As the Manhattan district attorney’s office appears to be zeroing in on a trusted Trump Organization official for indictment, Donald Trump’s former attorney and “fixer,” Michael Cohen, recalled another time the former president’s real estate company was at the center of a criminal inquiry.
Trump’s response to that inquiry showed that he has always expected others — including his children, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump — to take the fall for him, according to Cohen. Trump has also clearly played favorites, and that includes when he considers which adult child he would sacrifice first, Cohen added.
In an interview with The Lincoln Project, Cohen recalled Trump saying that if it comes down to Don Jr. or Ivanka going to prison that it should be Don Jr.
“This isn’t about flipping, folks. This is about telling the truth. And the problem is — everybody lied for Donald. It wasn’t just me. It was the entire company," Michael Cohen says discussing the pressure on Trump Org members amid criminal probe. https://t.co/NqT5GnMOws
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) June 8, 2021
“Donald says to me, ‘If one of the two has to end up going, let it be Don: He can handle it,'” Cohen recalled Trump saying.
This conversation took place around 2012 when the same district attorney’s office, led by Cyrus Vance Jr., was considering bringing felony fraud charges against Trump’s two oldest children on allegations they deliberately provided misleading information to prospective buyers at the Trump SoHo, a hotel and condo development in Manhattan.
As the New Yorker, Pro Publica and WNYC reported in 2017, the case was mysteriously dropped after Trump’s other personal attorney, Marc Kasowicz, met with Vance Jr. — and after the attorney donated $25,000 to Vance’s re-election campaign. Vance has defended his decision to not file charges against Trump’s children, telling the New Yorker that he didn’t believe there was sufficient evidence at the time to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that a crime had been committed.
Vance appears to have no such doubts about evidence his prosecutors have been gathering in their new investigation against the Trump Organization. The New York Times reported this week that prosecutors have entered the final sages of their criminal tax investigation against long-serving Trump Organization chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, signaling the possibility he could face indictment this summer.
As the Times and other news organizations have reported, prosecutors are mainly moving against Weisselberg in an effort to seek his cooperation into a broader financial fraud investigation into the former president and the Trump Organization.
Cohen has been upfront in interviews and on his own podcast, Mea Culpa, about cooperating with the investigation. He also has said he has had a personal and painful experience with Trump expecting his subordinates to take the fall for him.
Cohen, who once famously said he would take a bullet for Trump, served about a year in federal prison after pleading guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violations he said he performed at Trump’s direction. Cohen notably paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 just before the 2016 election to keep silent about her alleged affair with Trump.
In the Lincoln Project interview, Cohen has described his fierce, “cult”-like loyalty to Trump, which he said was finally broken when he went to prison. Cohen also said that Trump showed no loyalty to him when he faced prison for committing crimes on his behalf.
“I don’t know how many times I’ve said … Donald cares for only one person and that’s himself,” Cohen said. “That’s the true definition of a narcissistic sociopath.”
Cohen said Trump has made it a habit of throwing others “under the proverbial bus.” He then said, “When you get run over by the tire, he’s going to jump into the driver’s seat and make sure you’re gone. That’s just Donald. Anyone who thinks differently is just stupid.”
With regard to the Manhattan D.A.’s current investigation, Lincoln Project co-hosts Tara Setmayer and Rick Wilson mentioned that Cohen previously predicted that Trump would flip on Weisselberg, as well as his children and even his wife, if necessary.
Cohen predicted that Trump would first flip on Trump Jr. and serve him up for prison, while offering examples of how his oldest son has long been the target of his disappointment and ire. After that, Trump might flip on middle child, Eric, with Ivanka being “No. 3.”
“But rest assured, she goes before (Trump) does. Melania would go before Donald would go,” Cohen added.
At another point in the interview, Wilson asked Cohen if the former president knows that he’s despised in his hometown of New York City. Cohen said he probably does. He said it’s one of the reasons Trump has relocated to Florida, with Don. Jr., Ivanka and their families following.
“The only one that I think is still left here is Eric, you know, nobody even knows where Melania and Barron are. I mean, for all you know, they’re on Jeff Bezos’ space shuttle now,” Cohen joked.