EXCLUSIVE: Michael Cohen is seen for the first time since revealing his bombshell book will say he witnessed golden showers, covered up Donald Trump’s affairs and accuses him of wanting to be president for life to stay out of prison
Michael Cohen has been spotted on the streets of New York City just a day after revealing bombshell details of his upcoming book about his time working with Donald Trump.
The former lawyer, who was released from prison last month, was seen by DailyMail.com walking back to his Park Avenue home Friday while wearing his mask under his nose.
Cohen was casually dressed in jeans, a gray shirt and sneakers with sunglasses but appeared preoccupied and was seen talking on the phone. He finally pulled his mask up properly as he neared his home and was greeted by the doorman.
Trump's former fixer is sure to ruffle feathers with his new book titled Disloyal, where he reveals that he witnessed a 'golden showers' incident and helped Trump commit tax fraud and lie to his wife Melania.
DailyMail.com spotted Michael Cohen out on the streets of New York City on Friday
Cohen was seen wearing a mask below his nose as he walked to his ritzy Park Avenue home. This comes the day after he published a sneak of 'Disloyal' – his upcoming memoir about his years-long relationship with Donald Trump
The president's former personal fixer finally pulled his mask up properly as he neared his home and was greeted by the doorman
He was casually dressed in jeans and a gray shirt with sunglasses but appeared preoccupied and was seen talking on the phone
Cohen's sighting comes just after he released the foreword of the book, where he makes shocking claims about his time working as the president's personal fixer
In the peek at his memoir, Cohen revealed the 'mob boss' mentality of the president in his foreword, which he titled 'THE REAL REAL DONALD TRUMP.'
'Apart from his wife and children, I knew Trump better than anyone else did,' Cohen wrote, claiming he was the one who pushed him to run for president in 2011 and 2015.
Cohen previewed the cover of his upcoming book 'Disloyal' on Twitter Thursday morning
'In some ways, I knew him better than even his family did because I bore witness to the real man, in strip clubs, shady business meetings, and in the unguarded moments when he revealed who he really was: a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man,' he revealed.
But he also refers to Trump as someone he knew intimately well.
He recalls driving south from New York to testify against the 'real real Donald Trump' in 2019.
'Not the billionaire celebrity savior of the country or lying lunatic, not the tabloid tycoon or self-anointed Chosen One, not the avatar @realdonaldtrump of Twitter fame, but the real real Donald Trump—the man very, very, very few people know,' the book reads.
In the first part of his book, which was published to DisloyalTheBook.com on Thursday afternoon, Cohen claimed that Trump has 'no real friends.'
'He has no one he trusts to keep his secrets,' he continued. 'For ten years, he certainly had me, and I was always there for him, and look what happened to me.'
The book also includes a flurry of admissions from Cohen, some of which he already pleaded guilty to and was given a three-year prison sentence for.
'I stiffed contractors on his behalf, ripped off his business partners, lied to his wife Melania to hide his sexual infidelities, and bullied and screamed at anyone who threatened Trump's path to power,' Cohen admitted.
Cohen released the forward of his upcoming book 'Disloyal,' about his longtime friendship with Donald Trump where he claimed he witnessed the 'golden showers' incident and helped Trump commit tax fraud, create a secret back channel to Vladimir Putin and lie to Melania
'Coming Soon,' the president's former fixer and personal attorney wrote in a tweet along with an image of the cover
'From golden showers in a sex club in Vegas, to tax fraud, to deals with corrupt officials from the former Soviet Union, to catch and kill conspiracies to silence Trump's clandestine lovers, I wasn't just a witness to the president's rise—I was an active and eager participant,' he wrote.
The mention of him witnessing golden showers brings a reminder to the Steele Dossier, which claims Russian President Vladimir Putin has blackmail on Trump from the time he was in Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant in 2013 and allegedly watched prostitutes urinate on a bed because it had been slept in by the Obama. Trump has denied the claim repeatedly.
However Cohen says the golden showers incident was in Las Vegas - suggesting he might be referring to a trip with Trump to a club there called The Act whose repertoire included stimulated urination by performers on stage. Trump did a deal at the club to take his Miss Universe competition to Moscow, a previous book by investigative journalists revealed.
Cohen, 53, previewed earlier in the day the cover image and title of his upcoming memoir 'Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump,' along with a teaser, 'Coming Soon' in the text of the tweet.
The foreword, however, hints at a series of bombshell in the book.
Cohen says: 'Trump had colluded with the Russians, but not in the sophisticated ways imagined by his detractors.
'I also knew that the [Robert] Mueller investigation was not a witch-hunt. Trump had cheated in the election, with Russian connivance, as you will discover in these pages, because doing anything -and I mean anything - to 'win' has always been his business model and way of life.'
He says Trump tried to 'insinuate' himself into Putin's world and his 'coterie of corrupt billionaire oligarchs.'
'I know because I personally ran that deal and kept Trump and his children closely informed of all updates, even as the candidate blatantly lied to the American people saying, 'there's no Russian collusion, I have no dealings with Russia... there's no Russia.'
