Listen: How Michael Cohen Protects Trump By Making Legal Threats

By Tim Mak, NPR News

01 June 18

 

onald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen is facing legal peril, including an FBI raid of his home and office — and involvement in a civil lawsuit with adult film star Stormy Daniels.

But in the past, it was Cohen who sought to put legal pressure on others to solve problems for his boss.

For the first time, audio recordings of Cohen's legal threats, from a 2015 Daily Beast interview, are being published.

Spousal rape has been illegal in the state of New York since 1984. Ivana Trump's claim involved an incident in 1989.

But Cohen's efforts to prevent the story from being written didn't end with that false claim.

"Mark my words for it, I will make sure that you and I meet one day over in the courthouse and I will take you for every penny you still don't have, and I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know," Cohen said. "Do not even think about going where I know you're planning on going. And that's my warning for the day."

"Michael, besides the warning, do you have a substantive comment that I can include in the piece that reflects your views on this?" I responded.

"I have no views because there's no story," Cohen said.

The legal threats continued.

"So I'm warning you, tread very f***ing lightly because what I'm going to do to you is going to be f***ing disgusting. Do you understand me? Don't think you can hide behind your pen because it's not going to happen," Cohen said. "I'm more than happy to discuss it with your attorney and with your legal counsel because motherf***** you're going to need it."

He also talked about past lawsuits, like one against Univision. The Spanish-language network dropped Trump's Miss USA pageant because of his disparaging comments about Mexican immigrants when he launched his presidential bid in 2015.

"I think you should go ahead and write the story that you plan on writing; I think you should do it because I think you're an idiot, all right, and I think your paper is a joke," Cohen said. "And it's going to be my absolute pleasure to serve you with a $500 million lawsuit like ... I did to Univision."

Cohen never filed a lawsuit against me or The Daily Beast. But after The Daily Beast published the story, Cohen's remarks caused internal tension among Trump's team.

"You know after he did that interview with you ... Corey Lewandowski and Hope Hicks were pushing for Michael to be fired and Trump was seriously considering it," Nunberg said.

Cohen later apologized publicly for his remarks about spousal rape.

Once Trump was elected, Cohen found himself on the outside looking in, despite years of service.

"Nobody was screwed over more by Donald than Michael Cohen," Nunberg said. "Michael has been extremely loyal to Donald, was there from the very beginning. And Donald treated him like garbage."

Now, Cohen is at a crossroads. Does he flip and protect himself by discussing with prosecutors the private information he has from working with Trump for so many years — or does he remain silent?

"First of all, the president values loyalty," former campaign aide Caputo told NPR. "He's quite famous for it now. Michael Cohen exhibited that loyalty long before I arrived on the scene in Trump Tower. ... He was always defending the president, always looking out for his best interests, and I saw that as some of the most remarkable loyalty that I've ever seen in the workplace."

The strength of that loyalty will determine the next chapter in the saga between the president of the United States and his personal lawyer.