‘Donald’s an idiot’: Michael Cohen says Trump’s
rebuffing of Giuliani could backfire
Attorney behind payments to porn star questions
Trump’s refusal to pay legal expenses for the former New York mayor
Martin
Pengelly in Washington
@MartinPengelly
Tue 22 Aug
2023 11.50 EDT
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/22/michael-cohen-donald-trump-rudy-giuliani-legal-fees
Donald
Trump is an “idiot” for not paying legal expenses incurred by his attorney the
former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani in the Georgia election subversion case,
Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen said.
“Donald’s
an idiot,” Cohen told CNN of the former president. “Let me just be very clear
when it comes to paying money, he is truly an idiot.
“He has not
learned yet that [there are] three people you don’t want to throw under the bus
like that: your lawyer, your doctor and your mechanic. Because one way or the
other, you’re going to go down the hill and there’ll be no brakes.”
Trump faces
13 charges in Georgia, including racketeering and conspiracy. With bond set at
$200,000, he has said he would turn himself in at an Atlanta jail on Thursday.
Eighteen
Trump allies were also charged. Giuliani faces 13 counts including
racketeering, an irony widely noted given his past as a crusading US attorney
in New York, cracking down on organised crime.
CNN
reported last week that Giuliani in April went to Trump’s Florida home,
Mar-a-Lago, to ask for help paying mounting bills also concerning other work
while Trump was in the White House. Giuliani was largely rebuffed, CNN said.
Cohen was
long close to Trump, his work including making the hush-money payments to the
porn star Stormy Daniels that are now the subject of 34 criminal charges
against Trump in New York state.
Trump also
faces charges regarding federal election subversion and retention of classified
documents, for a total of 91 counts. Such unprecedented legal jeopardy, also
including civil cases concerning his business affairs and defamation arising
from an allegation of rape, have not stopped him dominating the race for the
Republican presidential nomination.
Cohen
turned on Trump after he was sentenced to three years in prison for offenses
including tax fraud and lying to Congress. Becoming a leading Trump critic, he
has testified against Trump in court. Last month, Cohen reached an undisclosed
settlement with the Trump Organization over his own unpaid fees.
Regarding
Trump’s bond in Georgia, Cohen told CNN: “At the end of the day, $200,000,
he’ll have no problem with raising the money. Worse comes to worse, he’ll go to
his stupid supporters to do it and they’ll just pony up to one of his various”
fundraising committees.
“But I find
it ironic or comical that I had to post a $500,000 bond for another man having
an affair and [me] receiving back the money … and his is $200,000 for trying to
overturn a free and fair election. I just don’t see the correlation, but it is
what it is.”
Cohen
suggested Giuliani would be wise to “flip” on Trump.
“Allegedly
from Rudy’s own mouth, he claims that he has a smoking gun, information about
Donald,” Cohen said. “Well, if that’s true … I don’t have to suggest anything
to Rudy. He’s the one that basically came up with this concept of strong-arming
when he was head of the southern district of New York. He’s going to need to
speak and he’s going to need to speak before everybody else does.”
Giuliani’s
work for Trump also included digging for political dirt in Ukraine, efforts
which contributed to Trump’s first impeachment.
Cohen said:
“The job that Rudy did for Donald, I don’t know if I would pay either. But at
the end of the day, when your life is basically hanging on the line once again,
you just don’t really want to throw another lawyer under the bus.”
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