President Donald Trump said hiring his former personal attorney Michael Cohen was a 'mistake,' while claiming that he doesn't think any payments were made to the publishers of The National Enquirer in hopes of keeping stories from being printed during his presidential campaign about his alleged relationship with Playboy model Karen McDougal.
He also claimed in a wide-ranging interview with Fox News' Harris Faulkner that charges of campaign finance violations were filed against Cohen to "embarrass" him.
"I don't think — I have to go check — I don't think that we even paid any money to that tabloid," Trump said. "Okay? I don't think we made a payment to that tablet. I was asking the question — I don't think we made a payment."
American Media Inc., the Enquirer's publisher, admitted to paying off McDougal in 2016 to help protect Trump's election campaign. The company is owned by Trump ally David Pecker.
Meanwhile, Cohen, who has been sentenced to three years in prison for campaign finance violations, pleaded guilty "to something that's not even a crime," said Trump, and he alleged the charges were added to others Cohen faced in order to attack and embarrass him.
Cohen got a break in his sentence for agreeing to testify against him, and Trump on Thursday described his one-time "fixer" as someone who "was more public relations than he did law" and he thinks it's a mistake that he hired him.
"Years ago, many years, like 12 or 13 years ago, he did me a favor. He was on a committee and he was so responsive and so good, and I said 'he's a nice guy.'"
But in retrospect, "I made a mistake" by hiring Cohen, "because what he did was all unrelated to me, except for the two campaign finance charges that are not criminal and shouldn't have been on there. They put that on to embarrass me. They put those two charges on to embarrass me. They aren't criminal charges,"
He also claimed that Cohen's father-in-law is a "very rich guy" and he'd thought he was the primary focus.
"Did he make a deal to keep his father-in-law out?" said Trump. "Did he make a deal to keep his wife out of trouble? How many people when they say "Listen, if you embarrass the president of the United States, we will give you a deal. Your father-in-law, your wife, will cut your jail."
"Nobody except for me would be looked at like this, nobody," said Trump. "What about Congress? The slush fund. Millions and millions of dollars paid out each year. They have a slush fund. Millions. They don't talk about campaign finance anything. Have you ever heard about campaign finance laws? Have they listed that on the campaign finance sheets?"
Meanwhile, former President Barack Obama had a "really big" campaign finance violation, a civil matter and "paid a fine. I'm the only one this happens to."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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