Michael Cohen Exposes Trump’s Damning Reaction to FBI Raids
Michael Cohen dropped another bombshell on day two of his hush-trial testimony.
Back on the stand on Tuesday, Cohen went over the details of the FBI’s April 2018 raids on his New York City apartment, law office, and a hotel room where he was staying while his apartment was under renovation.
Cohen testified that after the FBI visited his hotel room, he called Donald Trump and “left him a message for him to call me to let him know what was taking place.”
“Don’t worry. I’m the president of the United States,” Cohen recalled Trump telling him. “There’s nothing here. Everything’s going to be OK. Stay tough. You’re going to be OK.”
Asked by prosecutors how he viewed the call at the time, Cohen replied, “I wanted some reassurance that Mr. Trump had my back. Especially as this dealt with issues that related to him.”
“I felt reassured because I had the president of the United States protecting me. It’s his Justice Department, this should go nowhere,” Cohen said, adding that he decided to remain loyal to Trump after the call.
The short testimony is damning for Trump on multiple counts. First, it reveals that Trump was intimately familiar with the details of Michael Cohen’s hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, made to cover up an alleged 2006 affair between her and Trump. Second, it’s abundantly clear that Trump likely knew from the beginning that what they did broke the law—and he was willing to use his power as president to try to erase the whole thing.
It’s an unsettling reminder as Trump, the soon-to-be Republican nominee, faces down four criminal cases as he tries to return to the White House. Two of those are federal cases that he could very well try to make disappear by pardoning himself.