Michael Cohen is back in President Trump’s corner, defending him against unsubstantiated claims that he’s implicated in Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.
Mr. Cohen, who once worked for Mr. Trump before turning on him, both serving as a witness against him and going to jail for campaign finance violations, said he never saw any indication during more than a decade together that Mr. Trump associated with Epstein.
He made the defense Thursday on Lara Trump’s podcast “The Right View.”
“The problem here, Lara, is that during the more than a decade that I worked with the president, I have said this, and I get attacked for it, I never saw Jeffrey Epstein in the office. I never heard him on the speakerphone. I never saw communications between them,” Mr. Cohen said.
“I never communicated with Jeffrey Epstein,” he continued. “Never emailed him. Never spoke with him. Never texted him. Nothing at all. They simply want me to invent facts for a political narrative, and I refuse to do it.”
Unsubstantiated claims of abuse have emerged in the voluminous files the Justice Department has released concerning Epstein, who was convicted of soliciting underage prostitution and was facing sex trafficking charges when he took his own life in 2019.
The president has denied all the allegations and said he distanced himself from Epstein when he discovered unsavory behavior.
Mr. Cohen worked as legal counsel for the Trump Organization from 2006 to 2018. He’s disbarred from practicing law in New York following his criminal conviction.
He was in prison from 2019 to 2020 after pleading guilty to charges related to campaign finance violations, tax evasion and other charges that stemmed from Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Mr. Cohen testified against his old boss during Mr. Trump’s 2024 criminal trial concerning alleged hush money paid to Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an affair she claimed to have had with the president a decade prior, ahead of the 2016 election.
Mr. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.
A Manhattan jury found the president guilty in May 2024 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up payments to Cohen as reimbursement of roughly $130,000 in hush money paid to Ms. Daniels.
