Lawrence native to release book on Donald Trump

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Lawrence native Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer for President Donald Trump who want to prison and is now in home confinement, tweeted on Aug. 13 that his tell-all book is expected to be released on Sept. 8.

On the webpage disloyalthebook.com, Cohen included a nearly 4,000-word foreword and access to preordering copies of the book “Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump” unsigned and signed. It will also be available through Amazon, unsigned.

“The day has finally arrived. I have waited a long time to share my truth,” he tweeted. It appears that the book will be self-published and according to sources most likely ghost written.

Cohen, 53, was sentenced to three years for breaking campaign finance laws, tax evasion and lying to Congress, among other charges in 2018. He was also ordered to pay $1.39 million in restitution, forfeit $500,000 and pay a $50,000 fine. The guilty pleas to the federal felony charges resulted in his disbarment as a lawyer in New York state.

The foreword begins with a gut punch: “The President of the United States wanted me dead.

Or, let me say it the way Donald Trump would: He wouldn’t mind if I was dead. That was how Trump talked. Like a mob boss, using language carefully calibrated to convey his desires and demands, while at the same time employing deliberate indirection to insulate himself and avoid actually ordering a hit on his former personal attorney, confidant, consigliere, and, at least in my heart, adopted son,” Cohen said.

An interesting tidbit is that he was paid $8 per month for working at the sewage treatment at upstate Otisville, a federal medium security prison that includes a minimum security satellite camp, roughly 70 minutes from New York City.

In May, Cohen was released from Otisville and given furloughed home release because of the coronavirus pandemic. On July 9, he was taken into federal custody and whisked back to Otisville because he was said to have violated the rules of his release that included not using social media. The other violation was for being at Le Bilboquet, a French restaurant in Manhattan on July 2, which is tied to the parameters of the agreement that he cannot leave home without permission.

During a phone hearing on July 23, a federal judge ruled in Cohen’s favor rejecting the  prosecutors’ contention that the release form was not tailored to forbid Cohen from speaking with the media. The judge said the only “inference” was retaliation as the reason for Cohn being taken into custody. Cohen claimed that Trump and others were trying to stop his book from being published. A day later, Cohen was back in Manhattan under home confinement. His sentence runs until November 2021.

Cohen concludes the foreword with: “During my testimony, Republican House members repeatedly asked me to promise that I wouldn’t write a book. I refused, repeatedly. It was another way of saying I shouldn’t be permitted to tell my story, in essence giving up my First Amendment rights. It was a clear sign of desperation and fear. I have lost many things as a consequence of my decisions and mistakes, including my freedom, but I still retain the right to tell this story about the true threat to our nation and the urgent message for the country it contains.

“One last thing I can say with great confidence, as you turn the page and meet the real real Donald Trump for the first time: This is a book the President of the United States does not want you to read.”