Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, argued Friday that the unfolding Nvidia spy scandal may be the “most consequential” example yet of Trump insiders cashing in — and one that’s “considerably more uncomfortable for the Trump administration.”
In an analysis published Friday on Substack, Cohen argued that the MAGA figures who promised to drain the swamp discovered it “has a rather lucrative gift shop.”
“The Trump movement promised to drain the swamp,” Cohen wrote. “It cannot now pretend the swamp is perfectly acceptable simply because some of the alligators happen to be wearing red hats.”
Cohen zeroed in on former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who stepped down Thursday after admitting to an affair with Alice Huang, a former executive at the Singapore-based data center company Megaspeed who is suspected of working as a Chinese intelligence asset. The Chinese government has denied that she was a spy.
Cohen turned his fire on Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whom he described as close to Huang.
“Congress deserves a complete accounting of what Lutnick knew, when he knew it and whether those relationships influenced decisions involving American semiconductor exports,” Cohen wrote.
Lutnick’s department is already taking heat from inside the administration. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent blamed the Commerce Department Friday for failing to add Megaspeed to a federal trade blacklist.
Cohen predicted the incoming Democratic majority would pounce.
“Democrats, naturally, smell blood,” he wrote, warning Republicans against dismissing “every legitimate concern as another partisan witch hunt.”
Cohen saved some of his sharpest jabs for Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager, who wielded outsized power at the Department of Homeland Security under former Secretary Kristi Noem while classified as a special government employee.
“The special government employee designation was never intended to create an unofficial cabinet secretary who gets the influence without the accountability,” Cohen wrote.
Alina Habba Mildon, another former Trump personal attorney, didn’t escape either. Cohen questioned her reported $50 million-plus deal to serve as general counsel for Concord Partners, a Florida company tied to Venezuelan billionaire Julio Herrera Velutini.
“Fifty million dollars,” he wrote. “Let that number settle in for a moment.”
Concord cut her loose in a Nov. 4 letter obtained by The New York Times, citing a “failure to perform duties.”
