Disloyal: A Memoir

by Michael Cohen

  Looking at the photos and press reports on his sons gleefully celebrating killing endangered animals, I could see Trump’s rage beginning to boil over. Trump routinely lamented his eldest son’s lack of judgment, in saltier language, but this was a new low. Bad press enraged Trump, especially at a time when he was suffering in the polls and failing to get endorsements or party support. When Trump was flailing and failing, it was always a dangerous time to be in his presence, but Trump’s reaction to Don Jr. shocked even me, and I’d seen it all, or so I thought.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Trump screamed at his namesake. “You think you’re a big man with a ten-thousand-dollar gun sitting on the rocks and then boom! You kill some fucking animal? Then you drag your brother into this bullshit? Why the fuck would you post photos like that? You think you’re a fucking big man? Get the fuck out of my office.”

  Don Jr. left without saying a word, head downcast. An awkward silence followed. Trump and I were alone, and he wanted affirmation that his fury was justified, so he screamed the same complaints in my direction about his sons being idiots and fools. But I wasn’t going to give Trump the satisfaction of agreeing with him after he’d humiliated and verbally abused his own child.

  “He fed a village for half a year,” I said. “None of those animals went to waste.”

  “Fuck that,” Trump replied.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Russia, If You’re Listening (Part Two)

  By the summer of 2016, I rarely went down to the 5th floor headquarters of the campaign, except to graze the excellent snack selection and catch up on gossip. It was in this way that I came across the rumors that Corey Lewandowski was having an affair with Hope Hicks, Trump’s young and pretty assistant. I was very fond of Hope and thought she was making a terrible mistake getting involved with a married man with five children and a wife at home, even in the hothouse atmosphere of the campaign, when improbable bonds can be formed. When I confronted Hope, she denied the liaison, initially, but Lewandowski was barely disguising his connection with a woman many years his junior. When I returned to talk to Hope again, she relented and said she’d end it with Lewandowski, and she did, eventually.

  This was part of Lewandowski’s course of conduct that infuriated me. Assaulting a reporter and manhandling a protestor were just two of the many bone-headed mistakes he made. One night, Trump’s campaign manager was drinking so heavily that I took him out for dinner. He could barely walk and he passed out in a pool of drool in the restaurant as I ordered food for him. I told all of this to Trump, but the Boss dismissed my objections, saying I was acting out of spite, which was true, I admit. But I was also telling him the truth.

  Around the office, Lewandowski was known as “the leaker.” When Trump brought veteran GOP operative Paul Manafort on to his campaign, Lewandowski began to snipe and complain about the competition for the Boss’s attention. Trump’s ongoing lawsuit over Trump University made headlines when the Boss said that the judge in the case couldn’t be fair because he was “Mexican,” when he’d been born in Indiana, which was blamed on Lewandowski, and when Trump lost the Wisconsin primary, Manafort blamed it on the campaign manager. The newcomer Manafort now had the ears of Ivanka and Jared, and that was a very dangerous specter for Lewandowski if he didn’t handle himself well, as I knew he wouldn’t. Bickering about control of the digital campaign with Kushner was also a major misstep. As events have shown, for the Trumps, family ultimately always prevails, and Lewandowski wasn’t even close to family.

  The straw that broke the camel’s back came in June of 2016, when a reporter called to tell me that Lewandowski was shopping a nasty story about Ivanka and Jared. The reporter was in Lewandowski’s penalty box, apparently, and the offer was for Lewandowski to provide an interview with Trump as an exclusive. That was a coup for any reporter at the time, but in return the reporter told me he would have to run a hit piece on Ivanka and Jared. And not just any hit piece—Lewandowski was pushing a story that their marriage was in deep trouble. Worse, Lewandowski said that Jared was gay and that Ivanka was having an affair. Imagine the stupidity of spreading that kind of ridiculous and scurrilous nonsense and not expecting it to come back to bite you in the ass. But that was Lewandowski: idiotic to the last drop.

