As the president shows signs of distancing himself from longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen, The Wall Street Journal reveals Cohen expected both to head up Trump's presidential campaign and then, once Trump won the White House, serve as Chief of Staff. Cohen lost the former job to Steve Bannon and the latter to Reince Priebus.
WSJ:
Mr. Trump decided that bringing Mr. Cohen inside the White House carried too many risks, according to people familiar with the discussions. Mr. Trump privately has described Mr. Cohen as a “bull in a china shop,” who when brought in to fix a problem sometimes breaks more china, according to a person close to the president.
On Jan. 5, 2017, two weeks before the inauguration, Mr. Cohen, camped in his cluttered office on the 26th floor of Trump Tower, a few doors away from the president-elect, still didn’t know what his future role would be.
Mr. Cohen juggled two phones with the backdrop of mixed martial-arts paraphernalia in his office. Mr. Trump “doesn’t operate with timelines,” Mr. Cohen explained to a reporter. Then he corrected himself: “I am not a timeline item,” he said. “He knows that an hour before he leaves, if he calls me and says, ‘I need you in D.C.,’ I’ll be there.”
Trump and Cohen have a long history of working together, with Cohen serving as Trump's personal lawyer and fixer for more than a decade. Cohen has also worked as an executive at the Trump Organization on various business deals.
However, Trump sought to downplay Cohen's work for him earlier Thursday, saying the lawyer did a "tiny fraction" of his overall legal work.
The president also asserted that the federal criminal probe related to Cohen's business dealings and not his work with Trump.
“This has nothing to do with me,” Trump said during a telephone interview with “Fox & Friends." “I’m not involved and I’ve been told I’m not involved.”
The Wall Street Journal article (posted behind a paywall) reveals Cohen once made a particularly interesting declaration.
Mr. Cohen, who as a teenager frequented Brooklyn’s ethnic Russian neighborhoods and married into a Ukrainian family, cultivated a rough-and-tumble, streetwise image.
Gregory Ehrlich invited Mr. Cohen to his wedding and was amused to hear he bragged to another guest that he belonged to the Russian mob. Mr. Ehrlich, who is now estranged from Mr. Cohen, said he doesn’t believe his former friend had any such ties.
The bad news just kept coming for Cohen Thursday as the New York Post reported federal agents seized 16 phones when they raided Cohen's office, home, and hotel room on April 9th.
[Prosecutor Thomas] McKay said the feds will turn over the “remainder of the phones seized” on Friday — before adding that they have “about a dozen” left.
Among the devices seized are two BlackBerrys, suggesting Cohen has been holding on to his electronics for many, many years.
Cohen told associates he expected to be Trump’s first chief of staff: report (The Hill)
‘Boss, I Miss You So Much’: The Awkward Exile of Michael Cohen (The Wall Street Journal)
Feds seized more than a dozen of Michael Cohen's phones (NY Post)