Longtime attorney and adviser Jay Goldberg said Thursday he warned President Donald Trump last week that Michael Cohen might "flip" when faced with criminal charges because "I don't see Michael as taking the pressure or a fall for somebody else."
"I'm concerned about a person who's facing a lengthy prison term is likely to say those things, which in the witness' mind, would best position himself" for leniency, Goldberg, 85, a former federal prosecutor, told Erin Burnett on CNN.
"That doesn't necessarily mean that he tells the truth."
Goldberg, who has represented Trump in the 1990s and early 2000s, said he talked with Trump on Friday.
Their conversation came four days after FBI agents seized documents from Cohen's offices with search warrants based in part on information provided by Russia special counsel Robert Mueller's investigators.
The raid was supervised by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan.
Cohen has not been charged with any wrongdoing, though Trump has slammed the raid as a "disgrace" and bashed it on Twitter:
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that President Trump had called Goldberg on Friday and that they had talked for about 15 minutes.
The White House confirmed the call to the Journal.
"Flipping is an expression that we use when a witness is of a mind to tell the truth," Goldberg explained Thursday to Burnett.
"But history has shown that people under the threat of heavy litigation glean what the prosecutor is interested in hearing, and they can form their conduct" in a bid for leniency, he said.
Goldberg, who has practiced law in New York for five decades, said he knew Cohen and "he is of a type that I've recognized in the past as one who is not suited to stand up to the rigors of jail life.
"He is under pressure not only from his own personality, but from his family," he observed.
The lawyer also noted the "racial overtone" often erroneously associated with prison might also influence Cohen to turn against Trump.
"I think in many ways — and it's difficult to say this — prison has a racial overtone," he told Burnett.
"A person like Michael doesn't see himself walking down Broadway while people are clamoring, 'You're going to be my wife.'
"So, he is under pressure from his family to try to figure out what it would take to bring the government aboard as his sponsor.
"I don't say that the government has importuned him to say certain things that are not true," Goldberg cautioned.
"But a witness in Michael's position is able to glean what it would take to get a letter of cooperation from the government — and thereby avoid a lengthy prison term."
Goldberg told Burnett he warned Trump that Cohen could be wired to record conversations with the president to help his case.
"That doesn't require any judicial oversight," he said. "That just is the prosecutor's decision.
"They educate the witness to say certain things — and then the witness can say something that would possibly jeopardize [Trump's] position.
"This is a case where you run the risk of a perjury trap.
"Calling Donald to testify, and knowing that you have a couple of witnesses who can contradict him, that would be a perjury trap," Goldberg said.
"The government does that.
"I urged the president not to let his guard down when he has a conversation with Michael," Goldberg told Burnett, "and to be aware of the penchant for tape recordings."
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