Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former long-time lawyer, contradicted statements the president made about hush money payments made to women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump during an interview with GMA on Friday.

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Michael Cohen contradicts Trump tweets, says president knew payments were wrong

Cohen made the comments on 'Good Morning America' on Friday morning.

 

Andrew Wyrich

Tech

Posted on Dec 14, 2018   Updated on May 20, 2021, 11:28 pm CDT

Michael Cohen, the former long-time lawyer for President Donald Trump, said in an interview that aired on Friday that the now-president knew the hush money payments he made to women during the 2016 election were wrong.

Cohen spoke with Good Morning America on Friday, just days after he was sentenced to three years in prison for a number of crimes, including campaign finance violations in regards to payments made to Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels, who said they had affairs with Trump.

When asked by host George Stephanopoulos whether the now-president knew the payments were “wrong,” his former lawyer replied: “Of course,” adding that he knew the hush money was important in light of the Access Hollywood tape being released just ahead of the 2016 election.

“You have to remember at what point in time that this matter came about—two weeks or so before the election. Post the Billy Bush comments, so, yes, he was very concerned about how this would affect the election,” Cohen said, adding that the payments were “to help him and the campaign.”

He added that Trump “directed” him to make the payments.

The comments from Cohen are the opposite of what Trump claimed on Twitter on Thursday. In the past, he has also denied knowing about the payments.

The president said he “never directed” his former lawyer to “break the law.”

“I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law,” the president wrote on Thursday. “It is called ‘advice of counsel,’ and a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made. That is why they get paid. Despite that many campaign finance lawyers have strongly……”

He added in another tweet:

“….stated that I did nothing wrong with respect to campaign finance laws, if they even apply, because this was not campaign finance.”

You can read a transcript of Cohen’s interview with Good Morning America here.

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*First Published: Dec 14, 2018, 8:39 am CST