  I went to Ivanka’s office on the 25th floor, her sleek all-glass executive suite, like an exotic bird in a gilded cage. She was on the phone, so I waited for her to hang up.

  Lewandowski wanted the story to appear to be from a supporter of Chris Christie, whom Jared Kushner hated. © 2020 Michael Cohen

  “What’s up, MC?” she asked as she ended her call.

  “I just received a call from a journalist friend,” I said. “Corey is trying to place a story about you and Jared.”

  “What?” she said. “Are you sure?”

  I explained how Lewandowski was trying to get a reputable national publication to question her husband’s sexual orientation and her own fidelity.

  “He offered to let the journalist out of the penalty box and get an interview with your Dad, if he runs the story,” I replied.

  “I hate him,” Ivanka said.

  She picked up the phone and dialed Jared, who picked up on the first ring. Ivanka asked me to tell Jared what I’d just told her, and so I obliged. Jared was calm and measured.

  “Is your friend going to run the story?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Lewandowski’s a lowlife,” Jared said. “You two know what to do. I’ll see you later.”

  Ivanka had rage in her eyes as she hung up.

  “MC, you need to go upstairs and tell Dad about this,” she said. “Jared and I will back you.”

  “Ivanka,” I said. “I was hoping you’d talk to him.”

  “No, MC, it has to be you,” she said. “Please.”

  “Fine,” I replied. “I’ll do it now.”

  Up on the 26th floor, the Boss waved me into his office as he spoke on a call, and I listened as he regaled whoever he was talking to about the latest polling results and what a nasty woman Hillary Clinton was. Because here was the thing about Trump and the Clintons—it really was personal for Trump. Bill and Hillary had attended his wedding, but only because they had to, because he’d made a substantial donation to the Clinton Foundation, in his opinion. He despised Hillary in a way that went beyond the personal animosity towards anyone opposed to Trump. He told me that he believed the Clintons were using the billion dollars they’d raised for their foundation as their personal piggy bank, while offering no proof other than the terms of the charity, which he claimed allowed them to direct how ninety percent of the money was spent and pay their daughter Chelsea an exorbitant salary. That was what enraged Trump, as he told me repeatedly: they were fucking cheaters. His tirade over, Trump hung up and grinned at me.

  “What’s up?” Trump asked.

  “Boss, I just came from Ivanka’s office,” I replied. “I shared with her a call I received earlier from a journalist friend regarding a hit piece on Ivanka and Jared.”

  I laid out the allegation that Jared was gay and that Ivanka was unfaithful. Trump nodded, listening, but I could tell he was skeptical.

  “The journalist is a friend of yours?” Trump asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “So take care of it,” Trump said.

  “I have,” I replied. “But that’s not the issue. Boss, the story is being shopped by Corey. He’s been leaking a ton of shit to a multitude of reporters.”

  “Bullshit,” Trump said. “No fucking way.”

  Trump hollered for his assistant Rhona to get Ivanka on the phone.

  “You all hate Corey,” Trump said. “This is bullshit.”

  “No it isn’t,” I said, now getting angry. “That is not the response I was expecting from you. He’s fucking sick. He’s a fucking drunk. I grabbed him on the street the other day, drunk, an
d took him to get some food in his stomach and the asshole fell asleep at the table with a slice of pizza in his hand.”

  Lewandowski, drunk. © 2020 Michael Cohen

  Ivanka was patched through, talking on the speakerphone in Trump’s office. She agreed with me that Lewandowski had to go, that he was a menace to the campaign, spreading malicious and untrue rumors about her marriage and husband as a way to grab more power for himself by marginalizing others.

  “Listen, honey,” Trump said. “You all hate Corey. But he’s doing a great job, and you want me to fire him?”

  “He’s not, Daddy,” Ivanka said. “If MC didn’t know the reporter we would never—”

  Trump interrupted. “Bullshit, I don’t believe you, Michael,” he said.

