A former business associate knocked down the suggestion that President Donald Trump unwittingly broke laws -- and his attorneys revealed how he tested their ethics before assigning them questionable work.
The former Trump Organization employee described how the president operated his business before launching his White House bid, and who investigators should take a closer look at as they probe various allegations of wrongdoing, reported The New Yorker.
That source told the magazine that Ivanka Trump probably knew more about the family business than anyone but her father, and she personally handled many of the company's most problematic deals -- including a project in Azerbaijan tied to potential money laundering for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
"She knows a million times more than Don Jr.," the source said.
The source also dismissed the notion that Trump unwittingly broke laws because he was unfocused and impulsive.
“Come on," the source said. "He was trained by f*cking Roy Cohn. Seriously.”
The notorious Cohn was known as a "master of situational immorality" who taught Trump that "no matter how deeply into the muck you get, claim victory and never admit defeat," according to author Sam Roberts.
“Donald lost his moral compass when he made an alliance with Roy Cohn," gossip columnist Liz Smith once said.
Trump tested his own lawyers for a moral compass before assigning them dubious work, several of them told The New Yorker.
Several longtime Trump Organization lawyers described how Trump would, early in their tenure, ask them to do something a bit questionable, such as filing a legal document with the city containing misleading information.
If they pushed back against the request, Trump labeled them a stickler and never asked them to do anything ethically dubious again.
Most of them ended up spending their time doing routine work for Trump Organization, such as writing contracts and filing documents with the government.
But others became deeply involved in questionable activity, and one of them -- Michael Cohen -- implicated the president as a co-conspirator when he pleaded guilty last month to eight federal crimes, including tax evasion and making false statements to a bank.