tells; I see the cornered look in his eyes as he flails and rants and raves, searching for a protector and advocate, someone willing to fight dirty and destroy his enemies.’
He names AG Bill Barr – who tried to block the book by gagging, then jailing, Cohen – Jared Kushner, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Pompeo as ‘new wannabe fixers, sycophants willing to distort the truth and break the law in the service of the Boss.’
The memoir, however, does not come without Cohen owning up to his own actions.
‘I made choices along the way—terrible, heartless, stupid, cruel, dishonest, destructive choices, but they were mine and constituted my reality and life,’ he wrote.
He says he lost touch with his siblings, became obsessed by money, desperate ‘to inhabit the world from the vantage point of private jets and billion-dollar deals, and I was willing to do whatever it took to get there.’
He admits to ‘ego, short temper, and willingness to deceive’ – but says that his account will allow people to see inside Trump’s world.
‘It’s only gangster who can reveal the secrets of organized crime,’ he says of Trump’s world, calling himself ‘one hundred percent a made man.’
The revelation of some of the book’s contents came after a federal could ruled against what a judge said was Attorney General Bill Barr’s attempt to stop Cohen from publishing the tell-all.
The U.S. government made an agreement with federal prosecutors at the end of July to abandon its efforts to impose a gag order on Cohen as he prepares to release his book critical of his former boss.
Cohen was released from prison in May 2020 amid concerns over coronavirus after he served one year of his three-year sentence for pleading guilty to campaign finance violations and lying to Congress.
He returned to prison in early July after tweeting about planning to publish a book alleging Trump used racial slurs against former President Barack Obama and former South Africa President Nelson Mandela.
‘Favorable ruling yesterday by the Court as I am close to completion of my book…’ Cohen wrote of Trump’s niece Mary Trump being able to publish her critical book about her uncle.
‘…anticipated release date will be late September.’ Cohen wrote in another tweet.
A week after the president’s former fix-it man and personal attorney was released from prison for the second time, where he spent two weeks after refusing to cease speaking to the media, the ruling came in that he could speak with the media and publish his memoir.
The tweet of him touting his new book Thursday is the first time he has posted since being released from prison.
Cohen sued U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr and federal prison officials during his second stint, claiming he was ordered back because of the book.
U.S. Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ordered he be released at the end of last month, saying the government’s action was retaliatory and a violation of his First Amendment rights.
Cohen intentionally revealed that the book would be coming out ahead of the November elections.
His will join a list of other pre-Election Day books aimed at outsing Trump, including Bob Woodward’s ‘Fear: The Trump White House,’ Mary Trump’s ‘Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,’ and former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s ‘The Room Where It Happened.’
Both Mary and Bolton also faced lawsuits from Trump’s administration trying to stop their publication, but ultimately the court ruled it was lawful for them to go ahead with releasing their respective memoirs.