Michael Cohen’s recent off camera interview with ABC News is controversial to say the least. Some pundits are persuaded that Cohen is ready to do the right thing, Fox News is denouncing him, and Michael Avenatti says he’s full of it.
Once [Cohen’s new attorney, Guy] Petrillo fully assumes his role, a joint defense agreement Cohen shared with the president, which allowed their lawyers to share information and documents with each other, will come to an end, ABC News has learned.
At that point, the legal interests of the president of the United States and his longtime personal attorney could quickly become adversarial.
When I asked Cohen how he might respond if the president or his legal team come after him — to try and discredit him and the work he did for Mr. Trump over the last decade — he sat up straight. His voice gained strength.
“I will not be a punching bag as part of anyone’s defense strategy,” he said emphatically. “I am not a villain of this story, and I will not allow others to try to depict me that way.”
Michael Avenatti said that Michael Cohen was doing two things in the interview, one, he’s trying to “portray himself as a hero and a good guy” and two, he wants to send a message to Trump that he needs to pay Cohen’s legal bills. Video on RawStory (and below), here’s a partial transcript:
“I was the first one to predict that Michael Cohen would flip on the president. I think ultimately that’s what’s going to happen. I don’t think Michael’s going to do that because he loves his country, I think he’s going to do that in order to avoid significant prison time.
“This interview [with George Stephanopoulos] was a big nothing burger. This was Michael Cohen trying to send a message to the president that he wants the president to pay his legal bills or he’s gonna flip.
“He’s playing games with the American people. If he has information that’s damaging to this president and I know for a fact that he does, then he should come forward and state it and disclose it now. He doesn’t have to wait for anything, for charges to be issued. He could do the right thing now. What he’s doing is playing games by giving these off camera interviews.”
Avenatti also said that he “knew for a fact” that Cohen is running out of money, “burning through millions of dollars in legal fees” although he declined to say exactly how he knew.
“He is a villain. He’s at the center of all this with all his shenanigans. The only way he can right this ship…is to come clean with the information that he has and he needs to do it now and stop paying lip service to it.”
Avenatti also said that Trump had handled the situation very foolishly by isolating Cohen and making him feel rejected.
“You don’t take a guy that is this dumb, this incompetent, and trust your innermost secrets to him and then put him on an island. That’s a recipe for disaster.”
Avenatti was then asked if he was comfortable using words like dumb and incompetent, to which he replied,
