Michael Cohen has been more openly questioning Trump’s fitness to be the President of the U.S. This is according to Cohen’s friends, reported Axios.
Cohen worked as a lawyer for U.S. President Donald Trump. Prior to that, he was a vice-president of the Trump Organization and special counsel to Trump. Cohen also previously served as co-president of Trump Entertainment and a board member of the Eric Trump Foundation, a children’s health charity.
As of April 2018, Cohen is under investigation by federal prosecutors on multiple matters, including bank fraud, wire fraud and campaign finance violations, related in part to payments made in the Stormy Daniels–Donald Trump scandal.
Stormy Daniels is a porn star who made headlines recently for being arrested during a performance at a Columbus, Ohio, strip club, according to her attorney. Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti in a Twitter post claimed the arrest “was politically motivated, and “reeks of desperation.”
Friends of Cohen said they noticed him getting more hostile to Trump since the President’s Helsinki press conference with Vladimir Putin. The President was widely criticized press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland last week according. Even leading Republicans joined Democrats in condemning President Trump for his performance at the press conference.
Axios quoted the unnamed source as saying that Cohen was sending a public signal to this effect when he tweeted, on Monday after Trump’s Helsinki press conference: “As I said to @ABC @GStephanopoulos, “I respect our nation’s intelligence agencies who determined that Russia, had in fact, interfered or meddled in our democratic process. I repudiate Russia’s effort…and call on all Americans to do the same.”
As I said to @ABC @GStephanopoulos, “I respect our nation’s intelligence agencies who determined that Russia, had in fact, interfered or meddled in our democratic process. I repudiate Russia’s effort…and call on all Americans to do the same.”
— Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) July 16, 2018
On Saturday, President Trump blasted Cohen for secretly recording him, suggesting that doing so may have been illegal. CNBC quoting a source reported that it was Trump’s own legal team that decided to release a tape of the two men discussing a possible payment to a Playboy model — which had been deemed “privileged” in a federal court.