Former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen on Sunday warned that the former president's lawyers had worsened his legal problems as he faces multiple felony indictments.
MSNBC host Katie Phang talked to Cohen about Trump's mounting legal woes, noting that longtime adviser Boris Ephsteyn "has now been called kind of the gatekeeper, the quarterback of Trump's legal team" that has been plagued by infighting.
"I like to think in a lot of ways, when you worked with Donald though, you were a consigliere. You were somebody who was there, who was overseeing a lot of stuff that was going on in Trump's world. In your opinion has Boris tried to take over the reins from you as he tried to fil-in shoes that you actually were filling working as personal counsel for Donald Trump?" Phang asked.
"Right. So good luck because Boris is a moron," Cohen replied.
"Sadly when Boris became part of the campaign, Boris, as I like to refer to him and others, was like the little lapdog that was trying to figure out how to get close to Donald's leg," he added. "And now that he's there he has no real experience."
"I mean, he may be a lawyer and maybe — I don't know if I would even consider him smart — but and one thing he's not is strategic. Because everything that's happened to Donald over the course of, we'll call it 'Boris' brain' has not inured to Donald's benefit, not one iota," Cohen continued.
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Cohen played a pivotal role in Trump's indictment over hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the final stretch of the 2016 presidential campaign. Cohen previously pleaded guilty to federal charges in connection to the payment and has since worked closely with Manhattan prosecutors to detail how the former president allegedly falsified business records.
The Trump Organization has argued that the case should be moved to federal court because it is related to an official presidential act. Phang noted that Alan Garten, the Trump Organization's chief legal officer, testified in the hush money case that there is no evidence that Cohen worked on anything other than the hush money payments for Trump, "so there is no link to any official act of the presidency for Donald."
"And then Garten actually confirmed as well as some of the payments that Trump made to you that went to Stormy Daniels, and that he, as in Garten, was not aware of any of the work 'that Cohen did from Trump,'" Phang continued. "I mean, Michael this completely substantiates, corroborates, validates and verifies what you said from the beginning: that you are acting at the behest of your boss and client at the time, Donald Trump. How big is this mess-up by the Trump legal team in the Manhattan D.A. case?"
"Of, course it speaks for itself, but I have yet, other than Donald calling me a convicted perjurer, there hasn't been anything that I have said, there hasn't come true or has not been corroborated both by documentary evidence or by other people's testimony," Cohen replied. "What Alan Garten did here is a pretty significant mess-up and again, as you just appropriately stated, it corroborates everything that I said."
Trump filed a $500 million dollar lawsuit against Cohen after he was indicted in April, accusing his former lawyer of "multiple breaches of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, conversion, and breaches of contract by virtue of Defendant's past service as Plaintiff's employee and attorney."
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