  Now I exploded, an extremely rare occurrence in front of Trump, but a confrontation that Ivanka knew I would risk—it was why she’d said it had to be me who went to her father, because I wouldn’t cave on Lewandowski. I truly loathed Lewandowski and knew he needed to be fired, urgently, but now the Boss was doubting my loyalty?

  “What?” I yelled. “Have I ever lied to you?”

  With that, I stood up and stormed out of Trump’s office without another word. I wasn’t going to be called a liar, especially when I was actually acting in the interests of the Boss and his family. I was beyond angry, as I pulled on my coat and told the secretarial pool to hold all my calls. I walked out of the atrium of the Trump Tower, ignoring the repeated calls that came into my two cell phones from a number from the Manhattan area code of 212, because that was how landline calls from the Trump Organization appeared. I had once been thrilled to be an initiate to the intrigues of Donald J. Trump, but now I was disgusted by the experience. Trump had called me a liar to my face, and worse, he was showing me that his loyalties lay with some jerkoff spreading false rumors about his daughter and son-in-law in an attempt to plot against the family. That was what a decade of abject sycophancy to Donald Trump got me: absolutely nothing.

  I called Laura and told her what had just happened.

  “Good,” she said. “Maybe now you can see his true colors. It’s time for you to quit. He appreciates no one. He’s the most disloyal person.”

  “I’ll be home in an hour,” I said.

  After going for a walk to calm down, I received a call from Ivanka and Don Jr. When I relented and picked up, they said they were concerned about me.

  “MC, I called your office and they said you’d left,” Ivanka said. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Corey has got to go,” Don Jr. said, jumping into the call. “Tomorrow morning, let’s meet in Ivanka’s office. I despise him. He’s a total piece of shit. Ivanka, Eric and I are going to speak to Dad and get his authority to fire him.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Let me know tomorrow when you want me to come down for the meeting.”

  “Thanks, MC,” Ivanka said.

  “We got you, Mike,” Don Jr. said. “See you tomorrow.”

  At ten the next morning, I was summoned to Trump’s office, where I found he was talking with Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric, all three children united in their stance against Lewandowski. Trump looked over as I entered his office.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yes, Boss,” I said. “So, what are we doing with this mutt?”

  “He has to go—if all four of you believe it so strongly, then he has to go,” Trump said. “Who’s going to fire him?”

  This was a display of a fact that was very little known at the time: Trump actually hated firing people and facing personal confrontation, despite his fame for barking “you’re fired” on The Apprentice. He had others do his dirty work for him, often delighting in the details about how humiliated or badly treated the victim of his firings were. But he didn’t have the guts to do it himself. Nor did Eric, it seemed, who said he had to go to a meeting. Nor did Ivanka, who likewise suddenly found her calendar extremely busy.

  But I wasn’t going to let this vindication and victory go without my personal attention. I had put up with too many of Lewandowski’s petty put downs and too much of his disrespectful and dishonest double dealing not to want to be there to see the expression on his face as the realization that the game was well and truly over dawned on him. Lewandowski had schemed and connived his way out of a job running a national campaign and now he was going to be humiliated in front of the world. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, was my thought, smiling as I imagined the scene.

  “I’ll do it,” I said.

  “I will too,” Don Jr. said.

  Trump wanted us to take his COO, Matt Calamari, with us, as he was familiar with the protocols of summarily firing someone and then escorting them out of the building. Frog marching, more like. Don Jr. called Lewandowski and instructed him to come to the conference room on the 25th floor for a meeting in fifteen minutes.

  Lewandowski entered with his usual cocky strut, a Red Bull in hand, as if he was jacked for whatever was coming his way. But the smirk on his face didn’t last long, as we all sat at the long conference table and a moment of silence followed. Lewandowski knew I hated him, so my presence couldn’t be a good sign, he had to know, and what was Trump’s COO doing in the meeting?

  “You’re through, Corey,” Don Jr. said. “You’re fired.”

  “What?” Lewandowski yelped, rising to his feet.

