"I hire usually good people," President Trump told Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner at the White House Thursday.
With at least one exception. Trump's former lawyer-turned jailbird Michael Cohen is now officially what many would call a bad hire. He was sentenced to three years in prison this week for campaign finance violations, tax evasion and lying to Congress. He was found to have surreptitiously recorded his client and in court continually threw him under the bus, telling the judge that he was pressured to cover up Trump's "dirty deeds," including giving hush payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.
Faulkner wondered how Cohen ever got in Trump's inner circle. The president has consistently told the press that he hired Cohen years ago because he had once done him a "favor." With Faulkner, he revealed what that favor was.
Cohen was on a condominium committee with Trump regarding the Trump World Tower, which stands across from the United Nations headquarters in New York City. Cohen was "a very big supporter" of his and he seemed like a nice guy, according to the president.
Fast forward to this week, and Trump has a new names for his former lawyer.
Trump told Faulkner he "never" directed Cohen to do anything wrong and that those two campaign related charges were on there "to embarrass him." As Trump expounded upon on Twitter, Cohen was charged with crimes "unrelated" to him or his campaign.
I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law. 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......
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2018
....stated that I did nothing wrong with respect to campaign finance laws, if they even apply, because this was not campaign finance. Cohen was guilty on many charges unrelated to me, but he plead to two campaign charges which were not criminal and of which he probably was not...
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2018
....guilty even on a civil basis. Those charges were just agreed to by him in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence, which he did-including the fact that his family was temporarily let off the hook. As a lawyer, Michael has great liability to me!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2018