Cohen makes clear that he speaks from a position of knowledge saying that for 10 years, he was Trump's last call at night and first in the morning, and he was 'in and out' of Trump's office '50 times a day.'
'Our cell phones had the same address books, our contacts so entwined, overlapping and intimate that part of my job was to deal with the endless queries and requests, however large or small, from Trump's countless rich and famous acquaintances,' he writes.
'I called any and all of the people he spoke to, most often on his behalf as his attorney and emissary, and everyone knew that when I spoke to them, it was as good as if they were talking directly to Trump.'
Ominously, he writes: 'I know where the skeletons are buried because I was the one who buried them.'
He describes himself as having been 'at the center of Trump's innermost circle' and that his 'boss' had come to his son's bar mitzvah and told him: 'You're family.'
'I f***ing believed him,' he writes.
Cohen tells how he feared he would be killed by Trump's supporters when he gave evidence to Congress after flipping and co-operating with Mueller.
'The President of the United States wanted me dead,' he writes - saying that he knew that Trump was like a 'mob boss' who would never directly order a hit but instead spoke in a way 'carefully calibrated to convey his desires and demands.'
'I knew how he worked because I had frequently been the one screaming threats on his behalf as Trump's fixer and designated thug.
'The President called me a rat and tweeted angry accusations at me, as well as my family.'
He says he received 'hundreds' of death threats on his cell phone, his email and even in the mail.
'I was exactly the person Trump was talking about when he said he could shoot and kill someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it,' he writes.
'If that sounds overly dramatic, consider the powers Trump possessed and imagine how you might feel if he threatened you personally,' Cohen added.
'The notion that I was being followed or stalked may have seemed crazy; but it was also perfectly logical. I wasn't just famous—I was perhaps the most infamous person in the country at the time, seen by millions upon millions as a traitor.
'He also possessed a cult-like hold over his supporters, some of them demonstrably unhinged and willing to do anything to please or protect the President.
'I knew how committed these fanatics were because I'd been one of them: an acolyte obsessed with Donald J. Trump, a demented follower willing to do anything for him, including, as I vowed once to a reporter, to take a bullet.'
Cohen makes clear he wrote the foreword while in prison, putting at the end of it 'Otisville, New York..
But he says he is convinced that Trump knows he will follow him to prison, calling it 'the inevitable cold Karma to the notorious chants of 'Lock Her Up!''
In fact, he says, he believes Trump wants to avoid jail by becoming leader for life, saying he has 'joked about it' and adding: 'Trump never jokes.'
Cohen hints at a semi-sympathetic view of a tortured inner Trump, lost, alone, and without the people he really needs: another Roy Cohn, the pitbull Mafia lawyer of his youth, or, Cohen says - with no self-effacement - Cohen himself.
'Watching Trump on the evening news in the prison rec room, I almost feel sorry for him,' he writes.
'I know him so well and I know his facial tics and tells; I see the cornered look in his eyes as he flails and rants and raves, searching for a protector and advocate, someone willing to fight dirty and destroy his enemies.'
He names AG Bill Barr - who tried to block the book by gagging, then jailing, Cohen - Jared Kushner, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Pompeo as 'new wannabe fixers, sycophants willing to distort the truth and break the law in the service of the Boss.'
The memoir, however, does not come without Cohen owning up to his own actions.
Secret back channel: Michael Cohen says Trump ordered him to find a conduit to the Russian president Vladimir Putin
I lied to Melania: Michael Cohen says he told Trump's wife lies to cover up her husband's infidelities
'I made choices along the way—terrible, heartless, stupid, cruel, dishonest, destructive choices, but they were mine and constituted my reality and life,' he wrote.
He says he lost touch with his siblings, became obsessed by money, desperate 'to inhabit the world from the vantage point of private jets and billion-dollar deals, and I was willing to do whatever it took to get there.'
He admits to 'ego, short temper, and willingness to deceive' - but says that his account will allow people to see inside Trump's world.
'It's only gangster who can reveal the secrets of organized crime,' he says of Trump's world, calling himself 'one hundred per cent a made man.'
Cohen goes on to criticize himself and the GOP for 'grovelling at Trump's feet'.
'I recognized the childish games, replete with a Trump-like slogan, because I had played them myself. In the pitiful sight of Republicans throwing aside their dignity and duty in an effort to grovel at Trump's feet, I saw myself and understood their motives.
He adds that he had an 'insatiable desire' to appease the president.
'My insatiable desire to please Trump to gain power for myself, the fatal flaw that led to my ruination, was a Faustian bargain: I would do anything to accumulate, wield, maintain, exert, exploit power.
'In this way, Donald Trump and I were the most alike; in this naked lust for power, the President and I were soul mates. I was so vulnerable to his magnetic force because he offered an intoxicating cocktail of power, strength, celebrity, and a complete disregard for the rules and realities that govern our lives.