  “Do you speak English?” I asked. “Fired as in you’re out of here. And if you ever try to plant another story about Trump or any of the kids I will ruin you.”

  I turned to Calamari with a gesture.

  “Matt, please escort Corey to his office, confiscate all the computers, take his credentials, and walk him out of the building,” I said.

  “I want to hear Mr. Trump tell me directly,” Lewandowski said, remonstrating as his voice rose in anger, but his eyes telling another story. He looked like a kid who had been caught cheating and it was suddenly dawning on him that he was going to face a serious consequence; he thought he was getting away with his backstabbing of the Trump kids, but he had been busted.

  “Not going to happen,” Don Jr. said to him.

  Calamari indicated that the meeting was over, in his thick Brooklyn accent, and thus ended the time of Corey Lewandowski as Trump’s campaign manager. His replacement, Paul Manafort, released a press notice before Lewandowski had left the building, turning him into the lead story for the day, his firing seen as yet another sign of Trump’s chaotic and disorganized campaign, which it really actually was; the in-fighting and backstabbing and leaking that were endemic revealed a candidate who didn’t have the first clue about how to run a disciplined presidential campaign, let alone a nation.

  I felt great, protecting the kids and getting rid of a major risk for the Trumps. But I have to hand it to Lewandowski: even after he was unceremoniously dumped in the most public way imaginable, he never stopped going in front of cameras and playing Trump perfectly. I knew what Lewandowski was doing, because I was doing the same thing, in essence, as do countless Trump courtiers and sycophants to this day: talking to an audience of one. Lewandowski continued to talk about Trump’s ten billion dollars, his intelligence, Wharton degree, superior understanding of the media, and his appeal to the vast majority of voters who were craving change and an outsider to fix the country—the Boss’s litany recited with religious fervor. Behind Trump’s back, Lewandowski called him a moron. This innate talent for being two-faced connected him to Trump, like they were two birds of a feather, two political animals. Because that is a central insight into Trump, as well as his children and Jared Kushner: they are all intensely political. Not in the sense of ideology or policy or any sense of the common good or a desire to improve society; they are political in the personal sense: they want to win, no matter what the cost, and they will do anything to achieve that end. Like Kushner and the kids plotting against Lewandowski—they’d
ousted their enemy but they had no idea what to do next; they’d won the knife fight but what came next was even worse, if that’s imaginable, in the persona of the criminal train wreck named Paul Manafort and his ruinous Russian-related conspiracies.

  * * *

  In those hectic days, I had a hundred things to deal with on Trump’s behalf, and I was a fixture in his office. I would meet with him to discuss an invoice, and how to stiff a random vendor, or an allegation of sexually inappropriate behavior, or the unfolding scandals surrounding Trump University or the Trump Network. But one major subject of conversation was the Moscow Trump Tower I was trying to get off the ground, without the assistance of Felix Sater.

  A few months earlier, I’d written to the Kremlin’s press secretary asking to be able to speak to Putin’s chief of staff, Sergei Ivanov, but I misspelled the email address, so I had to follow up a few days later. I explained that the Trump Moscow project was stalled, and I asked for his assistance, but I didn’t hear back. When I followed up a couple of weeks later, I got through to an assistant of the press secretary and we chatted for twenty minutes, but again, nothing came of it.

  By June, I told the Boss and Ivanka and Don Jr. that I’d given up on the Moscow project. I just wasn’t making any progress and it wasn’t a good use of my time and energy.

  It wasn’t long after Paul Manafort became the true campaign manager that I was sitting in the Boss’s office one afternoon. I can’t recall what Trump and I were discussing, but Don Jr. came into the office and walked over to his father’s desk. This was very unusual, as Trump treated the territory behind his desk as his personal space and very rarely invited anyone into that part of his sanctuary. I’d only ever gone to the far side of his desk when he was showing me golf clips on his laptop. But this time Don Jr. walked over to his father’s side of the desk and leaned over and spoke quietly.