'My phone began lighting up': Ex-Trump lawyer says Epstein claims ruined his dinner date

Donald Trump's former lawyer said his Valentine's Day dinner was ruined by a barrage of emails resulting from what he dubs a "smear campaign" related to Jeffrey Epstein.

Michael Cohen, Trump's former attorney and "fixer" who spent time in jail in connection with campaign finance violations, wrote in an essay on Sunday about his experience.

"On February 14th, Valentine’s Day, while my wife and I were sitting down to celebrate thirty-three years together (minus one stolen year by incarceration), emails were sent from what appears to have been a bogus account to university presidents I had recently addressed. Not reporters. Not prosecutors. University leaders," he wrote this weekend. "Halfway through dinner, my phone began lighting up. Forwarded emails. Questions. Confusion. Instead of cutting into a heart-shaped chocolate mousse cake and enjoying my usual black coffee, I was responding to a coordinated smear campaign delivered directly into academic inboxes."

Cohen went on to describe the campaign, saying, "The emails recycled the same tired innuendo: Trump. Epstein. Katie Johnson. 'Jane Doe.' And my Rule 35(b) motion; presented as though it concealed something sinister."

He continued:

"Sending anonymous emails to university presidents on Valentine’s Day to plant suspicion is not accountability. It is sabotage. It is an attempt to divide and fracture this community by creating doubt where corroboration already exists. They could not accept the truth, so they are trying to bury it under noise. Valentine’s Day should have been about endurance, thirty-three years of marriage, surviving prison, surviving humiliation, and surviving public disgrace. Instead, I was on my phone explaining, again, that corroborated facts do not disappear because someone refuses to accept them."

To hit back, Cohen is planning a sworn declaration.

"Today, I am preparing a sworn declaration and affidavit under penalty of perjury restating these facts formally. Because truth belongs in sworn documents, not anonymous email blasts," he wrote. "This is bigger than me. When internal actors choose spectacle over substance, and when they prioritize engagement over evidence, they weaken the very cause they claim to defend. If we tolerate smear campaigns simply because they are wrapped in moral language, we become complicit in division."

Read the piece here.