Trump's company trashes former lawyer as he heads to prison

The Trump Organization used an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal to publicly trash Trump’s longtime lawyer and “fixer,” Michael Cohen, on Monday — the same day Cohen started his three-year prison sentence for paying hush money to Trump’s mistresses in a coordinated effort to help Trump in the 2016 election.

Cohen spent more than a decade working for both Trump and the Trump Organization. During that time, Cohen was trusted to handle some of Trump’s most sensitive matters, including alleged criminal activity.

Sorial and the rest of the minions in Trump’s orbit had nothing negative to say about Cohen until he flipped and began telling the truth about Trump’s shady and criminal behavior. Yet now that Cohen is going to prison for aiding some of that criminal behavior, the Trump Organization is desperate to minimize Cohen’s contributions and the extent to which he handled both major personal and business issues for Trump and his company.

Cohen “wasn’t much of a lawyer,” George Sorial, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, wrote in the op-ed. Sorial claimed Cohen could not be trusted with major projects and that legal work was “often of poor quality and had to be redrafted.”

“He was hired muscle; a bluffing, boasting New Yorker,” Sorial said about Cohen. “Remember, Michael, you’re going to prison because you lied to Congress, didn’t pay your taxes, and defrauded financial institutions in your personal accounts.”

But Sorial left out all the crimes Cohen committed in coordination with and at the direction of Trump. Indeed, Trump is an unindicted co-conspirator in Cohen’s crimes.

Cohen pleaded guilty to felony campaign finance crimes, which he carried out at the direction of Trump. Trump, identified as “Individual 1” in the court documents, ordered Cohen to pay tens of thousands of dollars to multiple women so that they would not talk about their affairs with Trump. The intent of the payments was to influence the 2016 election, according to federal prosecutors.

Cohen also told federal prosecutors and Congress about Trump’s shady accounting practices and tax avoidance schemes.

On Monday morning, before reporting for prison, Cohen took a parting shot at Trump, saying he hopes that when he gets out of prison, America “will be in a place without xenophobia, injustice and lies at the helm of our country.” Cohen then left to spend the next three years in the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, New York.

If Cohen was such a joke and poor lawyer, why did the Trump Organization keep him around for so long? The answer is obvious: Cohen spent years and years working to protect Trump and cover up his unscrupulous and sometimes illegal behavior.

It was only after Michael Cohen spoke the truth about what happened that those in Trump’s orbit decided to publicly trash him.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.