Donald Trump fired off a pair of posts quoting Michael Cohen lavishing praise on him in the past as his former fixer prepared to take the stand against him.
Trump's longtime attorney testified starting Tuesday in the civil trial over New York Attorney General Letitia James' $250 million fraud lawsuit against the ex-president, who posted a pair of quotes Cohen gave to news outlets before he turned on his ex-boss in 2018 during a federal investigation that ultimately sent him to prison.
“Mr. Trump is more than just a boss to those of us who have been fortunate enough to be close to him, both professionally and personally,” Cohen told the New York Times in 2016, according to Trump's post on Truth Social. “He’s more like a patriarch, a mentor. These qualities make him very endearing to me, which is why I am so fiercely loyal to him and committed to protecting him at all costs.”
The former president also posted a quote from Cohen from April 2011 that seemed aimed at undercutting the attorney general's fraud claims.
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“Trump lawyer Michael Cohen told The Huffington Post that Trump is worth ‘a lot … substantially more than what’s recorded in Forbes,’" Cohen told HuffPo more than a decade ago.
"‘They don’t take into account the value of the Trump brand, of the mark, one of the most valuable marks that’s ever been created,’ Cohen said. ‘He has very little debt, triple-A assets.’”
Trump has been found liable for fraud by Judge Arthur Engoron after James presented evidence that he falsely inflated his wealth and property values for financial gain, and the attorney general said Cohen's testimony before Congress in 2019 about those practices helped spur her own civil investigation. The ongoing trial is largely aimed at deciding damages.
