Michael Cohen: There was plenty of evidence for DA Bragg to go after Trump long ago

Former Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen said that there has long been enough evidence for New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg to go after Donald Trump had he wanted. Instead, he put the case aside, resulting in the resignation of two top prosecutors who blew the whistle on Bragg's decisions.

It has been public what Trump did and the motives were obvious, said MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace on Monday. Yet, Bragg still refused to act and it was never clear why. No one has been able to uncover if there was corruption involved or if Bragg was benefitting somehow from letting Trump off, but it's something Cohen has spoken in the last year.

Finally, on Monday, Bragg said he was reconsidering it.

Speaking to Wallace, Cohen explained that he turned everything over to Bragg's office long ago.

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"It goes back to the topic of campaign finance violations," said Cohen. "However in this specific case, it appears that there's even more that there might be a secondary case that they're looking at, which is how he treated the hush money reimbursement payments to me. You know, my understanding is that they wrote it off [of his taxes], that this is some sort of a write-off to the company, as a legal expense, which obviously, we all know that it wasn't. But once again, this just becomes the curious case of Alvin Bragg. Where this case going — it would have been great had he stepped forward in this The New York Times article, or gone on television, and announced that we are pursuing this case against Donald Trump for campaign finance violation, as well as misrepresentation on the tax documents."

Cohen was charged with campaign finance violations for paying off Stormy Daniels for the affair. Yet, Trump, who directed Cohen to pay off Daniels, escaped any accountability. He explained that he has no idea how it showed up in the Times Monday morning.

Wallace asked if Bragg suddenly woke up with a conscience.

"Yeah, I have no theory as to how it showed up there, what I can tell you, it wasn't just -- and I totally agree with you in terms of the totality of Mark Pomerantz as a lawyer. He's a phenomenal lawyer. Terry Dunn, both resigned in protest, as a result of Alvin Bragg not permitting them to go forward and file formal indictments. I learned the same way everybody else did," saie Cohen, noting he only found out because reporters were texting him for statements.

"The evidence is crystal clear. It was provided not only to the DA.'s office, the attorney general's office, as well as the Southern District of New York, when they were prosecuting me for the campaign finance violation," said Cohen. "It's an amazing thing. He has the affair. He directs me. So, what I did, I did at the direction of and for the benefit of Donald J. Trump. I end up getting charged for it. Not only do we have the Stormy Daniels case of the campaign finance violation, but there's also the Karen McDougal case which was paid for by the National Enquirer's David Pecker and AMI."

While Cohen was prosecuted and jailed, Pecker never was, despite doing the same thing. Trump also wasn't indicted on tax fraud, despite declaring the hush-money payment as a "legal expense."

"So, again, I don't really have a lot of answers here, other than to say they have all of the documents that they need," said Cohen. "They have copies of the check. They have a copy of the NDA -- the nondisclosure agreement, that was provided to Stormy Daniels. They have obviously, his tax returns, and they have not only my testimony, but the testimony of others, in regard to how this $130,000 was treated for tax purposes by the Trump Organization, Allen Weissberg and the accounting firm."

Still, Bragg has refused to act for over a year.

See the full conversation below:

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