'To Trump, life was a game and all that mattered was winning. In these dangerous days, I see the Republican Party and Trump's followers threatening the constitution—which is in far greater peril than is commonly understood—and following one of the worst impulses of humankind: the desire for power at all costs.'
He said that in the weeks before giving evidence against Trump, he even considered killing himself.
'The time to testify nearing, I asked the sergeant-at-arms for a few minutes of privacy and the room was cleared.
'Sitting alone, my thoughts and heart racing, I had the first panic attack of my life. I struggled to breathe and stand.
'The pressure was too much; I had contemplated suicide in recent weeks, as a way to escape the unrelenting insanity.
'Reaching for a seat, I started to cry, a flood of emotions overwhelming me: fear, anger, dread, anxiety, relief, terror.
'It felt something like when I was in the hospital awaiting the birth of my daughter and son, with so many powerful and unprecedented emotions welling up in anticipation.
'Only now I was that child being born and all of the pain and blood were part of the birth of my new life and identity.'
He also pleaded that the country doesn't make the same mistakes by supporting the president and warned he doesn't believe Trump would leave peacefully in the 2020 election.
'To those who support the President and his rhetoric, as I once did, I pray the country doesn't make the same mistakes as I have made or pay the heavy price that my family and I are paying.
'Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a peaceful transition of power.'
The revelation of some of the book's contents came after a federal court ruled against what a judge said was Attorney General Bill Barr's attempt to stop Cohen from publishing the tell-all.
Cohen recalled his experience at his Oversight Hearing.
'Representative Elijah Cummings had the final word, as chair of the Oversight Committee. I sat in silence, listening to this now deceased man with decades of experience in the civil rights movement and other forms of public service, who as a lawyer had represented disgraced lawyers like me.
'He understood that even the least of us deserve the opportunity to seek penance, redemption and a second chance in life.
'Cummings was the lone politician I encountered in all my travails who took an interest in me as a human being. When I reported to serve my sentence, he even took steps to ensure my security in prison. It was a selfless act of kindness for which I will always be grateful.
'"I know this has been hard",' Cummings said to me and the nation, his words hitting me like a kick in the gut.
'"I know you've faced a lot. I know that you are worried about your family. But this is a part of your destiny. And hopefully this portion of your destiny will lead to a better Michael Cohen, a better Donald Trump, a better United States of America, and a better world. And I mean that from the depths of my heart".'
'Representative Cummings concluded by saying, "We are better than this".'
The U.S. government made an agreement with federal prosecutors at the end of July to abandon its efforts to impose a gag order on Cohen as he prepares to release his book critical of his former boss.
Cohen was released from prison in May 2020 amid concerns over coronavirus after he served one year of his three-year sentence for pleading guilty to campaign finance violations and lying to Congress.
He returned to prison in early July after tweeting about planning to publish a book alleging Trump used racial slurs against former President Barack Obama and former South Africa President Nelson Mandela.
'Favorable ruling yesterday by the Court as I am close to completion of my book…' Cohen wrote of Trump's niece Mary Trump being able to publish her critical book about her uncle.
'...anticipated release date will be late September.' Cohen wrote in another tweet.
A week after the president's former fix-it man and personal attorney was released from prison for the second time, where he spent two weeks after refusing to cease speaking to the media, the ruling came in that he could speak with the media and publish his memoir.
The tweet of him touting his new book Thursday is the first time he has posted since being released from prison.
Cohen was released from prison in late July after being ordered to return after tweeting and talking about how his upcoming book will reveal Trump's racist comments toward former President Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela
The court ruled against Attorney General Bill Barr, who Cohen sued, for trying to issue a gag order against him and sending him back to prison after his May released. The judge argued the move was in violation of Cohen's First Amendment Rights
Cohen was thrown back into prison one week after tweeting that he would release his tell-all book ahead of the November presidential election and claiming it was a 'favorable ruling' that Trump's niece Mary Trump was permitted to publish her own tell all
Cohen sued U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr and federal prison officials during his second stint, claiming he was ordered back because of the book.
U.S. Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ordered he be released at the end of last month, saying the government's action was retaliatory and a violation of his First Amendment rights.
Cohen intentionally revealed that the book would be coming out ahead of the November elections.
His will join a list of other pre-Election Day books aimed at ousting Trump, including Bob Woodward's 'Fear: The Trump White House,' Mary Trump's 'Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man,' and former National Security Advisor John Bolton's 'The Room Where It Happened.'
Both Mary and Bolton also faced lawsuits from Trump's administration trying to stop their publication, but ultimately the court ruled it was lawful for them to go ahead with releasing their respective memoirs.
EXCLUSIVE: Michael Cohen is seen for the first time since revealing his bombshell book will say he witnessed golden showers, covered up Donald Trump’s affairs and accuses him of wanting to be president for life to stay out of prison
![EXCLUSIVE: Michael Cohen is seen for the first time since revealing his bombshell book will say he witnessed golden showers, covered up Donald Trump’s affairs and accuses him of wanting to be president for life to stay out of prison]()
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