Michael Cohen said he barely recognized Donald Trump when he saw him in court during his New York fraud trial.
The former president's longtime attorney testified against him two weeks ago in the $250 million fraud lawsuit filed by state attorney general Letitia James, and Cohen told Salon columnist Brian Karem that Trump seemed to be a shell of himself.
"He didn't look good at all," Cohen said. "In fact, he looked beaten up and weathered. He looked really disheveled and really just different. He looked like somebody had just sucked the life out of him."
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?
"Rest assured, this New York case is really affecting him, specifically because it's about his money," Cohen added. "His money is his id, his ego, his superego, all combined into one narcissistic sociopath who for the last, what, 70-plus years — let's just say his whole life has been predicated on his wealth and his standing. What this attorney general case threatens to do is to basically expose the emperor without his clothes and, according to Stormy Daniels, that's not a pretty picture."
Judge Arthur Engoron has already found Trump liable for fraud, and the trial will determine what penalties he will pay – and Cohen predicted those would be ruinous.
"How much money is the state going to fine him as a direct result of the actions that he took with those statements of financial condition?" Cohen said. "We know that it is a baseline. The bottom number is $250 million. Mind you, that doesn't even begin to touch the additional disgorgement that they're going to be looking for, nor does it take into consideration the fines and the penalties associated with this type of a case. So, I suspect it's going to be substantially more than the $250 million. In fact, I've been so bold as to make a prediction that it'll be between $600 and $700 million."
"Mind you, he does not have that in equity," he added. "So when these assets get sold — remember, he is low-basis in most if not all of these assets — take the tax implications and then subtract from that the outstanding mortgages that may exist. Technically, there's nothing left."
