Michael Cohen, former personal attorney for President Donald Trump, spoke about the Epstein Files controversy with Jake Tapper on CNN on Friday.
When asked for his understanding of the past relationship between Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Cohen said: “So I want to be clear that I didn’t come into Trump’s orbit until 2005, and then [didn’t become a] full time employee as executive vice president until 2007. So I can only speak for that 13 year time period . And during that 13 year time period, I never heard Trump mention Jeffrey Epstein. I never saw Jeffrey Epstein in the office. The thousands of times I showed up into Trump’s office, I never once heard Jeffrey Epstein on a phone. So I don’t know about the relationship that preceded me.”
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Tapper asked Cohen for his response to the Wall Street Journal article ‘Jeffrey Epstein’s Friends Sent Him Bawdy Letters for a 50th Birthday Album. One Was From Donald Trump.’ which that claims Trump wrote/drew a birthday letter for Epstein when he turned 50.
Trump has denied the claim, saying “it’s a fake thing,” and has filed lawsuit against the WSJ, the two reporters, and Dow Jones owner Rupert Murdoch.
Cohen responded: “I have never, not once and again over 13 years of being by the man’s side. I have never once seen him doodle. I never saw him draw a picture. In fact, I would be very shocked if Donald Trump actually can doodle. It’s just not his thing. And the language using words like enigma, that’s not a Donald word. I mean, he certainly knows what the word is, but it’s not a word that he uses. I found the whole thing just to be odd.
“Now, I wouldn’t be shocked if somebody had turned around and reached out to the office and said, hey, look, we’re putting together a birthday book for Jeffrey. Can Donald doodle something on there? And these are the words that we want you to use in some doodle. He then gave it to an assistant. Many of his assistants were not just good artists, but fabulous artists. And so that’s probably what happened at the worst.”
Note: Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday asked a federal court to release grand jury transcripts connected to Epstein, after political outcry over the DOJ’s “unfulfilled promise to release more details on the government’s investigation of Epstein’s crimes.