Trump was paranoid about someone throwing a pie in his face: Michael Cohen testimony

On May 9, Michael Cohen — former President Donald Trump’s ex-personal attorney and “fixer” — testified during a closed-door meeting held as part of an anti-Trump lawsuit. During his testimony, according to the Daily Beast’s José Pagliery, Cohen revealed that his former boss had a bizarre quirk back in 2015: He was fearful of a pie being thrown in his face.

Pagliery, in an article published by the Beast on May 23, reports, “Former President Donald Trump’s fear of getting hit in the face with a pie was so severe that he repeatedly instructed security guards to savagely beat any hooligan who tries, his ex-attorney recently testified behind closed doors. The Daily Beast has exclusively reviewed a recent four-hour deposition of Michael Cohen, the former Trump Organization consigliere who famously took the fall for his boss’ porn star hush payment scheme and was ultimately imprisoned and disbarred. And Cohen said Trump lied about his role in a 2015 incident that left protesters bloody.”

In September 2015, protests were held outside of Trump Tower in New York City in response to some of Trump’s anti-immigrant comments. The lawsuit alleges that Trump ordered Keith Schiller, who headed his private security team, to go out of his way to be violent with protesters — which Trump has denied. But Cohen, on May 9, testified that Trump did, in fact, encourage violence against those protesters.

“The Trump Organization has been accused of hiding — for nearly seven years of the ongoing litigation — that Cohen was actually in the room when Trump spoke to his security chief, Keith Schiller, in the pivotal moments before the violent showdown outside the building on Fifth Avenue,” Pagliery explains. “Although Trump previously swore that he did not order his guards to do anything, Cohen testified to the complete opposite — opening up the possibility that his former boss lied under oath. No recording or transcript of Cohen’s deposition is publicly available, but The Daily Beast was able to review the entire questioning session.”

The Beast previously reported, in late April, that Trump had a fear of pineapples, tomatoes or bananas being thrown at him, but according to Pagliery, Cohen’s May 9 testimony “touches on another apparent Trump anxiety: pieing.”

“When being questioned,” Pagliery reports, “Cohen explained how his former boss, at one point, became obsessed over the way computer biz billionaire Bill Gates once got attacked with a pie to the face.”

Cohen testified, “For some reason, that upset Mr. Trump terribly. We were all instructed that if somebody was to ever throw anything at him, that if that person didn’t end up in the hospital, we'd all be fired.”

The Beast contacted Cohen to confirm that May 9 testimony. And the former attorney, according to Pagliery, “clarified that Trump, at times, seemed obsessed with pies.”

Cohen told the Beast, “It wasn’t just one time. It was an ongoing and regular thing. As he would go out to various different open venues, he would always remind Keith (Schiller) to keep his eyes open. He never would turn around and say, ‘If anyone throws a rock or a bottle….’ It’s always a pie. He always brought up that pie thing.”